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Manufacturing a Renaissance with 3D Printing

judegomila.com

1–10 of 34 posts

Re: Manufacturing a Renaissance with 3D Printing

#3

> Extreme future 3D printers will print entire planets or create new suns for new colonies. I can understand the printing of rockets and jet engines, but can someone give me a hint into understanding the printing of planets and suns?

There's more than a couple of things here I disagree with. I suppose the DNA origami is one. The leap from "folding DNA into shapes" to "making trees grow into a chair" is astounding in it's oversimplification.

Re: Manufacturing a Renaissance with 3D Printing

#4

> Extreme future 3D printers will print entire planets or create new suns for new colonies. I can understand the printing of rockets and jet engines, but can someone give me a hint into understanding the printing of planets and suns?

I presume after the economy of scale kicks in, we'll be able to buy our own planets and suns from Walmart for next to nothing. A sun in every home. In all seriousness though, being able to print planets and suns, that is one of the craziest things I have ever heard.

Re: Manufacturing a Renaissance with 3D Printing

#5
I wonder if LEGO can stave off the doom 3D printing presents since blocks are the easiest the things to replicate.

They do a lot of tie-in based LEGO sets that I believe are protected by copyright. However, their basic blocks lost their patent last year so it's open season for those!

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/21/expired-patent-of-the-day-l...

Re: Manufacturing a Renaissance with 3D Printing

#6

I wonder if LEGO can stave off the doom 3D printing presents since blocks are the easiest the things to replicate. They do a lot of tie-in based LEGO sets that I believe are protected by copyright. However, their basic blocks lost their patent last year so it's open season for those! http://boingboing.net/2011/10/21/expired-patent-of-the-day-l...

Part of the success and 'feel' of LEGO are due to the close tolerances - ~.01mm. This is an order of magnitude (or two) greater than my RepRap Mendelmax on it's best day.

However, it will be a great boon to the LEGO community - as they will now have greater access to non-structural, unlicensed parts such as guns [1] and the ilk.

[1] http://www.brickarms.com/

Re: Manufacturing a Renaissance with 3D Printing

#7
I see the same breathless optimism here as in the dawn of the WWW in the laste nineties. People with little to no understanding of what 3d printing is or its limitations, making wild extrapolations that don't take much reality (especially the social, legal, and political implications) into account.

The fact is, we do not have any idea where 3d printing will take us. The idea that we'll all have 3d printers in our home is possibly a bit silly.

That said, I also have a huge optimism for the future of 3d printing. But these use cases thrown around by people often just sound silly to me.

Re: Manufacturing a Renaissance with 3D Printing

#8

I wonder if LEGO can stave off the doom 3D printing presents since blocks are the easiest the things to replicate. They do a lot of tie-in based LEGO sets that I believe are protected by copyright. However, their basic blocks lost their patent last year so it's open season for those! http://boingboing.net/2011/10/21/expired-patent-of-the-day-l...

Part of the success and 'feel' of LEGO are due to the close tolerances - ~.01mm. This is an order of magnitude (or two) greater than my RepRap Mendelmax on it's best day. However, it will be a great boon to the LEGO community - as they will now have greater access to non-structural, unlicensed parts such as guns [1] and the ilk. [1] http://www.brickarms.com/

True. I read once that only 4 bricks in a million are defective.

Who knows, LEGO's .01mm accuracy might become the mark by which 3D printing measures itself someday.

Re: Manufacturing a Renaissance with 3D Printing

#9

I see the same breathless optimism here as in the dawn of the WWW in the laste nineties. People with little to no understanding of what 3d printing is or its limitations, making wild extrapolations that don't take much reality (especially the social, legal, and political implications) into account. The fact is, we do not have any idea where 3d printing will take us. The idea that we'll all have 3d printers in our hom…

I remember when paper printers were the same. We have no idea but we can interpolate from the past.

I can easily see myself owning a 3D printer to make all the various trinkets I would otherwise buy at IKEA or the dollar store. That is if the quality/price ratio increases.

Re: Manufacturing a Renaissance with 3D Printing

#10

I see the same breathless optimism here as in the dawn of the WWW in the laste nineties. People with little to no understanding of what 3d printing is or its limitations, making wild extrapolations that don't take much reality (especially the social, legal, and political implications) into account. The fact is, we do not have any idea where 3d printing will take us. The idea that we'll all have 3d printers in our hom…

I think these types of comments are always needed for people to ground themselves to reality.

Of course everybody wants technology to get exponentially better in the future but like you mentioned, through different social, legal and political factors, it will be extremely hard.

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