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I'm just curious. How cheap do you think 3D Printers will end up being, lets say in 15 years from now (in today's dollars)? 2D Printers at one time cost just as much as 3D Printers cost today. Do you think 3d printers will ever get as low as 2D printers are now?
Well Technically they will eventually be able to be printed out, meaning that you will only pay for the materials. If you mean what price will fully assembled decent quality 3D printers be in 10-15 years? You'd probably be able to get one for no more that what Epson, and HP charge for the typical 2d printers, which is $80 or so. Having said this, you have to realize that in 10-15 years things will have changed dramatically, so it's really hard to say what kind of printers will be available to us in say 2025. Competition is already starting to drive prices down while pushing the big boys to innovate even more. You will always have expensive, top quality printers while the lower quality ones will be priced much lower. Even in 2025 there will likely be 3D printers costing $25k, but also ones costing $80.
Many times cheaper, but best not to dwell on how absurdly the price / performance will compare to future tech. I paid $500 for my first CDRW drive. And my cell phone has many many more times the power of PC's that were sold for $30,000+ back in the early days of personal / office computing.
I can't see new quality printers dropping under $450-500. I'm sure there will be cheaper lesser quality ones though.
DIY 3D printers will probably get to be extremely cheap, as more and more parts of the printers will eventually be able to be printed at home. However, I don't see prices of already built 3D printers by companies like Makerbot, Cubify, and perhaps HP dropping below $500 anytime soon. Maybe in 10 - 15 years we will start seeing sub $500 mainstream 3d printers. That's when there will be just as many 3D printers sold as 2D printers.
Whats funny about this few month old thread is you guys thought theyd still be 500 in 2025. There ALREADY starting to make ones at 200 and UNDER!! Look at how fast smart phones have evolved. i think that the 3d printers will see a similar speed in progress. IMO
Arguably the Peachy Printer (with pre-release models out) at a sub-$100 price tag has already beaten that.
A lot will depend on how creatively manufacturers go about making a profit. Nowadays 2D printers are generally sold at a low price tag because the real money is recouped on the ink.
When I see people talk about being able to print everything but the materials I just shake my head... It's gonna be a LOOONG time before you can print a stepper motor! LoL.
Cheap printers will not be printed. the same technology that makes 3D printers possible makes cheap injection molds possible too, and injection molded parts are so much cheaper there is no comparison.
VOLUME is everything! Cheap happens when you make tens of thousands. Really cheap happens when you make millions. A little example. I know a company that bought some switches for their prototype of a product from Radio Shack for $.79 each. When they put it into production and bought a case of 10,000 loose switches they got them for 1/2 cent each!
Estimate topics ugh,
I doubt anyone can see in the future?
This all depends,
This depends on the quality of the print, depends how 3D printing will evolve and in what technology etc etc,
You can't predict these things... It might be that over 10 years that it will be 80 euros, or perhaps 200 for a decent printer, who knows?!
Ye sure you can buy 3D printers now for 200 dollars, But those are cheap FDM printers, Print quality isnt good at all..
Sure its okay for now, but i hope we can atleast see something better over 10 years.
Useless topics meh :P
You do not need to wait to 2025 to get cheap 3d printer.
I can say, as competition gets broader the price will drop. Currently we have several companies competing with each other, even having autocad to make their own machine.
I predict we can see 300 dollar printer in just 1.5 to 2 years from now on, leading to avarage Joe having it.
I think some of the components of the printers cannot go much lower than they already are : motors, boards, bearings...
So in my opinion the only thing that we'll get better for a similar price are : service, software, assembly quality and design maturity.
There are ALWAYS ways to make things cheaper but inevitably you'll compromise : software, reliability, product assembly quality, durability, print volume... Another way to make it cheaper would be to subsidize it in the consumables cost... not so great either.
I can't see 3D printers dropping any lower than the $250 the MOD-t is currently at. I think this will be the bottom line. However, I do think that SLA printers will continue to drop, as they are still more than they could be. It's just the projectors that will remain a bit pricey
Looks like Makibox is going under now. Check out the thread in the reprap forum. I don't think it is a question of competition driving pricing anymore. These companies can't get parts for any cheaper and are probably making poor business decisions because of it.