Why Buy A 3D Printer? | Traditional Manufacturing Vs. 3D Printing

[bshadown]

lol, all you guys talking about carbon foot print and whatever, when the reality is this: people in second and thirt world countries dont care about this, they care about having something to eat and having money to buy stuff, no mather if it was made by an eco-terrorist corporation who cares only for money or a peacefull 3d desingner trying to change the world, the truth is, if you really want to change the world you must first give stability to the people rather than corporations/politicians, and then change all the thecnology that people have access to and give them clean, organic and carbon-free process and products, and yeah right now 3d printing require 80-90% products coming, guess what, from china or japan, i know that becuse i live in mexico and people preffer a chinnese copy of an ipad than a california made ipad, they just want the shiny stuff. cheers

[bshadown]

....China is a country which has its advantage on producing. You can find many factories can help you on producing. But not all of them have good quality guarantee. You need to make a research more in the market....

sorry cant help to argue that, in china if you dont work all day long in the hardest conditions you dont eat the same happends in mexico, most of the workers on factories start at 7 am and finish theirs job at 5 pm, but at least 70% of the time they have to stay up to 10-11 pm becuase theres an "urgent job" to do, thats only an excuse to increase producttion and dont pay extra time to most workers, i know that becuase i was on that situation, im an enginner but i quit for that reason, my brother works on a office job and it supose he should work only 8 hours top, he works like 10 or 12 sometimes, so yeah if you think china is a great manufacturer, its becuase it gives all the pressure to its workers and they skip all the safety and enviromental procedures, just something to think about dont you think??. cheers

[LambdaFF]

Manufacturing high tech stuff in the EU is really hard now : with REACH and what not it's either really costly or nigh on impossible to manufacture stuff with exotic surface treatments.
Yes you can do it for cheap in China but :
- safety isn't their concern (see FOXCON plants exploding due to aluminum powder unchecked, tens of workers burnt to death for shiny ipads).
- environment isn't their concern (I can drink tape water at home and Chinese people can't).
So while I'm not much convinced by the eco-footprint talk either, I don't lose sight of the fact that somehow the cost of doing things tidily is either paid or not, a choice with its own consequences.

[Feign]

people preffer a chinnese copy of an ipad than a california made ipad, they just want the shiny stuff. cheers

I hate to break it to you, but there is no factory making iPads in California. All of them are made at Foxconn in China. Consequently, the faulty Chinese knockoff iPads are also made there, but they know Apple would send the faulty ones back to Foxconn for a refund if they shipped, so they just put a knockoff brand on them instead.

Also, working 50 and 60 hour work weeks happens in the USA too, sometimes in two jobs or lots of overtime to pay for student loan debt or the mortgage debt, car debt and other debts Americans get peer-pressured into as they try to appear more successful. And then there's those who try to own a business... I know folks who are working 14-15 hour days, six days a week just to try to get their small business to the point where they can feed themselves and just like others, pay on their debts. It's not the "be your own boss" kind of life that most people imagine.

[bshadown]

well, i concour with you Feign, apparently life its becoming harder and harder to archieve nowadays everywhere, and even when people try to go green the truth is we get more debt and headaches on our selfs, and our goverments should be working to improve the quality of life of their citinces but they are making it worse, i dont know hows on the states, but down here in mexico you guys looks like living a wonderfull life up there, i might be wrong and you guys have the same problems but hey the grass looks greener on the neighbor backyard, dont ya. cheers.

PS: yes i know all of them are made on china, but if they change the brand people "believe" the bad ones are made on china and good ones are made on california, on the states, its only the way most people see it, and lets be honest if you give the same device at a lower price, people wont care if they are faulty or not, they will only get a new one for the same low price.

[Feign]

Well don't despair, the cycle of debt to look successful followed by working unreasonable hours and stressing oneself to death has practically been an American tradition since the 1910s... With it almost actually collapsing everything in the 1930s. Like just about everything, economics goes in waves, it just happens that the cycle is a generational one, and our generation never experienced the last wave of despondency, so we think this is the first time life has taken one of these downturns and so we think it will go on forever.

Considering the era of the Great Depression was a time where America changed in a huge way (and the world, considering that the worldwide economic downturn of the time directly produced the facist nations that brought about World War 2), what we can be sure of is that we're in a time where huge sweeping changes of the way we look at the world are possible. Perhaps this time some ultimate advancement in 3D printing will be a big part of what turns things around. (rather than last time, where the ultimate technological product was the nuclear bomb)

Of course, also it may be different. I've heard it said that history doesn't repeat itself so much as that it seems to rhyme a lot.

[MakeX]

WOW! Are we out of this topic now?

For the manufacturing in China, I may bring you more news. Different marketing targets depends the different costing. If you want to produce a high level 3D printer, then you need to pay more. That is the low in the market. In China, there are many many manufactures which can accept your orders. It depends on what requirement you want from them. Take iPad for example, the manufacturing is in China. But it is still a very good product after it is make out. Why? This is because "Apple" give them high standard on producing.

Coming to 3D printer, this is a new industry around the world. In China, not all the manufactures companies can make it. But you still have more chances to pick out the most suitable ones for you. You give them the standard and make rules for them. This is the first step to guarantee the product quality.

Why buy a 3D printer? This is because it makes making prototype easier and faster. But the costing of making such devices is still high. And I do not believe some 3D printers which always state out that- their machine is the cheapest in the world. A good and high quality 3D printer will not be cheap. When coming to the price, I think there still a long way to go.

[Feign]

I agree quality still comes at a price, and quality will continue to come at a price even if one or more of the cheap printer crowd-funding startups succeed. I think we will see an actual market of 3D printers under $500 though because people will get realistic about what they need. For a one-off prototype or a tchotchke that someone will use as a basis to sand and paint and give as a gift, how high a quality is good enough?

Ink jet and Bubble Jet printers are arguably the top of 2D printer technology, and while they're ubiquitous, they're not an everyday use machine, and many people (myself included) have gone back a step to a Laser Printer for the speed and material longetivity (after having my inkjet printer tell me my nearly full ink cartridges were too dry to print and that I would need to spend another $60-$75 even though I printed maybe fifty pages total on the damn thing, I swear the biggest freaking scam in all the history of technology harblebrlblGRR) Anyway, it's gonna be like that for the average consumer, to have a cheap (Probably cheaper than the chipped material cartridges that it uses) 3D printer that gathers dust 99% of the time while they keep buying stuff the exact same way they do now.

And the thread was off topic from the first post, so I regret nothing.

[WiZE3D]

To much of your approval, WiZE3D now is offering 15+ consumer 3D printers! not just makerbot anymore. If you have any suggestions on how we can improve the site, or further empower the consumer, we'd love to here them!