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

**David Mitchell[_3_]**

wrote:
In sci.physics David Mitchell wrote:
wrote:
In sci.physics "Greg $Strider$ Moore" wrote:
wrote in message ...

In sci.physics Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

In sci.physics "Greg $Strider$ Moore"
wrote:
"David Mitchell" wrote in message
o.uk...

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

OK, what "stuff" would people be making at home?

Jewellry, utilities, tools, gadgets.

Could you be any more vague?

Yes. Yes I could.

Things. People will make things. All of the things.

I suspect 3D printing at home will be as successful as the personal
computer. I mean everyone knows they're useless at home and we'll only
need
a few major mainframes.

Personal computer use in the home is dropping with increased use of
smart
phones for those important tasks such as posting on twitter and
facebook.

The original point was that the original "personal computers" were
hideously expensive, very hard to use, and didn't do a whole lot. There
absolutely were a lot of people who said "I'll never need one of those"
back in the early 1980s. Yet they can be found (in desktop or laptop
form) in the vast majority of houses in the US because the price
dropped, they became much easier to use, and they could do a lot more
(i.e. high speed Internet versus acoustic modems and BBSes),

Besides, smart phones prove the point AGAIN! When the original Apple
iPhone came out, it didn't have it's "killer app" which was the App
Store, so the orignal wasn't terribly functional. On top of that, cell
data service at the time was slow, slow, slow, so even surfing the
Internet was painful with these new "smart phones". But again, the
majority of phones I see today are now "smart phones". They're cheaper,
more functional (more apps), and the cell data networks are quite good
these days.

New technologies keep getting cheaper and more accessible for
individuals to use all the time! It's a pretty safe bet that the very
same thing will happen with 3D printing.

New technologies will not make aluminum or plastic cheaper.

So what? They don't need to be cheaper. People literally buy millions of
items made out of aluminum and plastic every day and throw them out, the
material is so cheap.

So the raw material for 3D printing is more expensive than the raw material
for legacy fabrication methods and my response was to the two sentences
above mine. Try reading them before knee jerking.

Printing speed is limited by basic physics.

Such as? Seriously, you don't think new technologies and concepts are
possible? Heck, if nothing else, you can design printers with multiple
heads if you want to. Bam, you've nearly doubled printing speed for many
items.

As I have already said many times accuracy is directly related to layer
thickness and layer application delay is directly related to layer
"hardening" time.

We're nowhere near those limits yet.

The whooshing sound you hear is the point and all it's details going
over you head.

Not really - for example, if we're not at the limits of layer hardening time,
then we can use multiple print heads, multiplying the print rate.
I thought that was apparent, apparently I needed to explain it.

"The BAAM was used to manufacture the first (almost) fully 3D printed car, the
Strati, for together with Local Motors. With a deposition rate of up to 38 lbs
of material per hour, it is possibly the fastest machine currently on the market."

The Strati is little more than a $30,000 golf cart and the finish is an
abomination.

Not the point, remember the whole "mature technology" thing?
If we can do that *now*, imagine what we'll be able to do in 30 years time.

The industry for both consumer and industrial 3D printers is tiny and
few people do.

Sales of 400,000 last year, projected sales of 1.2 million this one. Also
appears to be non-linear.

But that it's tiny now is irrelevant. How many people had early telephones? Or
TV sets?

Do you understand the difference between hobby and professional?

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make by ignoring those stats.