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  1. #11
    "If, by some miracle, a prophet could describe the future exactly as it would happen, his predictions would sound so absurd, so far-fetched, that everyone would laugh him to scorn." -Arthur C. Clarke.

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke

    Both of these quotes describe 3D printing almost exactly, specifically the second. I look forward to a printer printing a printer. If I have enough solar panels (which are printable), and enough material, 1 printer can become 2, 2 can become 4, 4 can become 8, and in 30 doublings, you'd have over 1 billion printers, enough for nearly every home in the world. The standard of living worldwide will skyrocket, the costs of living will plummet, and a golden age may well begin.
    Last edited by 3LawsSafe; 03-08-2014 at 11:10 AM.

  2. #12
    I like to look at the past to predict the future. Case in point: some key patents to FDM printing ('glue gun' type) expired in 2009. Prior to that, the average cost of this type of printer was about 14,000USD. Now the average cost is 300USD, or just 2% of the costs only 5 years ago. The importance of this can not be overstated. Now, in 2014, key patents for selective laser sintering expired, and you can bet the same will happen to costs. The only question I have is can I pull enough energy to operate a laser in my home? To say nothing of the ignorant majority's fear of everyone printing a gun.

  3. #13
    Engineer
    Join Date
    Sep 2013
    Location
    New Jersey, USA
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    494
    Yes but there is a huge profit margin on filament. The plastic pellets to make a 750kg spool costs about $4 but the spools sell for $20 to $40.

  4. #14
    Student
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    Mar 2014
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    Washington State
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    I am a late adopter of technology. I have no plans to purchase a 3D printer within the next 5 years. Nevertheless, additive manufacturing will be wildly disruptive despite my absence in the market. Additive manufacturing may have been around since the 1990's, but it is just now being introduced to the general public. What is interesting about this time in history is that everyone knows what Google, YouTube and Facebook are as well as how to use them to learn new things quickly. Another interesting thing about this time in history is that we are on the cusp of virtual/augmented reality and accurate real time speech-to-speech translation (Google Glass, Oculus Rift, etc.). Therefore, we will witness an unprecedented international collaborative effort focused on improving 3D printing (additive manufacturing).

    3D printing is currently a hot subject at the academic level. However, the interest isn't limited to something as obvious as the materials sciences. On the country, every academic subject is interested -- no scratch that -- every academic subject is fascinated with 3D printing. And all that academic work is broadcast to nitwits like myself via easily consumable information sources such as YouTube, which causes my mind to dance through tangerine trees under marmalade skies. The internet is incubating a massive international "hive-mind" who(?) is highly motivated to innovate around the central idea of additive manufacturing.

    For those who think 3D printing is slow I would point out that additive manufacturing permits complexity at negligible additional cost. People will wrap their heads around that concept and start to innovate unexpected product markets (i.e. precisely built ceramic engines with hydrophobic surfaces that overcome sudden temperature changes). One day ceramic engines are a pipe dream, the next they are available for free download and 10,000 Chinese have printed them and tested them before the end of the day. In addition, additive manufacturing is currently capable of batch processing micro machines via optical fabrication. Also, the concept of swarm robots is interesting to consider when thinking of 3D printing scalability.

    Western innovations will be hampered by patent restrictions in the short term, however, developing nations probably won't worry too much about spending resources to enforce 1st world patents. In the short term, western universities and corporations will invent amazing 3D printing technologies. But soon those technologies will be 'borrowed' and billions of Chinese and Indians will leap right past western countries and open source almost everything. Then they will innovate on top of 1st world patents so quickly due to their massive collaborative ability that western multinationals won't be able to keep up. Eventually, westerners will wonder why we are protecting patent ideologies (it's an ideology, right?) when mass collaboration proves to be a much more efficient vehicle of market innovation.

    In the short term, 3-5 years, I think the mainstream press will be very disappointed with personal 3D printing. We may see a boom and bust in the personal 3D printer market. But during that time the hobbyist/maker community will slowly develop a critical mass of useful open source products (as well as a critical mass of intellectual property right infringements).

    In the mid term, 5-10 years, we will see corporations lobbying to fight for strict IP protections. Meanwhile, individuals will be breaking patents on a regular basis.

    In the longer term, 10-20 years, intellectual property will be largely irrelevant for anything that can be made at home. Companies with natural barriers to entry (Boeing) will retain their IP, but only because their products are too big to replicate and too necessary to bypass with alternate designs. Automobile manufacturers, however, will be on the ropes because autonomous vehicle systems will have made it possible to build cars lighter and cheaper without all the expensive safety equipment and heavy steel frames.

    In 20-40 years, who knows. There will be too many confluences of technological advancements to know which direction 3D printing will go. We might have virtual reality that is so realistic that physical objects provide a limited source of wealth. There might even be movements to have robots tear down buildings and return the land to nature while people live in hybrid reality, protected from the elements by small living spaces and fed by metabolized solar energy.

    Even though I believe in the disruptive abilities of 3D printing, I wonder how converging technologies will change our ways of thinking about physical objects.

  5. #15
    Technician ajperez's Avatar
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    Feb 2014
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    NJ
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    65
    Great timeline, as well as the replies.
    Regarding food 3D printing, the first point is that its widespread adoption would render supermarkets (if not restaurants) obsolete, not just give them a new source of food products.
    Also, food would not be printed out of thin air, we would need alternative protein sources to stop relying on slaughtering animals (Beyond Meat approach). Or, edible flesh could be produced via cell culture/3D printing (Modern Meadow's approach).
    Thanks for enticing the discussion.

    I follow food 3D printing at @foodfabbing

  6. #16
    Cool story bro :P Would love for it to be like this

  7. #17
    Now THIS is a good topic. The predictions you've come up with could end up being shockingly close, or way off the mark, but I do believe that the world will change quite a bit due to 3D printing, and also Artificial Intelligence. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately too, so this was a great read!! I've actually been designing my own 3D printed miniatures game that takes place in the future, and the backstory for the game will itself include 3D printing! Right now there are 3D printing technologies that can make much stronger titanium than the current SLS method, because the process actually raises the metal powder above the melting point, instead of below it as with SLS. Also, the cost of the powder is apparently going to be able to drop because of recent methods for making titanium powder that is closer to the ore itself, meaning much cheaper to produce because less modification is needed.

    I'm thinking that possibly by the year 2080, 3D printing and AI technologies could be to the point that an army of AI ULV (Unmanned Land Vehicles) could be created in a matter of days/hours instead of months/years to produce and train conventional military forces. Perhaps we could even have remote-controlled vehicles on other planets/moons/asteroids also, where it is too dangerous to have humans living, but instead we could control unmanned vehicles from orbit in a space station or other ship. This gets around the delay issues of controlling a mars probe from earth for instance. If you instead control it from orbit around mars, it would be a similar delay as a satellite above earth, right? So much closer to live control. Perhaps this could be a viable way to mine asteroids and moons/planets?

    3D printing technology is already getting faster too, so given decades of progress, there could likely be exponential increases in the speed of the process. At that point, it IS practical and justified to pay more in material/energy/maintenance to 3D print for mass production, IF you can afford the extra costs. If it were only 5 times faster it could be worth it, and by 2080 it could be even more.

    Oh, and one more idea, in response to the idea that "3D printing filament price will always be directly tied to oil costs" is not necessarily true, is it? PLA is becoming pretty widely used, and it is a resin made from corn, right? Plus, it doesn't emit the awful fumes that melted ABS plastic does. Also, there is the possibility of recycling plastic containers to make filament, cutting costs. So the filament price doesn't necessarily have be directly tied to oil prices.

  8. #18
    Banned
    Join Date
    May 2015
    Posts
    10
    Can people please do this survey for our class and share the survey as well. We are trying to get at least 100 response. One link is for people who have a 3D printer and the other is for people who don't have a 3D printer.
    Have Printer https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LN3GZ8D
    Don't have printer https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LYB69B6
    make sure to click on the correct link.

  9. #19
    A working mouse liver within 2 years is a stretch I think and human ones within 4 and full scale 4years after is all but impossible tale longer than that for the govt to decide it is safe and minutes after it does someone will be making fakes with knock off cells

  10. #20
    2016 is coming, it may come true.

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