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**a64pilot** · 16-10-2014, 12:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by zboss

Conceptually speaking, you could print most of your own 3d printer, .

First real Von Neumann machine?

HopCar · 16-10-2014, 12:31

"Sometimes you have to wait for a few years for different specialties to catch up but there is a real demand for 3d printing and if you are a dinghy manufacturer or small boat company you should be worried."

Most people won't have a printer big enough to print a dinghy or the design skills to program it. I do see the dinghy manufacturer being able to offer hundreds of designs and make custom changes for each customer.

Some people will want to design their own dinghy and will bring the design to who ever owns the big printer and pay to have it printed.

I bet we'll see shops like "Kinko's 3D" in our neighborhoods. You need a part for something, the manufactures just sends you the data, you send it to the Kinko's 3D down the block, you pick up your part tomorrow.

Damn it. Now I'll have to lose weight and exercise so I'll live long enough to see it.

sailorboy1 · 16-10-2014, 12:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by ontherocks83

When the printers get smaller people are going to want to keep them on board to make parts that break.

When the $500/mo "go simple" people on a 1970s 27' boat see this they will go crazy

Think it would print water?

ontherocks83 · 16-10-2014, 13:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

When the $500/mo "go simple" people on a 1970s 27' boat see this they will go crazy

Think it would print water?

I can just hear it now.

"saililng is an inherent risk, if you want to stay safe and be prepared for anything just stay home."

Reiziger · 16-10-2014, 13:21

How Dutch team is 3D-printing a full-sized house.....

How Dutch team is 3D-printing a full-sized house

zboss · 16-10-2014, 13:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by HopCar

"Sometimes you have to wait for a few years for different specialties to catch up but there is a real demand for 3d printing and if you are a dinghy manufacturer or small boat company you should be worried."

Most people won't have a printer big enough to print a dinghy or the design skills to program it. I do see the dinghy manufacturer being able to offer hundreds of designs and make custom changes for each customer.

Some people will want to design their own dinghy and will bring the design to who ever owns the big printer and pay to have it printed.

I bet we'll see shops like "Kinko's 3D" in our neighborhoods. You need a part for something, the manufactures just sends you the data, you send it to the Kinko's 3D down the block, you pick up your part tomorrow.

Damn it. Now I'll have to lose weight and exercise so I'll live long enough to see it.

That will certainly be true for speciality materials but not for 95% of the printing out there. I have not seen a kinkos for years. Basic 3d printers now cost as much as laser printers did 10 years ago.

You won't have to buy the plans for anything, people design and give them out for free.

I know its hard to grasp for us older folks but the young engineers I lead give away their code all the time. Look at OpenCPN. They work in loosely collaborative, slightly organized groups. As long as a small number of rules are followed, they are very good at breaking up large projects into their constituent components. They prefer to live in a world that is more agile and "open source" than the world we were brought up in. In their world designs evolve literally overnight and for free, its the ultimate open market. "Proprietary, copyrighted, and trademarked" are terms of the old world.

I envision a maker site that contains dozens if not hundreds of full boat designs, each with differing material specifications and design requirements. If a winch goes bust why bother fixing it, print a new one.

Heck, once someone builds an algorithm to designing basic hull designs you don't even have to know how to design the thing, you only have to tweak some parameters and viola' you have a new design and the software figures out how to cut it up into small printable pieces for easy assembly. This is not new, they are doing right now.

Maker culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Helios · 16-10-2014, 14:01

Don't hold your breath. The majority of 3D printing technologies on the market have severe limitations over standard manufacturing methods. Additionally almost all printers can only print only one material at a time. Bio medical and aerospace are currently the only industries using additive manufacturing for real world products on very small volumes i.e. custom hip implants and intricate engine components that would otherwise take a huge amount of machining time. Large relatively cheap parts (boat hulls) Will continue to be made with a mold and laid up by hand for atleast the next decade, probably longer.

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**atoll** · 16-10-2014, 14:12

why not just use LEGO...........

avb3 · 16-10-2014, 14:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by atoll

why not just use LEGO...........

Now there's a company that should be concerned about the disruption of 3D printing and how it will affect their business.

**StuM** · 16-10-2014, 15:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by zboss

Conceptually speaking, you could print most of your own 3d printer, whatever the size, starting with a desktop version and assembling it from small parts.

It's way beyond the concept stage:

http://reprap.org/

zboss · 16-10-2014, 15:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helios

Don't hold your breath. The majority of 3D printing technologies on the market have severe limitations over standard manufacturing methods.

For now - but that's mostly because most folks can't predict (myself included) how new techniques develop that wipe away the old techniques. Think about when the first steel structured high rise was constructed. No one thought it could be done. The company had to come up with a whole new method of manufacturing. Think about how they build carbon fiber parts.

Forget about what is a problem - all problems can be solved. Don't even think about cost. Its been my experience that cost doesn't matter if the solution is (a)viable (b)needed bad enough - somehow the money always appears.

Like I said, we start with a vision of what we CAN do now and build on it as the technology develops. I see no reason the entire interior could not be built with 3d printed plastics. Forget about durability - we are talking prototypes here. The materials that can be printed may not be strong enough to build everything but they certainly plausible for quite a bit. Forget about the materials issue as they will develop and the price will drop as the technology matures.

Can anyone explain to me why a hella fan (not including the engine and wiring of course) cannot be printed by a 3d printer? What's special about a hella fan?

How about a kitchen sink? What's so special about that.
What about a lighting fixture, a faucet, shelving?
Why not the interior fixtures?
A port?

None of these have to be especially durable. If they break you melt them down and print another one.

Everyone here is so focused on the technology they forget about who has the expertise to do it and what processes need to be followed to bring it to fruition... not that I am saying that this discussion is anything more than that.

Hm... here is a 3d printer that prints laminate paper. I'm guessing you could spray resin into cabosil.

http://www.gizmag.com/mcor-iris-paper-3d-printer/32903/