North Atlantic Radio episode 16

Three-dimensional printing is on the cusp of going mainstream, and as parts get cheaper and cheaper it’s inevitable that access to these tools will become common place. How does this affect the way we shop, build parts, and make films?

Links

• Jay Leno
• Iron Man suit
• Thingiverse

Transcript

Welcome to North Atlantic Radio.

I’m your host, Brian Suda.

And in this episode, I’m going to talk all about 3D printing, rapid prototyping, and print-on-demand machines.

The sounds you just heard were a 3D printer in action.

I think the first time I saw a 3D printer, it was 1996 or 1997.

I was visiting the university, and in their engineering department, they had two rapid prototyping machines.

One cut out thin pieces of paper, which were then glued together to stack up the 3D model.

The other was a gooey solution that the laser would heat up the surface of, making it hard.

Then, it was submerged in the goo, and the process was repeated.

Slowly, the part was built up.

Both formats worked in identical ways with different mediums.

Ten plus years later, and that’s still the basic concept we’re using today, but now 3D printing isn’t the realm of huge corporations or universities.

Such hobbyists now have access to cheap, under $1,000 US dollar 3D printers.

There is a statistic that’s bantered around about the price of laser jet printers from 10 to 15 years ago, and how it compares to modern day 3D printers.

Laser jet printers used to be a few thousand dollars each, and now you can pick one up for cheaper than the cost of the toner.

That’s the same price curve that they’re predicting for 3D printers.

They will start off extremely expensive, but now are less than $1,000.

The next part of the curve predicts that 3D printers will become so cheap that there will be one in every household.

So how does this paradigm shift affect us?

Well, there are plenty of really interesting aspects to be able to print on demand.

One of the strangest use cases I’ve seen, but probably one of the more real world examples, was the comedian Jay Leno taking 10 minutes to talk about the joys of 3D printing.

This is an unlikely source because he isn’t exactly known for his technical background, but he does love classic cars.

And as cars age, parts tend to break, you know, that’s life, but it also means that it’s more and more difficult to get replacement parts.

Now, he can take the broken or missing part and quickly get them created in cheap plastic.

If that kind of fits and works, then it can be taken to a proper machine shop and a replica can be made in metal.

Maybe the plastic or printable metal versions can act as a cheap test or potentially a full replacement.

But it doesn’t stop there with creating mass market products.

In the movie Iron Man 2, the suit that actor Robert Downey Jr. wears isn’t just some suit that’s created for an actor.

It was created especially for him.

By taking measurements of his body, the plastic parts for the suit were created using a 3D printer to fit to him and only him exactly.

This allowed for the maximum value to be achieved from the design.

This isn’t just some Hollywood experiment in the future.

Print on demand might be as simple as visiting a website, finding the patterns that you like, and printing them at home.

Imagine you want to build that cool new LEGO spaceship.

Rather than going to the shops and paying for it, you could visit the website, pay a smaller fee, and print out just the pieces you need yourself.

It saves LEGO on manufacturing costs, supply, and transport.

The same idea holds true for accessories from just about any other toy, from army men to dolls.

If you want the latest and greatest new hat, you can print it yourself at home.

But what if we take it one more step?

In-game avatars, like your World of Warcraft character, are unique.

You’ve spent hours and days tweaking the look and feel to reflect your in-game personality.

What if you could download that figure’s 3D shape and print it at home?

You could not only be making new accessories, but new toys as well.

Big companies might not like this because then consumers aren’t buying all new toys just to get a hat.

But if they won’t offer such services, then other people will, and they’ll lose the potential sales altogether.

In fact, sites like Thingiverse have free downloadable plans for loads of stuff that people have already created.

As 3D printing becomes more and more popular, community sites will spring up all over the internet, focusing on different niche possibilities.

It’s exciting times for 3D printing, and I’m looking forward to creating loads of ideas, from new-style clock faces to models of my house to broken pieces from things I’ve got laying around.

Thanks for listening.

In the next episode, I’ll be discussing the 10K competition by A List Apart.

The competition is to submit a fancy web application in less than 10 kilobytes of HTML, with the help of a JavaScript library or two.

There’s already a few very interesting submissions.

As always, if you’ve enjoyed this episode or have any comments or questions, you can always reach us at our email, hello@northatlanticradio.com.

Thanks for listening.

Bye bye.