The 10 Principles of 3D Printing

**byron2112** · 03-04-2013, 04:21 PM

Originally Posted by Vin Lombardi

Where do 3d printers come from? Where does the "ink" (plastic, metal, protein, you name it) come from?

It will obviously mechanize the manufacturing sector, but there will still be a lot of human interaction required. Installation, maintenance, updates, CAD programmers (need millions of them to design all the products that need to be printed), daily shipments of "ink".

The Terminators will do all that stuff.

**Hyped** · 03-04-2013, 07:00 PM

If this **** happens...we may as well kiss our arses good bye...

**eaglesnut** · 03-04-2013, 07:43 PM

Originally Posted by CalgaryHawkFan

The board libertarians should be wanking over this kind of stuff HARD.

Most are. The rest of your sentence was gibberish.

**eaglesnut** · 03-04-2013, 07:49 PM

Here's the story of 3d printing a car. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...3d-printed-car

**CalgaryHawkFan** · 03-05-2013, 03:23 AM

Originally Posted by eaglesnut

The rest of your sentence was gibberish.

Heh, funny, but not in the way you intended.

**ForWhoForWhat?** · 03-05-2013, 03:34 AM

amirite?

**USAFspeedboy** · 03-05-2013, 03:46 AM

Lol

**trev** · 03-05-2013, 05:00 AM

This is probably the next big thing. Imagine printing new skin onto a burn victim. They are almost there. By 'almost' I mean probably 5-10 years. They have already printed a replacement jawbone in Belgium. They are already printing blood cells. Organ reproduction might be 20-50 years off, maybe sooner. If the 3d printing technology blazes a similar path as regular printing it might be a lot sooner. There are probably lots of us who remember our teachers tumbling a drum to provide copies of a lesson to their class. This is a technology that has been around for a long time but it's only now that it's feasible. It's really hard to wrap your head around it at first but if you do some research it makes a ton of sense.

Imagine a working ship at sea being able to print a needed part to get the ship underway. Nowadays it takes a helo drop to make that happen. Imagine being able to print your food order at home. Imagine being able to design and manufacture simple and even complex objects in your own home. A furnace filter, a phone case, a toy. You will pay for the 'app' or 'schematic' but the cost will be far lower and it won't be built in China and shipped overseas. The big thing is this is an additive process which is completely different to any technology of the past which is a subtractive process. IE, you build the product and there is no waste, you don't cut it out from a larger piece.

This tech could be a game changer but it's going to be a wild ride. I bought a bunch of DDD and SSYS a year ago and it has been up and down huge. DASTY is the other big hitter for this group as they are the software makers. If you lose sleep on your portfolio stay away from this for now. These stocks will all be snatched up by the big guys in the next couple of years, Google or MS or Apple or HP. These will not be $200+ stocks but you might make some $ on them. Every single day I ponder selling these but so far I am holding. Of course, I am usually wrong lol.

**AndromedaPatFan** · 03-05-2013, 07:11 AM

Originally Posted by USAFspeedboy

I dont post on EVERY thing i think about ya know ;)

And we are very grateful.

**AndromedaPatFan** · 03-05-2013, 07:17 AM

Gunpowder, medicine, food, etc. -- "Earl Grey, hot!" -- are among the last things that will be possible to make this way. Rather, the idea is that a limited number of chemicals can be made to take an almost limitless variety of shapes.

Electronics are also a special case. Chips have already been made this way, for decades -- but for a variety of reasons, nobody builds semiconductor fabrication plants for under a $1 billion these days. So those aren't going to be democratized any time soon.

**Lofaw** · 03-05-2013, 11:39 AM

This isn't exactly on point, but thought it was pretty cool nonetheless and this was a good spot to post it.

What do you think about that? I wanted to try to buy one for my wife, but unfortunately you can't "buy" them yet. Basically you had to donate money in one of the donation groupings to get the Pen and depending on how much according to your grouping that you donated you'd be one of the 1st to get it plus other stuff including the gel stuff that it uses. I couldn't get one because all of the lessor donation groupings were sold out and as much as I like it I'm not donating $10 grand to get it. Although 1 person did. That person also gets to go get a tour with the inventor and a lunch with him.

**ForWhoForWhat?** · 03-05-2013, 09:35 PM

They need to change the term "printing" in relation to this technology because even with "3D" in front of it, i still think "paper" and "2D", and maybe folding said paper into something 3D, hence, 3D printer. Guess i'm the only one.

**AndromedaPatFan** · 03-08-2013, 11:59 PM

http://gizmodo.com/5989386/dude-has-...rinted-replica

A man has had the first ever 3D-printed skull-replacement fitted, swapping out a whole 75 per cent of the bone in his head for a man-made replacement.

**trev** · 03-09-2013, 04:09 AM

Originally Posted by ForWhoForWhat?

They need to change the term "printing" in relation to this technology because even with "3D" in front of it, i still think "paper" and "2D", and maybe folding said paper into something 3D, hence, 3D printer. Guess i'm the only one.

Actually it's really the same process. Instead of having black, magenta and cyan toners imagine the jets are spewing carbons or plastics or metals. I watched one video of the process where they created a bike, a bad one but still a bike. The amazing thing was they were able to create the ball bearings inside the wheel on the fly. Watch this.