I'm a bit skeptical of the 3D printing craze.
3D printers are an amazing prototyping tool. Just in few hours and for a few dollars, you can test out your designs. Something that previously would be much more expensive and time.
But for long term production deployment where durability is important, I'm not so sure.
Although some of the stuff being tested looks pretty cool, like melting metal dust with lasers into the desirable shapes.
@shebang Like a full blown plane that can carry a human? That's cool. But I would still call that prototyping. I'm pretty sure he doesn't fly it every day for hours.
I would like a 3D printer too, but outside of some decorations I don't know what I would print.
@matrix
Yeah it was some kind of Cessna. Yeah that's been my issue with 3d printing really. I don't need one. But printing silly shit is fun. Especially now the prices are down so much.
I don't think they're gonna replace proper injection molding, but they have their uses (even for mass producing) when you don't have the time to design and test a mold, like what LTT did with the face protectors. Of course, this assumes you have a bunch of printers on hand, ready to be put in operation fast. And if progress continues on durability, they might become the basis of low yield production. Like how some are producing and selling custom cases for Raspberries or similar small hardware. In low quantities, injection molding is gonna give you a lot of cost overhead with the process of preparing the molds.
@matrix@gameliberty.club yeah that's why you have a workshop.
Usually you should always design for your goals.
Like for instance when you want some box with special features, you print the special features. Maybe it's a face shield, you don't print the sheet of course.
When you want something that can be produced quickly, you gotta consider a few things. Maybe you can use sheet plastic and a printed part for vacuum forming.
Maybe you need a more complicated part, print your part but design it so you can do slosh casting with a mold.
Maybe you're a complete mad-lad and build an injection molder for batch-work.
It's just one tool in the workshop.
to be honest, I kinda loathe these element14-type of people that just print a fucking box. It's not a cure all.
it's a prototyping or tooling tool.
I know, kinda meta.
expecting some magic star-trek shit isn't gonna happen in this lifetime so let's stop pretending it is exactly that.
@LukeAlmighty@gameliberty.club @matrix@gameliberty.club well it certainly has the potential of giving a well engineered product a longer life, given someone is acoustic enough to take a caliper to it.
@matrix
With good post processing you can get impressive results. I was speaking to a guy who 3d printed aircraft parts for a plane he owned.
I want one just for fun though.