Ask HN: Why did consumer 3D printing take so long to be invented?

Post by kragen » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 9:54 PM UTC

hagbard_c wrote: post #101

cityofdelusion wrote: post #55

The pieces did NOT exist in the 1970s. Fast microcontrollers, stepper motors, precision miniaturized manufacturing, reliable and cheap miniaturized DC electronics, and far far more technology was non-existent at any kind of affordable price point. Look at kitchen appliances or metal/wood shop machinery from this era, still heavily analog, mostly made from sheet steel, mostly non-computerized. The 80s would bring bett…

Given that it is possible to make a 3D printer out of old dot matrix printer parts and given that matrix printers were introduced in the '70s (Centronics [1] claims its model 101. launched in 1970 was the first impact dot matrix printer) it would have been possible to create 3D printers in the '70s. While the hardware and controlling firmware would have been possible to build back then it would have been quite useles…

Post by the__alchemist » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 10:00 PM UTC

whatusername wrote: post #97

the__alchemist wrote: post #29

Some observations that I didn't see in the other comments: - Home 3D printing is often more of a hobby than a traditional prototyping or engineering discipline. People view it as a skill to have, and a fun use of free time. Note how the cheapest and most finicky ones are popular; they can be made to work well through careful operation, troubleshooting, procedures, customization etc. They are not set-and-forget, and I…

I'm not sure how true that first statement is anymore. Most of the recommendations I see now are "just get a Bambu labs one". We are much closer to 3D printing as a utility as opposed to 3D printing as a hobby than we were ~3 years ago.

Post by kragen » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 10:18 PM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #78

kragen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microcontrollers and stepper motors were already controlling 2-D printers in the 01970s and early 01980s at higher speeds and similar powers to currently popular 3-D printers. The first RepRaps did not "use a full-power PC as their host machine"; they were controlled by AVRs, just like Arduino (which didn't exist yet). Generating motor control waveforms on a full-power PC is a nightmare nowadays, and was already a ni…

An offtopic question: how do you manage to write all the years consistently with 0 at the start (I know why, but how ), when everyone around you uses a different standard. If I decided, IDK, to write "cnow" instead of "know", or "J" instead of "I", I wouldn't be able to do so consistently. Not in a world that massively uses the other word. Or it would take me twice as much time to double-check everything that I have…

Post by aaron695 » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 10:37 PM UTC

Post by tdeck » Thu, Nov 07, 2024, 10:59 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #72

cityofdelusion wrote: post #55

The pieces did NOT exist in the 1970s. Fast microcontrollers, stepper motors, precision miniaturized manufacturing, reliable and cheap miniaturized DC electronics, and far far more technology was non-existent at any kind of affordable price point. Look at kitchen appliances or metal/wood shop machinery from this era, still heavily analog, mostly made from sheet steel, mostly non-computerized. The 80s would bring bett…

Microcontrollers and stepper motors were already controlling 2-D printers in the 01970s and early 01980s at higher speeds and similar powers to currently popular 3-D printers. The first RepRaps did not "use a full-power PC as their host machine"; they were controlled by AVRs, just like Arduino (which didn't exist yet). Generating motor control waveforms on a full-power PC is a nightmare nowadays, and was already a ni…