SpaceBanter.com - View Single Post - Towards the *fully* 3D-printed electric cars.

**Fred J. McCall[_3_]**

wrote:

In sci.physics wrote:
On Thu, 6 Jul 2017 16:34:29 -0000, wrote:

In sci.physics David Mitchell wrote:
wrote:
In sci.physics David Mitchell wrote:
wrote:

Does anyone care about a shape optimized 4 slice toaster or filing cabinet?

Yes. I do.

If any significant number of items in your house are fabricated, it makes sense
to use as few raw materials as possible, so, for example, it would make sense to
honeycomb the inside of a knife handle, since it would still be strong enough,
and would allow you to keep a gram or two of material "in the pot" for other
projects.

Ditto everything you make.

Nonsense; the items in one's house are based on price not how elegantly
it was produced.

It makes no sense to honeycomb the inside of a knife handle as it would
add no functionality and just increase the price.

What price?

The manufacturing cost which increases the retail sales price at the store.

Manufacturing cost and sales price are only loosely correlated.

For government projects mainly but not for consumer products.

No, for everything, actually.

It would reduce both the time to fabricate and feedstock used, albeit at the
cost of slightly more complex software.

Or you could injection mold it, as most knife handles are, for a fraction
of the manufacturing cost of the honyecomb nonsense.

Or you could stamp the whole thing out of metal for a fraction of the cost
of the honyecomb nonsense.

They form the only metric which makes sense when talking about fabricating objects.

The only metric which makes sense for fabricating objects is the loaded
manufacturing cost.

Yes but not because of sales price, rather profit.

profit = sales price - loaded manufacturing cost

True but irrelevant, since 'sales price' can be anything the
manufacturer cares to charge.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn