Professor Studies At-Home 3D Printing Usage

[Clare S]

Open source 3D printing advocate and Michigan Technological professor Dr. Joshua Pearce wanted to figure out how cost-effective and practical it was for the average consumer to invest in a desktop 3D printer and use it at home. In a study, titled "Emergence Of Home Manufacturing in the Developed World: Return on Investment for Open-Source 3-D Printers," that was recently published in MDPI's international open access Technologies, he was able to determine that when consumers buy a low-cost, open source 3D printer and use it at home to create household items, over a five-year period, they can actually earn an almost 1,000% return on their investment. To help him compile research data, Dr. Pearce tapped an undergraduate student, majoring in both engineering and materials science but inexperienced in 3D printing, to use a low-cost 3D printer right out of the box, without receiving any instruction first. She 3D printed 26 items over a six-month period, and the results may shock you. Read more at 3DPrint.com: http://3dprint.com/165246/mtu-at-home-3d-printing-study/

[Thorsten]

I am curios how you're able to design the parts you want to produce and the effort behind that necessary action. Is there a CAD-like software available for these printers that's usable for people with only little technical or engineering knowledge?

[curious aardvark]

lots and lots and lots of free cad programs.
And lots and lots of threads round here about them :-)
Here's the latest: http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...558#post105558

But why buy a $1500 machine, when there are so many for under $600.
That gives you return on your investment in around a year.

Given that most of what I print is stuff I've designed myself because it's not possible to buy it - I'd say my return was much faster than that. Given the alternative would have been to pay someone else to design and print it. Very expensive.
Also some of what I print means I don't have to buy a new thing because I've fixed the old thing, that saves even more money.