An invention that makes the nation of China redundant

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3D printers will not melt and bend metal.

ruveyn

I've seen a 3-D printer in action. It takes 12-14 hours to make a very simple composition. At this point, it isn't a very practical device. Of course, we may be referencing different devices.

The first 3D "printed" car just came out this year:

Urbee

Next up, printed organs.

A "3 d printer" can shape plastic but it cannot make the plastic it shapes. One needs gigantic cracking facilities that make plastic polymers from petroleum. Also 3 d printers cannot drill for oil or mine coal.

ruveyn

So what? A lathe cannot make the steel(or wood) that it mills.

My very point. No one machine or variety of machine by itself can manufacture the stuff we need. It takes theory, planning, engineering, extracting, hauling, shipping, smelting, melting, bending and pounding to make the stuff. It cannot be trivially automated.

ruveyn

No disagreement there. I dont think these devices do anything remarkable to the relevancy of China. They'll have some minor effect on society though, just as the open source movement is.

I never said that. It probably just makes sculptures of objects based on 3D computer mapping. That's kind of cool.

Cool and mostly useless since our heavy duty vehicles are made of metal.

ruveyn

They are already working with metal that have low melting point, such Wood's metal, with the RepRap. Soon it can be used to print circuit boards.

Given the fact RepRap is quite capable with printing plastics, how can it not make a dent on China's economy once its widespread in the West? Surely being able to print your cheap plastic goods at home is cheaper than doing it overseas, since not a cent of labor cost is involved. It will begin with the toys industry, which is like 99% Chinese manufactured anyway.

You have to remember that ruveyn is an old man, and they have trouble seeing possibilities beyond their life spans. He forgets that autobodies are often produced with laminates such as fiberglass and carbon fiber, and if hes looked at a freightliner in the last 20 years, he'd know that the bulk of the shell isn't press formed steel. Sure. the chassis is formed of custom shaped heavy C or D channels, but that refinement only happened in his life time.

The advent of large scale 3D printers means that automobiles will transcend that and we will return to the era of unibody construction, something else he seems to have forgotten about.

A hundred and 50 years ago he would be one of the guys that wouldnt believe in cable stayed bridges. Some day we wont use steel in those either. I bet he replies to deny it.

You are so right. It's understandable that someone who witnessed the first ARPANET would've thought: "an online forum for discussing autism for anyone around the world!? Not in my lifetime!"

A lot of them might just don't know they are on the spectrum.

But seriously, do so many of you really think that it'll have a cost advantage? I think it's very useful for prototyping and looks promising for highly customized designs. I'm not so sure about mass production though.

Of course not, but its not about mass production any more than desktop publishing was about mass production. Did we all start writing books and scoring music? Of course not. But the effects were undeniable.

That is true. A prototyping tool is likely to lead to more new ideas being formulated and of those, some of them being implemented. There is no harm in providing the tools by which creativity and originality might be expressed and even brought to fruition.

I think a "3 d printer" is a nifty tool but, as you say, it is not mass production per se.

ruveyn

ruveyn

Agreed. I just don't think it'll make the nation of China redundant.