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Remember Napster or Grokster? Both services allowed users to share computer files – usually digital music – that infringed the copyrights for those songs.
Now imagine that, instead of music, you could download a physical object. Sounds like something from a sci-fi movie – push a button and there's the item! But that scenario is already becoming a reality. With a 3D printer, someone can download a computer file, called a computer-aided design (CAD) file, that instructs the printer to make a physical, three-dimensional object.
Because CAD files are digital, they can be shared across the internet on file-sharing services, just like movies and music. Just as digital media challenged the copyright system with rampant copyright infringement, the patent system likely will encounter widespread infringement of patented inventions through 3D printing. The problem is, however, that the patent system is even more ill-equipped to deal with this situation than copyright law was, posing a challenge to a key component of our innovation system.
If 3-D printing at home happened fast enough it would cut China off at the knees.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @07:22AM
Maybe our patent system deserves to be threatened.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Friday January 08 2016, @07:48AM
They've essentially already abrogated all of their responsibility to the courts. They grant just about any patent and then let the aggrieved parties sort it out through the legal system. This has led to a situation where companies must amass huge patent portfolios to blackmail the rest of the firms in their industry into accepting a sort of MAD stalemate. Apple and Samsung both have patents the other needs to use to do any business at all with phones, for example. So they mostly hold back, with perhaps some minor skirmishes every once in a while (and usually with proxy fights like cases over "trade dress", the infamous rounded rectangles). There's also quite a bit of cross-licensing deals.
The system does work out very well for one group: the lawyers.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday January 08 2016, @09:57AM
No, We've got to harmonize with other countries to makes sure that copyright is extended to patented objects, so if you take a picture or a video of a patented object, you automatically are violating the copyright held by the patent owner.
Naturally, all camera makers are explicitly encouraging and aiding people in this mass-infringement of copyright, and must pay punitive damages for this willful aiding in infringing these copyrights, and must implement technology in every camera to automatically detect, track, and charge the photographer a fee set by the patent owner for every patented object in every photograph.
Because it's only fair.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Friday January 08 2016, @07:30AM
Most of the stuff we buy might be patented under some bullshit notion of what an invention is, but it's also usually pretty mundane stuff. Just how special is one design of spatula over another, or storage container, or whatever? If you look around your house, most of the stuff in it has been around in one form or another for somewhere between decades to millenia.
So the problem isn't a patent system ill-equipped to deal with people taking the means of production into their own hands, the problem is stupid patents. Sure, if you invent a way to turn three banana peels into enough energy to power a small town, that's something -- _that's_ an invention. Putting a scraper on the other side of grill cleaning brush though -- whatever -- color me unimpressed. Really, most of the patents out there are just a proxy related to who has access to manufacturing machinery and when you give everyone that machinery, those patented gadgets suddenly have their actual value, i.e., nothing.
The neat thing is that it's much easier to pick up some simple CAD skills to make your own stuff than it is to become a virtuoso musician. So good luck to all the patent hoarders tracking down everyone who designs and prints their own spatulas.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Friday January 08 2016, @08:29AM
We are a long way from that. 3D printing still uses materials that can't hold a candle to the gun that is supposed to be printed or whatever. Basically you can make toys. Someday it might drive true CAM devices will mill a receiver out of a billet of steel with nobody touching it, all driven from 4 states away.
But when that day arrives, nothing has changed. Really nothing. The article is mostly hype.
The thing patented isn't patented because of how it was made. It is patented because of what it is.
So you make one in your garage. Realistically, who cares?
Until you can make them in massive quantity, and sell them, what would be the point. And if you have a plant big enough
to turn out the devices you will soon be hearing from the patent holder.
Music and movies and books are easy, the means to turn the digital to the physical for light and sound is dirt cheap.
The machines to build a car, with all the creature comforts, a real motor, real tires and electronics isn't going to fit in your
garage or your spare bedroom. (And puuules don't post links to that ridiculous proof of concept hand built one off piece of shit unroad worthy Strati.)
When everybody has a factory in their back yard big enough to print whatever they want (like 30 years after never) nobody will bother patenting anything.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by khchung on Friday January 08 2016, @09:11AM
The thing patented isn't patented because of how it was made. It is patented because of what it is.
So you make one in your garage. Realistically, who cares?
Until you can make them in massive quantity, and sell them, what would be the point. And if you have a plant big enough
to turn out the devices you will soon be hearing from the patent holder.
THAT was the original idea for copyright too, you used to need huge machinery to violate copyright massively, and that would attract the attention of copyright holders soon enough, and no one bothered with people photocopying a book or two, or copy a tape of music for a friend.
All that changed when the copies can be passed to other people almost effortlessly on the Internet.
When a patented object can be home-printed by many people, and the design can be downloaded like a song, you WILL see patent holders going the same route as the music industry to try to stop people from sharing 3-D designs (and failing at it the same way).
And it won't start with cars, it will start with small objects that you might have bought for $2 at the Walmart checkout counter, or a hardware store. Need a washer of a particular size? Just 3-D print one. A plastic protector for your new phone? Download a file and 3-D print it! Need a bookstand or photo stand? Print it.
Eventually, you will be printing anything that don't have moving parts (name card boxes, small covers, small bottles, etc), then there will be fit-together designs for building up bigger things. Before you know it, manufacturers of small plastic gadgets will go out of business.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Friday January 08 2016, @10:19AM
There are always economies of scale kicking in. You want ONE. Factories crank out millions.
Yes, conceivably, I could make my own flashlight battery.
Its so much easier for me to go to the dollar store and buy one.
Now, what I would LOVE to 3-D print is that little plastic gear/clutch that broke in my Gardner-Denver wirewrap gun.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by deimtee on Friday January 08 2016, @12:27PM
Battery covers. That thin little slab of plastic designed to hold a couple of AAs or AAAs in place on some gadget or toy.
There must be half a dozen around this place that are either missing completely or held on with tape after the lugs stopped holding.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday January 09 2016, @02:40AM
Know what? This might make a great SN poll item!
What is your greatest need for a 3D printer?
Your suggestion is excellent. Throw in broken car tail lights, toy parts, custom lego parts, replacement clothing buttons, replace broken key-fob housings, etc.
Things that are just so impractical to mass produce and market, but would be very useful to the one person that needed that one weird item.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @05:55AM
I was considering doing window slides for my first 3D printed project.
The building was 30 years old, and I was not sure replacements were available. (Actually asked maintenance about it: long-term plan was to replace the windows.)
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday January 08 2016, @01:30PM
THAT was the original idea for copyright too........ All that changed when the copies can be passed to other people almost effortlessly on the Internet. When a patented object can be home-printed by many people, and the design can be downloaded like a song
But then you can listen to the song with a click of the mouse. Not so when you want a 3-D printed copy of some widget, you will still have a lot of time and work ahead of you, as well as the cost of the plastic stock wire which will probably be more than if you bought the item from Walmart as you will not be buying in bulk. Moreover, the work involved will probably be beyond Joe Sixpack if it is much more complex than a yellow plastic duck - ie if it requires any fitting and assembly.
As others have said, where 3-D printing will be good for the amateur is in replacing broken or missing plastic parts such as battery covers.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday January 09 2016, @03:45AM
I think you underestimate Joe. Back in the day he was hot-rodding cars, sometimes producing innovative new tech to do so. He also built lots of stuff, from home-made furniture to electrical and electronic gear. Plenty of Joes have metal working gear. Arc and MIG welders are common enough that Aldi occasionally sell them to Joe in their supermarkets.
Assembling a bunch of 3D printed parts is certainly not beyond him.
What's currently stopping him is that Joe expects his tools to be expertly made and to work reliably, and home printers are neither.
When they are good enough, say same reliability and quality as a handyman lathe at a similar price, you will see an explosion in use.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday January 09 2016, @10:32AM
I think you underestimate Joe. Back in the day he was hot-rodding cars, ....... He also built lots of stuff, from home-made furniture to electrical and electronic gear.
Such Joes exist but are a small minority. I'm one myself, but only know one other among my acquaintances and we won't be bringing China to its knees. That count includes the engineers I work with - the type of guy who would be much more likely to do such things than the average Joe.
Plenty of Joes have metal working gear. Arc and MIG welders are common enough that Aldi occasionally sell them to Joe
Owning != using. People buy such things with big ideas but put them away in the shed when they find that using them is not as easy as they expected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @07:31AM
Like MP3s and H264s and VC1s.
Or did somebody forget that the patent war has been going on for as long as the copyright war online?
(Score: 1) by driverless on Friday January 08 2016, @09:57AM
We are a long way from that. 3D printing still uses materials that can't hold a candle to the gun that is supposed to be printed or whatever. Basically you can make toys.
+1. 3D printing is basically for doing crude prototypes of a very restricted range of items. One very obvious problem is that you can have either speed (for relatively slothful definitions of "speed") or quality, not both. In fact given that the whole thing is governed by how much material you can lay down in a given time unit, it's more like "speed, quality, robustness, choose any one". When I can get a powder injection moulding machine for a few thousand dollars that does what a 3D printer now does, and that doesn't cost something like a thousand times as much to DIY than it would to just buy the original item from the manufacturer, then we're talking.
In any case, as you point out, it won't have any effect on patents.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @01:39PM
That's the case now, but what will it be when you can throw the broken plastic item into a hopper, see it shredded and re-printed as a good-as-new version? What about when you can throw all your cast-off items into that hopper, which will crunch them up, sort them, and return as feedstock for the printer? They have large sorting machines now for various classes of materials, so it's not inconceivable that smaller desktop versions should come about, too.
That is a much different world than the centralized, 19th-century-based one we're still living in.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 09 2016, @01:43AM
Even if the media were cheap, how many things do you use in real life that are made out of exactly one part, or one type of material? Sitting here at my cluttered desk the only such thing within reach is a ceramic coffee cut coaster. Everything else has parts, wires, circuit boards, springs, knobs, screws, glass, metal, and plastic mixed together.
In my garage I have a few things like box wrenches and nails made of one substance.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Friday January 08 2016, @04:26PM
Printing doesn't have to be good enough to print a gun to be useful. I have toaster oven I use all the time that could barely fit a turkey leg, let alone a whole turkey, and I still consider it a useful appliance despite the fact I can't roast a whole bird in it. I have a drill which I consider a very useful tool, despite the fact I can't make a whole car with it. Basically, you've chosen two items not suited for home manufacturing for various reasons (unusually strong destructive forces and massive assemblage of disparate parts) and concluded that 3D printing is good for nothing. This ignores the fact that your house is filled with much simpler items for which 3D printing would serve quite well.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 09 2016, @01:47AM
Like what?
The plate I ate dinner from? The fork I ate with?
Seriously. Look around you. How many things can you reach out and touch that were made out of one substance or one part?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday January 09 2016, @07:05AM
as one example, if you have a paper printer and 3D printer, you can have every board game ever made.
In the future, when home laser sintering devices become available, you can have just about any metal tool with a plastic handle. Of course you'd have to make the parts separately.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday January 09 2016, @10:22PM
Sintering != Solid Metal.
Still, would be useful to make those little car tokens for you monopoly game.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday January 08 2016, @08:19AM
Charles Stross.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_34_(novel) [wikipedia.org]
http://www.amazon.com/Rule-34-Halting-State-Book/dp/1937007669 [amazon.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Friday January 08 2016, @08:30AM
Now imagine that, instead of music, you could download a physical object. Sounds like something from a sci-fi movie
No, it sounds like something we've had for the last five years.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khchung on Friday January 08 2016, @08:57AM
If 3-D printing at home happened fast enough it would cut China off at the knees.
Dear Editors, could we skip these irrelevant rants? Especially political ones like this?
Yes, I get it, a lot of Americans hate China, but can we read technical news without the need to constantly taking jab at China senselessly?
A lot of people have printer at home, you can download books and print it, how many people print books at home? Did home printers "cut book printers off at the knees"?
If you are going to take a jab at China, could you at least do it intelligently?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday January 08 2016, @10:21AM
Ummm... China is probably going to be the one making and selling the 3D printers to us....
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @01:50PM
The comment was mine, so I'll respond. China still depends on the lower end of the manufacturing scale. They're making progress toward the upper end, to be sure. But they're not where, say, Germany or Japan are yet. So if the demand for cheap plastic items dropped off a cliff, it would represent a significant economic issue for China.
My purpose in making the comment was not to take a jab at China, but rather to raise another repercussion of 3-D printing beyond that raised by the article for the Patent System, ie. its implications for something as large as a major country's manufacturing base, among whom China's is particularly vulnerable to shifts in demand for low-end products.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 08 2016, @02:27PM
You're not under the misapprehension that in order to make a microprocessor, all you have to do is print a suitable-shaped plastic rectangle, are you?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @05:56PM
The plastic housing on a router is "Electronic Equipment," and the tips for pipettes are "Medical Equipment." It's easy to play with categories.
You're not under the misapprehension that 3-D printing is only for plastics, are you? I said "plastics" because it's what most people who don't follow 3-D printing think of, but many things have been printed in other materials already. 4 years ago I saw Fab@Home print objects variously in cheese, chocolate, and concrete, among other things at the Maker Faire in NYC, and other people have done non-trivial things like printing livers. So, no, don't know that anybody has printed a microprocessor yet, but they have printed jet engine parts and jaws out of titanium. Does that meet your bar for "things we won't have to buy from China anymore"?
So if 3-D printing ramped up fast enough, far enough, it would hit an economy that relies on manufacturing hard, especially if a significant portion of that manufacturing is not for sophisticated objects, as China's currently is. When everything you buy at Walmart starts having, "Made in the Phillippines" or "Made in Zimbabwe" labels on it, then you'll know that that sort of activity has moved one, but if you run to the store right now and start checking labels most of it's still going to say "Made in China" on it. Q.E.D.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 08 2016, @06:29PM
Most of my cheap electronic shit is from China. I fail to see how being able to cheaply 3D-print casings in non-China is going to decrease the number of crappy digital thermometers, or LED dimmer switches, or phone chargers that come out of China; and all those things will still be housed in chinese plastic, because injection molding will always be cheaper than 3D-printing. So I see no impact at all on china from such availability.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @10:54PM
I have lots of old electronics. I'm sure within them is more than sufficient material (plastic, silicon, etc) to recycle into a new device. If I could do that, why would I buy anything from China (or anywhere else for that matter)? I could throw that old zipdisk drive and about half a dozen old smartphones into a hopper, let it chew through and sort that, and re-extrude it as feedstock, and run that through a 3-D printer to produce whatever new object I give it the CAD file for.
Obviously it is not currently possible to automatically sort so many disparate materials, but it is possible to do that with single materials like PLA. Maybe you don't see the value in that, but I sure do. Instead of having closets and basements full of old boards I might cannibalize parts from for later projects, I could chuck them all into the hopper to print out whatever I want on demand. When my 5-yr old drops a plate, I wouldn't have to run out to Crate&Barrel to get another one, but instead could throw the pieces into the hopper and print out a new plate, no trip to the store, no expenditure necessary. That sums up to lost sale for $COUNTRY.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday January 08 2016, @11:24PM
If you think the mere presence of a material locally will make all stuff made locally from that material cheaper than stuff imported, then you know nothing about economics. In particular, you seem to think that time is free.
However, please continue bringing down the Chinese economy by fixing up your own plates, every little helps.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ThePhilips on Friday January 08 2016, @09:11AM
If 3-D printing at home happened fast enough it would cut China off at the knees.
How a low series over-priced production of singular item (aka 3D printing) can possibly undercut industrial-scale mass-manufacturing (aka China's manufacturing sector)?
P.S. Otherwise, China's gov't is already trying to move the country's focus from manufacturing to service. Even if 3D printing mattered (it doesn't, Chinese can 3D print too) it would only help accelerate the change.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @01:56PM
It's convenience. You buy a six-pack of something manufactured in China at CostCo. One of them breaks. Now little Timmy doesn't have one. Do you sit in traffic to go back to CostCo, circle for 30 minutes to get a parking spot, and then battle the crowds to buy another six-pack, such that you'll have one complete set and 5 extras? Or would you rather be able to throw the broken one into a hopper and see it come back out of the printing end new? Because I could do that in the comfort of my own home.
And for some people the parsimony of it, of not incurring the carbon cost to manufacture it overseas and ship it all the way round the world, and not fill up landfills with broken or discarded items, has benefit.
For still others, being able to 3-D print exactly the thing you want, perhaps something you designed yourself, is attractive.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by ThePhilips on Friday January 08 2016, @02:37PM
Now little Timmy doesn't have one. Do you sit in traffic to go back to CostCo, circle for 30 minutes to get a parking spot, and then battle the crowds to buy another six-pack, such that you'll have one complete set and 5 extras?
No. I'm not sure about the current state of the 3D printing market, but often users can order the replacement parts via eBay from China. "In the comfort of [their] own home."
Or would you rather be able to throw the broken one into a hopper and see it come back out of the printing end new? Because I could do that in the comfort of my own home.
So little Timmy just went out and forked $$$$ on a 3D printer? just to make one replacement part? (Not sure what you mean by the "hopper", but what you say implies that you also have some sort of 3D scanner to make the model of the part. Cleaning-up the output of the 3D scanner into a usable model is also a non-trivial endeavor.)
The last I checked - ~2 years ago - ordering from 3D printing shop on average had cost more than ordering from China. (Friend was buying a part for his pump: 3D printing shop wanted 35 Euro for 1 piece, while the Chinese sold on eBay 6 pieces pack for 12 Euro.)
Then there is the problem of the availability. If eBay is empty and 3D print shop doesn't have the schematics (and broken part is unusable for scanning), little Timmy would have no other choice but to drive to the CostCo.
All said, the 3D printing is a good option to have. In my experience though, it just doesn't replace anything yet. Complements - yes. Replaces - no.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @05:37PM
Recyclebot [thingiverse.com]
Makerbot Digitizer [makerbot.com]
I bought my first computer, a Laser 128, in 1985 for $2000 in 1985 dollars. www.usinflationcalculator.com's calculator puts that at $4,411 in 2015 dollars. But most desktops today cost around $500 or less. Do you think that the price of 3-D printers and 3-D printing might come down, too?
Do you throw away your computer after composing one email? Probably not, right? I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you probably re-use that same computer to do other things like compose spreadsheets (more than one!) and play games and maybe talk to people on the other side of the world via Skype. In the same fashion 3-D printers will probably be re-usable for more than one replacement part.
Then scan one of the 5 you have left, throw the remains of the broken one to re-extrude it as feedstock, and you're set.
Again, these objections are rather myopic. If you've been following 3-D printing at all the last 5 years, you'd know that people have been pushing the envelope hard in all kinds of directions, such as using metal, different materials, multi-headed printers, scaling up, scaling down, using biological material (for replacement organs), etc. Do a quick Google search, or, heck, search of Soylent's archives, for articles on things that have already been done with 3-D printing and then come back and pooh-pooh the field.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by ThePhilips on Friday January 08 2016, @08:05PM
Again, these objections are rather myopic. If you've been following 3-D printing at all the last 5 years, you'd know that people have been pushing the envelope hard in all kinds of directions, such as using metal, different materials, multi-headed printers, scaling up, scaling down, using biological material (for replacement organs), etc. Do a quick Google search, or, heck, search of Soylent's archives, for articles on things that have already been done with 3-D printing and then come back and pooh-pooh the field.
Let's do it the myopic way, then.
Oh, my. Do a quick search anywhere and check for the plummeting printing market. You know, there were times when we were transferring images and text from computer screen to paper. It was like a magic. Except that digitization of content is slowly but steadily kills it. Because nobody cares about printed shite, because nobody cares about stuff in the real world, because almost everybody is happy with whatever the smartphone screen is showing.
~ N.B. Have you missed that 2016 is proclaimed to be the year of VR? the cool tech which makes the 3D objects digital?? ~
Ditto 3D printing. It is a solution and it even has a problem. But 99% of people are not makers, they do not do repair themselves the stuff, they do not tweak the stuff they have, they do not invent stuff in the evenings. Instead they go to on-line shops to find and buy stuff, and send broken stuff to the service.
I did glimpsed at 3D printing for some time now. And like many others I have concluded that the hype is largely limited to the maker community, the educational institutions and the R&D labs. IOW, general population still doesn't give a. General population still refers to "professionals" to perform the repairs/etc. The 3D printing has negligible effect on anything outside the academia, R&D, and similar.
Heck, with the advent of the tablets we again have the people (this time young ones) who need dedicated lessons on how to use the computer mouse. We have a generation growing now, whose technical/computer expertise is facebook and point/swipe with the finger. And you preach 3D printing to them?? Good luck - because you need it.
P.S. Since I'm software developer, I can actually draw the parallels to a different phenomenon. Namely that for 25+ years now, at least once a year somebody tells me that soon, very soon software developers wouldn't be needed because new ground-breaking concepts and paradigm and even higher-level languages, which are just around the corner, would make programming accessible to literally everyone, and thus we professional software developers would be unemployed. Guess how much has changed in the 25 years. I still have a job. I still have to code C. And the thing is, it is not the concepts/paradigm/etc which have failed - it is the people. Most people don't give a darn about programming. They'd rather have me do it for them, than spend weeks learning basics just to take off the ground. So. And now you come and say that 3D printing is almost here, and manufacturing is soon finished and done, because the people can print anything.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday January 08 2016, @05:58PM
There's gonna be an equilibrium. We already see some percentage of useful stuff being manufactured with 3d-printers, although for now it's just the early adopters. We can't really say they are wasting money, since they are getting exactly what they want for their money. And I believe this percentage will become a lot bigger very soon.
Thing is, sometimes we forget there is a whole range of possibilities, not just the two extremes when you either print everything in your bedroom or ship everything from a giant universal factory on the Moon. There's also a neighborhood convenience print shop. It's one block away, it houses several industrial 3d-printers, and you can just waltz in there with a memory stick and print whatever the fuck you want. Pretty tempting, if you ask me, and so probably extremely profitable for a wide range of goods.
I'd say the only real danger to this model and the savings it brings is the oppressive censorship practiced by the copyright and patent monopolists.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bootsy on Friday January 08 2016, @09:15AM
What I'm really hoping for with 3D printing is the ability to get reasonably priced spare parts for things that have broken.
Right now I have a number of things with plastic parts in them that have broken and a spare part is either not available, very expensive or impossible to track down.
Some examples include cogs in CD player drawers, various clips in a motorhome, knobs on cookers and plastic retainers on a tumble dryer.
If I could print out parts it would allow me to keep things running longer and reduce waste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @02:35PM
This is where 3d printing will really shine. The DIY market. This will probably be how most people end up getting one.
Right now though it is a toy or a very expensive prototype engine. Dont get me wrong before you whip out your keyboard. It will be very cool. These things still have a long way to go. They are getting there at small incremental steps. Sintered plastic has poor lateral strength compared to injection molding. For many things that will be OK. For others not so much. Also many types of 3d printing currently need quite a bit of work after they are done cooking. Injection molding many times once you clip off the spars they are ready to go. The downside to IM is the setup cost.
I can also see patent owners doing a 'tricky'. Turning their business into a copyright one. Patents last 20 years? Well they control the files and they are copyrighted for 95 years. At that point it will be clear the patent/copyright system will need some work. But no one will do anything about it other than ignore it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Yaa101 on Friday January 08 2016, @09:20AM
Within 10 years somebodies door will be kicked in by a SWAT team over some infringed CAD files.
Leave it to the politicians to "Regulate" 3D printing.
No comment...
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday January 08 2016, @06:05PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by J_Darnley on Friday January 08 2016, @12:31PM
If a patented object can be printed on a 3D printer out of one kind of plastic, is the object really worth the patent that allegedly protects it? What sort of innovation happens these days in the realm of static objects?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nuke on Friday January 08 2016, @01:18PM
Because CAD files are digital, they can be shared across the internet on file-sharing services...... the patent system likely will encounter widespread infringement of patented inventions through 3D printing.
Patents {for better or worse] are not affected. If you sell clones of something that is patented it does not matter legally by what method you manufacture it. It has always been possible to buy a sample of a rival's product and then take moulds of the plastic and cast-metal parts the old-fashioned way so as to reproduce them, and to make drawings of the other parts and set your own factory to making and assembling them.
This is like the old fallacy "It's different because a computer is involved". Now the fallacy is "It's different because a 3-D printer is involved"
If you don't sell the stuff, and as an individual you are planning to make a few yellow plastic ducks for yourself, then good luck - but I don't see it catching on. I and most people have better things to do [like posting to SN?] than sitting here making yellow plastic ducks that I could buy for 50 cents each. And I don't believe that Joe Sixpack would ever cope with making anything more complex than a plastic duck with his 3-D printer - nothing that would require any assembly for example.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 08 2016, @02:06PM
I'm really quite surprised by this sentiment in this discussion. It gives me flashbacks to the early 80's, when I and my geek friends were working on the early desktop computers and all our classmates kept telling us how stupid computers were. We were composing documents on Bank Street Writer, and they would say "Pffft, if I wanted to write a paper I'd use a typewriter. Duh!" And we'd say, "Yes, but this one you can come back and change later if you don't like it; plus, you can give copies out to as many people as you want." They'd say, "What do you think White-Out is for? And if you want copies, put it in the photocopier and mail them to people!" When we played our first real music on the Apple IIGS, we said, "Now you can have all the music you want right on your computer and you can give copies to all your friends..." and they'd reply, "Pfft, that quality sucks! I can play cassettes on my hi-fi at home and rock your ears off..."
In each case, they could only see where the tech was then and not imagine where it was going to go. Now we all know how the story with computers has turned out, and how they have and continue to transform the world, but strangely even people on SN cannot extend that same sort of forward-thinking to 3-D printing. It's astounding, honestly.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday January 08 2016, @04:12PM
I totally agree. The lack of imagination is pretty weird.
For some reason, people think that printing stuff is very expensive -- it isn't. Filament costs less than 3cents/gm and most useful items come in around 20 to 100 gms with the 100gm items being on the large size. People think the only use is making star wars figurines, but there are lots of static household items that are made in plastic that you can print up for 50 cents.
People think that because an injection molded piece is cheaper on a per/piece basis when building a million at once, that it's not worth printing. Except, when was the last time any enduser paid wholesale manufacturing scale prices for anything? The valid comparison is the full retail cost + (shipping or (gas+time in line))+tax. Printing is often much cheaper to the end consumer in the context that matters. I laid out an example where two things I printed cost me less than the sales tax would have totalled to buy the cheapest versions I could find: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=9989&cid=247947#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @06:53PM
I think a lot of people simply aren't accustomed to using their imaginative / predictive capabilities. Most like dealing in absolutes, once you start talking about COULDS and SHOULDS and WILL BES then they simply shut off as it isn't "real" and so not worth discussing. It is frustrating to say the least. 3D printing has already begun for glass and metals, so it is very believable that in 5-20 years we will have desktop versions that can use a plasma torch or something to melt the metal and shoot the metallic gas/liquid to build with. Structural integrity will probably not be up to snuff with machined versions built from solid blocks, but again who knows. Maybe the plasma torch will melt the current object enough to make a perfect bond, maybe it will require a vacuum, go go gadget inventor!
(Score: 2) by gringer on Friday January 08 2016, @07:21PM
I have this problem with DNA Sequencing. There are too many people trying to only do the stuff that has been done before on the new DNA sequencers.
Unfortunately, people are resistant to change. When a disruptive technology comes along, they'll try to keep as many things as possible the same as what they were before, which means that the real change takes much longer than it should.
Ask me about Sequencing DNA in front of Linus Torvalds [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @08:10PM
Think you are missing a bit of what people are saying.
Right now, *today*, 3d printing is a rather finiky picky thing to do. You need a decent rig to pull it off. Even then you can end up wasting a day and end up with a bum project.
The guys in the early 1980s were right then too. The computers of the time where *nothing* like the machines we have today. They were finiky and picky and a PITA. I spooled up my fair share of green line. At the time memory and visual display was a major limiting factor of what they could do.
When we played our first real music on the Apple IIGS, we said, "Now you can have all the music you want right on your computer and you can give copies to all your friends..."
They were right. At best you could do a few dozen songs and of arguably cheesy quality. They probably had 50x that in the box out in their car and it sounded amazing compared to it. Even better if they were rich and sprung for CDs. The mp3 of the mid 90s was where it came into its own. Even then it took awhile for that to catch on as the storage space tech was not there until the early 2000s.
At the quality level they have now the cost will have to go down even more. They are already semi cheap. But not quite there. The software is getting way better than it was say 3 years ago. But it will have to get even better.
Also do not confuse what some people are saying. They are saying 'for a one off I can get it just as cheap or cheaper somewhere else'. Cost is the motivating factor for them. Not quality or something interesting. Cost. Someone even with 1 semester of econ will tell you most people consider the cost of the machine as part of the cost of making something (not true but it is the way people see it). If it costs me 800 bucks to buy 1 small plastic part. I will buy the part instead. If I need 200 parts with each one doing something different then I may look into it. Most people are looking for 1 small part not 200 different ones.
Here is how you will know 3d printing is 'main stream'. You will go into something like lowes or home depot and they have a printer and they print some oddball part you are looking for instead of stocking it. At that point you will be better off cutting out the middle man.
Dont get me wrong. 3d printing is at the same place as computers in the early 1980s. Right now it shows promise. That is it.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday January 09 2016, @10:59AM
All that most people are saying that 3-D printing is being over-hyped - with statements like "like something from a sci-fi movie" and "cut China off at the knees". Some people seem to think that with a downloaded file and a click of the mouse they would be able to turn round to their 3-D printer and see it spit out the next model iPod.
3-D printing is certainly another tool in the box, but just that for the forseeable future. Manufacturing is far more complex than just being able to turn out a casting (because that is what 3-D printing does, and somewhat poorly), a manufacturing sub-process that was perfected in other ways a long time ago, both for metal and plastic. We need fully manipulative robots to make anything more complex - oh, they already exist but generally designed for a single purpose like paint spraying and fitting car windscreens, and out of Joe Sixpack's price range for a long time to come even for a small model.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tibman on Friday January 08 2016, @03:25PM
The interesting thing about 3d printing is that you can print objects that are already "assembled". As in you can print a complex object with distinct moving parts that interlock. If Joe Sixpack can print a duck then s/he could print a complicated object just as easily.
A place where 3d printing has been seeing a lot of demand is in games. People are printing their "yellow plastic ducks" in the form of D&D mini's and dice and game tokens. Tabletop miniature makers are very afraid of the increasing resolution of low/middle tier 3d printers.
Take a look at what people are making and selling: http://www.shapeways.com/marketplace/ [shapeways.com]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Covalent on Friday January 08 2016, @02:37PM
...3D Printer. All destroyed an existing way of life. Before literacy, only the noble few possessed knowledge. Imagine banning literacy because it would destroy the elite knowledge system. Before the engine, only the noble few possessed the ability to move any great distance on the Earth. Imagine banning the engine because it would destroy the elite transport system.
3D printing will soon be able to manufacture more that just goods. We'll be 3D printing food from food waste, organs from stem cells, and new cell phones from old cell phones. Imagine banning 3D printing because it would destroy the patent system.
It's equally foolish. This is the new paradigm: Knowledge is free, goods are free, services are free, and capitalism is doomed. The sooner we start to deal with that, the better off we'll be.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Friday January 08 2016, @06:16PM
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday January 08 2016, @07:44PM
"If 3-D printing at home happened fast enough it would cut China off at the knees."
Who do you think is making the 3D printers?
And, no, it wouldn't. 3D printing has inherent limits on its capabilities and materials that can be used, not to mention cost of the plastics and process - especially en-masse, because 3D printing is actually much better for one-off prototypes while traditional plastics moulding techniques are much better for mass production and probably will be for a long time yet.
The Christmas-cracker toy market may be in trouble. But, hell, that's hardly a global economic issue. And still people will buy crackers with cheap plastic toys in them.
(Score: 1) by Moof123 on Friday January 08 2016, @10:20PM
Before we "cut China off at the knees" we would need to actually be 3D printing a fair amount of actually useful stuff. Most of what I see from the few folks i know with a 3D printer are trinkets, and crude ones that that. Monochromatic busts (3D selfie?), pencil holders, and such are not exactly going to knock China off the world stage. After all, it is plastic junk and being 3D printed just makes it slightly more exciting plastic junk.
The real money is in complex things such as batteries, semiconductors, precision machined parts, and so on. 3D printers might be able to make a cool housing for the real stuff, but that is not where the real action is. So far 3D printers are just too niche to live up to their hype. We will definitely see more useful stuff out of the high end stuff, but it is just displacing things like CNC mills at a somewhat reduced cost. Frankly I would rather have a Bridgeport milling machine at my disposal any day over any of the 3D printers available at the consumer range.
(Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Saturday January 09 2016, @12:23AM
I have a problem with one of the assertions of the article: "posing a challenge to a key component of our innovation system". The copyright and patent system has not been about innovation for many years. These days, the system is designed to protect corporate profits, not innovation. There was a time when the system made sense but, Disney destroyed all value of copyright to society and the pharmaceutical industry has been pretty effective at doing the same for patents, though not up to Disney's mastery for destroying all societal value in the name of corporate profits.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit