Does anyone else get REALLY annoyed at mainstream media’s perception of what 3D printing can be used for? It’s so limited (yoda heads and more plastic crap …and guns of course, we’re all doing the gun thing right?). A friend just sent me an article from the consumer site Which (http://www.which.co.uk/technology/computing/guides/3d-printers/makerbot-replicator-2---3d-printer-review/) and in the section on what a printer can be used for they made a plastic teapot… really?!
I see projects like Robat Arms and iLab Haiti’s umbilical cord clamps (objects so brilliant and so simple which change lives) and I groan every time I hear that can use 3D printing to print custom iPhone cases.
What amazingly simple things could be made on a very basic 3D printer which could be used to change lives and do we need a repository for this kind of incredible knowledge? http://www.ilabhaiti.org/what-we-do
That thing that broke that you’re going to throw away? I’ll grind it down and then reprint it heh! I just can’t believe that with so many good examples of why this could be amazing, I still here people who don’t know what to do with it. I think it really needs advocacy to inspire people.
@Tim_Sills My wife thinks my printer is “really clever” but the thing that most impressed her was the gap-filler I made to go between our kitchen worktop and hob splashback. The clincher was the fact that it was shiny (I printed at 45 degrees mechanical angle so the visible surface was on the glass bed). Now she is busy finding all sorts of DIY jobs that can have the printer involved. I am not sure that is quite the result I intended.
In general, some press are a bit behind on what 3D printing can be used for. Recently it’s gotten a bit better with the publicity of printers being used to create low-cost medical devices, but still one of the biggest stories this month was 3D printed cleats for the Superbowl. Hopefully press coverage will quickly expand to include more varied examples of its uses - fingers crossed!
@Tim_Sills It can make cookie cutters. That changed my GF’s perception a bit.
@nathan_burley I prefer the “you can make a simple object” to the post of taking 3 different 3d printing technologies and using them interchangeably… like printers can be obtained for $300 and someone printed a fully functional semi automatic gun…both statements alone are true, but together they are completely incorrect, yes you can get some 3d printers for cheap, yes someone printed a semiautomatic pistol but it was on an extremely expensive high end metal fusing printer.
@Camerin_hahn I agree; a $300 printer does not an uzi make. But I’m more concerned that just because a $300 printer can’t make a handheld deathspitter, mainstream manufacturing (OK, not the really big guys, they’re starting to cotton on) see the $300 as being irrelevant. Meanwhile, mainstream media further marginalizes it by relegating it to the process by which yoda heads and sad keanu’s are created by the layman. I mean which actually created a melting plastic teapot…!
Even with a $300 printer, the potential impact on the developing world is staggering: If something like the iLab Haiti umbilical cord clamp can actually be a THING then there’s so much to be done. This is something so niche it’s almost hard to credit.
Consider instead something with broader appeal: What happens, when someone with a $300 printer, produces a basic, hand powered, water pump? It doesn’t even have to come off the print bed working. It might well need basic stuff like o-rings, which could be salvaged from all sorts of stuff at the dump. This little miracle could be iterated upon by the open source community until it represents the most effective and most durable pump a $300 printer can make. And, given that design, thousands of unskilled people in the worlds poorest places could be allowed to locally source the tools to break them out of poverty and in procuring them, drive a local economy and technical skill base.
@nathan_burley I agree that it is important, i own and operate one. but that being said it there is skill to 3d printing. If you are printing, think of every time that you change filament, it is some work to do, think of the cad skill it takes to make a model, think of the tuning and bed leveling that you need to do. All of these tasks do take skill
I guess case in point would be this post I saw a while back:
This is a brilliant post, but what bugs me about it is that “one of the managers at Google’s Uganda office” said that he didn’t think it was a “viable tool for a business”… really? Just… wow. I can’t believe how short sighted that is. I also can’t believe that Google weren’t chucking ideas at a small business owner in such a small and remote niche.
@Camerin_hahn I absolutely agree on the skill required to run a printer (I think the post above hammers that home actually). But I also think that if the community continues to furnish people in developing countries with those skills they can bypass some of the traditional requirements for materials resourcing and source locally… from waste. That’s an important double plus, since the environment benefits from this emergent economy. Meanwhile, those who do not have these skills can provide the labor for materials harvesting as part payment for the end product - allowing the unskilled to benefit by way improving their local economy, their local environment and in getting the thing they need.
What I don’t agree with is the point about CAD. I agree that CAD clearly requires skill but I think the key difference here is that very smart people, very far removed from the problem (geographically), can provide a turnkey solution at little or no cost to themselves. By that I mean you or I could iterate on a design from right here at home and have someone half a planet away immediately capitalize on that input without either of us having to expend more effort than doing the design work i.e. we wouldn’t have to produce this new thing by the thousand and export it round the world. That changes the game ever so slightly as people are selfless but only to a point: we generally like to help but not if it’s going to cost us the earth to do it.
@nathan_burley I agree that it does enable some amazing things, but at this point, without the ability to CAD it is removes 80-90% of the utility. specifically because the available CAD files are either very limited in application, or have little use (IE yoda). I have been trying to do most of my work in openSCAD, specifically because it does fill the “anyone can change it”. I want to use Thingiverse customizer as it makes changing the models really easy, but they keep changing their TOS to take rights away from the maker.
Edit: in remote areas, it may be worth training one person on printing, and CAD, and distributing things that way, but owning a printer without the ability to CAD is like owning a car without a drivers licence
@Camerin_hahn Well, you can CAD without being really good at it, or having very many ideas on interesting stuff to do. I think what makes this current phase interesting is that it does allow people to innovate on top of other people’s designs.
I take your point on an open source, easy to use, CAD program which can open and modify .stl’s though - that’s a real issue.
The other thing that would seem to be required is vested interest: if people in developed countries, with great CAD skills and more knowledge, could be motivated into actively iterating on designs intended to help people at the very bottom, we might see some really amazing things - the best and brightest among us aren’t always motivated by charity after all.
And to be honest there are free simple cad programs that a person with initiative can learn to use. I didn’t go to school for this stuff. Most of my work history is in construction. I researched, sourced, and built my own custom 300x300 Mendel 90 prusa i3 hybrid. I had a printer so I learned cad. Not “I knew cad so I built a printer”.
@nathan_burley you have not worked with many “unskilled workers”. Many of the ones i have worked with struggle to use word or excel. Some struggle to use email. I have some friend who work in IT, and one of the most common “viruses” they see is “my computer cant save any thing” the fix is to clear the trash bin because the hard drive is full (by the way he works at a school, teachers bring him these problems)… Realize that in some cases you would be considered a “highly skilled” worker. Having the ability to use free CAD requires skill. I guess our definitions of unskilled are quite different.
@D_Rob I would not consider 99% of the people who have posted in the 3d printing community unskilled. Building a mendel90 may not be hard but it does take skills.
You’re going to need basic computer skills just to use the printer, let alone CAD.
half the problem with people who don’t have basic computer skills, is that they’re not interested enough to learn them. and that my friends is the key to all and any skill - being interested enough to push through and find the answer to the problem you’re having.
