From Guns to Pastries: How 3D Printing Will Change the Way We Make Practically Everything

Just wait until artists get their hands on this technology.

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From Guns to Pastries: How 3D Printing Will Change the Way We Make Practically Everything

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On April 4, 2014, Reason TV attended the Inside 3D Printing Conference and Expo, a three-day event held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

There we caught up with:

• Hod Lipson, an engineering professor at Cornell University, who compared the excitement swirling around the 3D printing industry to what it felt like to work in the computer industry in the 1970s.
• Brian Quan, the president of X-Object, who predicted that 3D printing will transform everything from toys to screwdrivers by making possible a "new organic creation process."
• Aleph Objects' Harris Kenny (a former Reason Foundation policy analyst), who discussed the power of open source design and how 3D printing is allowing scientists to create cheap prosthetics and lab equipment.
• Liz von Hasseln, the creative director of food products at 3D Systems, who demonstrated the new Chef Jet, which is the first 3D printer for pastry chefs.
• Scott McGowan of Solid Concepts, which created the first 3D-printed metal gun.

For more on how 3D printing will change the economy, read Greg Beato's column from the April 2014 issue of Reason magazine. 

About 7:20 minutes.

Produced by Jim Epstein; hosted by Naomi Brockwell.

Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube Channel to receive automatic updates when new material goes live.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

BAN IT.

[AlmightyJB]

Cleary you can't have this kind of power in the hands of the plebs. How would you regulate it? The horror!

[CampingInYourPark]

OT: "New evidence of voter fraud in North Carolina alleged"

Initial findings from the Board presented to the Joint Legislative Elections Oversight Committee Wednesday showed:

765 voters with an exact match of first and last name, date of birth, and last four digits of the social security number were registered in N.C. and another state, and voted in N.C. and the other state in the 2012 general election.
35,750 voters with the same first and last name and date of birth were registered in N.C. and another state, and voted in both states in the 2012 general election.
Those findings only include data from the 28 states which participated in the 2014 Interstate Crosscheck.

Additionally, during an audit of death records from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Board discovered 81 deceased voters that had voter activity after they died.

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/st.....id=9489311

[R C Dean]

FAKE SCANDAL!

[JWatts]

"Additionally, during an audit of death records from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Board discovered 81 deceased voters that had voter activity after they died."

Faithful Democratic voters don't let death stop them.

[Procrastinatus]

Yes. All Christians should vote Democrat, because God is a Democrat. I know this because all the dead people in my county consistently vote Democrat.

[sarcasmic]

Was I the only one who read "Pasties"?

[gimmeasammich]

WORST. INVENTION. EVER.

[AlmightyJB]

Pre-technological pixalation.

[Hillary's Clitdong]

I won't be happy until I can print an MG-42 in the privacy of my own home.

[gaoxiaen]

I already started on my fuel-injected 1957 Chevy Bel-Air convertible.

[JoeyJMiller]

3-D printed guns are not a big deal. Homemade firearms which are more durable and effective are already being made without 3-D printers.

[Alien Invader]

3-D printing will undoubtedly cause fundamental economic and political shifts on Fantasy Island.

[mad.casual]

I hope to God some of these people are salesmen and not engineers. What fucking far tangential reality do you live in where you think, "I don't have a screwdriver... I know, I'll build/buy a $200/$500/$5000/$30000 3D printer and $20 in plastic and print one!"?

I have no less than eight screwdrivers (not counting the ones that were lost or broken) and dozen hex wrenches that were given to me for free with whatever piece of unassembled furniture I bought. They chop and stamp them out of steel and plastic by the hundreds of thousands and the supply chains are optimized to the point that they cost pennies to produce. Worlds ahead of 3D printing.

Jesus H. Christ.

[mad.casual]

Finally, the wedding cake that I've had need of exactly one of in my lifetime can be printed at home stress-free! No more hassle of tasting a selection of cakes, pointing at the picture, and paying someone else to make it and deliver it. All I have to do is set up a 3D printer, clean it, collect the ingredients, control the temperature around the printer while it's printing, and clean the printer when it's done lest I get cake frosting mixed with my 3D printed screwdriver.

It's a (not-so) rapid prototyper people! If your application is *very* rapid, not so rapid, or not a prototype, this tool probably isn't the solution your looking for. If you need a custom fitted human trachea made of a never-before-seen biopolymer this might be the tool for you. Call me a luddite, but I don't see mass market appeal for custom printed, cake-batter contaminted internal organs.

[PaulW]

No offense, but I think you just have a poor imagination.

Imagine a world where you can print your own circuit boards, for example, or even processors.

Carbon fiber parts for your car? Pay for itself very quickly.

3D printed guns, pay for itself quickly.

The tech isn't there yet, but I mean come on.

You're basically the guy from yesteryear who was like why do I need a refrigerator sized device to add 504 + 333?

[Alien Invader]

...I think you just have a poor imagination

No offense, but do remember that unicorns also come from the imagination. Hate to say it, but he's right.

Do you even know anything about science and technology? Can you even begin to imagine the kind of utility hook-ups it would take, in order to allow a home "printer" to work with metals?

Metals do not melt at 212 F. I suggest you go check out the melting temperature of say AISI 1020 steel. Then think, for about 10 seconds, what it would take in order to work with molten metal in a home brew machine like this. You're talking about putting a mini-steel mill in your garage.

After you've check that out, come back and talk to us. We might be able to have a conversation that involved a healthy dose of reality, besides just fantasy and imagination.

[mad.casual]

For almost a half-century I could bounce in to any Radio Shack and use markers to fab my own boards for less than $20. The invention of the laser printer and OSS (or not) software has only made it that much simpler. Despite the fact that I can fab a board for < $20, nearly all of the boards in my home a) aren't custom and b) are cheaper than pretty much any custom shop could make for me and I'm better educated and more motivated than 99+% of the market.

Forget about the whole gun and go with a *very* simple, straightforward custom part for which there is high demand; a choke tube (Google if you don't know what it is). A high-end choke tube costs me $35, a budget choke tube is $10. You can't even melt the steel in your garage for $10.

I don't have a bias against the tech, it has applications. I have a bias against the arguable fraud used to generate hype and the stupidity that buys into it whole hog.

I know my imagination may be poor, but you sound like Eric Drexler lecturing to Nobelaureate Richard Smalley about how molecular assemblers will work.

[politicsbyothermeans]

And these confounded horseless carriages! What are they good for anyhow? Why, I can feed my horse for far less than a liter of petroleum distillate.

[mad.casual]

I know, right?

I have to drive my flying car at a pretty-steady 600 knots (that's 1100 kph for the luddites) in order to compete with the efficiency of your average horseman. That's *if* the jetpack congestion that day isn't too terrible.

[rxc]

I actually have a good practical use for this technology, but cannot find anyone who is willing to help me. I have a boat part that was manufactured by a (French) company that is out of business (guess why...), and I want to have a second one made. It is a simple piece of injection-molded plastic, about 3 inches in each direction, nothing complicated or intricate, but none of the local (Florida) solid-printing places want to deal with me. Probably because I only want one copy, and don't have a CAD drawing.

This technology will take off when there are the equivalent to Kinko's to do this sort of copying. No one wants to eat printed pastries (or pasties), and only someone with the need to evade detection wants a plastic gun. The rest of us are content with real metal.

[Alien Invader]

Go find somebody that has a laser profilometer, they can scan your part and then create a CAD model from that. It's no big deal.

Go look up MakerBot, they'll sell you a laser profilometer to go with their printer.

What you're asking for doesn't sound out of reach. Although, I can't see your part so I don't know how complex it is. But unless it's insanely complex (like maybe lots of both internal and external features that are vital to part function), I suspect there's a way to get what you want. It might take 2 or 3 scans off the profilometer, and somebody that's good with CAD models to merge the scans because I don't think software will do that for you yet. Though I may be wrong, maybe there is software to do that now. It's coming if it's not there yet.

[burnt]

You're probably SOL without a CAD model. If you have a detailed 2D drawing/print for the part, then you could try to hire the CAD model generation out through one of the engineering freelancer sites.

With a CAD model, Red Eye on Demand would be able to make it for you. Although, you'd have to figure out which plastic would be best for your application.

[burnt]

If it's not ridiculous, and you have a spec/drawing for the part, I could probably make the model for you.....

[Alien Invader]

This technology will take off when there are the equivalent to Kinko's to do this sort of copying.

A kinko's-like machine to do what you're talking about is just around the corner. Probably within the next couple of years it'll be a commercial item.

Even then, this 3-D printing thing isn't going to "take off", to anywhere near the extent the marketers and dreamers are now claiming. Think about it, who really needs this capability on a daily basis?

Nobody.

Once in while it's nice to be able to replace a plastic part, but you really can't make the whole world out of plastic. Home-grade metal printers (for anything beyond low power wiring traces) are a very long way off, and may never become practical for the hobbyist.

While some interesting things are yet to come of 3-D printing, it's really not going to revolutionize our economy and our political order, like the writer fools-who-know-not around here like to claim.

It's a craze. You know, kind of like the stock market going nuts. Eventually the bubble will burst.

[mad.casual]

WTF is a "Kinko's"?

[mad.casual]

damn squirrels clipped my /sarcasm tag.