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

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

#111

Post by kojeovo »

kragen wrote: post #107
smeej wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, I can guess at why ( somebody's probably still going to be alive in 8k more years), but is that really the reason? In case somebody's gonna care enough to read this comment on HN that long from now? And not realize that of course we didn't bother adding leading zeros? Why not 0001970s in that case? (I'm sincerely hoping I'm missing something here and am going to look really silly asking this question.)

Go wild, man. I fully support your right to talk about the 0001970s.

I'd put my money on it flipping back to 0 after 9999

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

#112

Post by kragen »

tdeck wrote: post #110
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…

> The first RepRaps did not "use a full-power PC as their host machine"; they were controlled by AVRs, just like Arduino It's possible that they were referring to the RepRap Host Software, which was RepRap's original slicer. https://reprap.org/wiki/DriverSoftware

Oh, I'm sure you're right! Thank you. I didn't realize Skeinforge wasn't the first.

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

#114

Post by eigenvalue »

Just having a computer that could handle working with relatively complex 3D models, not even visually but just via the terminal, would have been a tall order in the 80s. Even getting the data from the computer to the printer would be tough. Floppies wouldn't store enough data for even modestly complex 3D model files. Parallel port? Would be painfully slow. But even if you get around those issues, the algorithms for transforming the 3D model into 2D layers that could be printed with the proper support structures and with minimal material used are extremely complicated and involved a lot of intermediate data during the calculations. Most machines then wouldn't have had even close the amount of RAM needed to do that in any reasonable amount of time.

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

#115

Post by kragen »

h2odragon wrote: post #31
foxglacier wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you reconcile that claim with the existence of cheap consumer paper printers and hard drives?

paper printers only needed such accuracy in one axis of motion, and had gearing to provide it. hard drives use voice coils, a completely different technology. The circuitry that does that evolved and certainly influenced the creation of microstepper controllers: the neat trick they do is treat the stepper motor as a voice coil in between full steps.

At the time, hard drives used stepper motors, but didn't use microstepping. Paper printers like the MX-80 used stepper motors too, it's true, but didn't use microstepping either. Gearing makes your step size smaller but adds backlash, so it can be the enemy of precision; position feedback like current inkjet printers use is much more precise.

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

#116

Post by ozim »

knowitnone wrote: post #81
jdietrich wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of, but not really. Air fryers have a much faster rate of airflow than any convection oven, which results in significantly faster and more even cooking. The air fryer really is a meaningful technological development.

if you consider adding a fan as "meaningful technological development"

Well it is. We had electrical ovens without fan that were great. We had electrical ovens with a fan that were great. Air fryer has much more advanced fan with much more power than earlier.

For me this is how meaningful technological progress happens. It is not like someone one day wakes up and suddenly has rocket that reached space caught back on landing by mechanical arms.

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

#117

Post by kragen »

vel0city wrote: post #8

One thing to think about is you'd need quite a beefy machine to even properly render the gcode in the 70s and 80s. In this age of printers computers often didn't even have fonts, they were ROM cartridges your printer would take. And even into the 90s there were accelerator cards for printing documents and talking to the printer in alternative ways than parallel ports. So really, for an average hobbyist the idea of a…

If by "render the gcode" you mean "interpret the G-code" then, no, G-code dates from 01963 and is easier to interpret than the BASIC that home computers used in the 01970s. If by "render the gcode" you mean "produce the G-code" then it depends on the geometry you're producing G-code for, and the algorithms you're using to do it, but potentially being able to do it overnight gives you a lot of flexibility there. People were doing computer numerical control with the APT language already in 01959.

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

#118

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #82
jkingsman wrote: post #13

I don't know that I'd argue that "consumer" 3D printing, as in a printer at home that just churns out a part when you want it, is even really hear yet, certainly not in the way that a dishwasher or lawnmower is. You need to do your own slicing, thinking through supports and brims and layer height, and the printers themselves need no small amount of troubleshooting that is much more than "turn it on and off again". So…

Bro maybe 3-5 years ago. I pulled my Ender 3v3 out of the box and hit print and it's been running almost constantly for a month. I don't even know what 'bed leveling' is, because it self levels, whatever that means.

Just FYI, bed leveling is fine tuning the distance between nozel and bed and making sure the bed is planar to the x and y axis.

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

#119

Post by vel0city »

kragen wrote: post #117
vel0city wrote: post #8

One thing to think about is you'd need quite a beefy machine to even properly render the gcode in the 70s and 80s. In this age of printers computers often didn't even have fonts, they were ROM cartridges your printer would take. And even into the 90s there were accelerator cards for printing documents and talking to the printer in alternative ways than parallel ports. So really, for an average hobbyist the idea of a…

If by "render the gcode" you mean "interpret the G-code" then, no, G-code dates from 01963 and is easier to interpret than the BASIC that home computers used in the 01970s. If by "render the gcode" you mean "produce the G-code" then it depends on the geometry you're producing G-code for, and the algorithms you're using to do it, but potentially being able to do it overnight gives you a lot of flexibility there. Peopl…

I mean "render the gcode" as in going from a 3D model to the gcode you want your tool to follow. Following the gcode would be generally pretty simple; I agree.

However, I doubt most home hobbyists had computers in their house in 00000000001959 capable of manipulating 3D graphics in a meaningful way that would really be approachable to a general hobbyist. Wikipedia suggests 1960s CNC's were often controlled by a PDP-8 or similar minicomputer. When the PDP-8 first came out in 00000000001965 they cost $000,0018,500, almost $000,180,000 today. I dunno about what kind of home you grew up in but a machine like that wasn't exactly a home PC available to spend all night rendering the output for a CNC machine which probably also several thousand dollars. And that's just the computer driving the CNC, not even thinking about the machines and knowledge it took to actually code the designs and curves and 3D patterns.

I'm well aware of computerized CNC machines from at least the 80s. I had family who owned a machine shop. They were not really hobbyist accessible things.

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