WOW ! A 3D Printer, that, em, well, prints objects...........

Looks like injection molding on steroids, The tool had to be "Cleaned up" after printing. That was the red flag in my mind. A complex structure with moving parts could not be replicated with this method. nothing biological or metal either.Do people remember the commercial a few years back where they had a hologram of a model car, they could stretch it and compact it etc. they could also hold the item, this turned out to be a glimpse of what they "thought" was going to be available in the future. IE: not as described by a long shot.

Yeah, 3D printers are cool, I work with one on a regular basis, and work with vendors who have machines even more capable than ours. Metal parts, plastic parts, rubber-like parts, can all be printed with ease.

They do however have their limits.

Firstly, the material choices are extremely limited, when comparing to the material choices that are available for "typical" methods of production, like molding, casting, machining, etc.

You basically are limited to a handful of plastics, (which is really mostly one plastic, nylon, with various choices of filler), and a handful of metals. Compared to the hundreds if not thousands of different plastic and metal formulations, necessary for many application specific purposes, the reality is most parts you can "print" are show-and-tell parts, some which can be used for prototyping, but most of which don't have the necessary material properties (strength, temperature resistance, flame retardancy, hardness, surface finishability, things of this nature) to be a true "production worthy" part.

Basically you're limited to making single parts out of mostly unsuitable materials. Still very handy for prototyping but not so much for a truly well engineered product.

OK, now that we're severely limited on material selections, here's some other stuff 3D printing can't do yet.

-working bearings
-electronic components
-springs
-anything requiring "grain orientation" such as some electric motor laminations
-and many other important engineering considerations...


So to me, and anybody else who works with 3D printers, it's amusing when we see folks heads explode with the possibilities this tech offers, and though one certainly may be able to print their own car someday, we're several orders of magnitude away from that kind of capability.

Where you guys been? Under a rock? Kidding... I think I read a thread here on ats about a robot that creates other robots using a 3D printer? Not too sure where I read it to be honest coulda been a magazine. No search function for mobile ATS


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