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Worthless: 3D printing is nothing but a nerd fad that won't leave hobbyist workshops.

6 (3%)

Unimportant: 3D printing will become common but won't be useful for much other than tiny full plastic objects.

8 (4%)

Minor Importance: 3D printing will function as a light industry that will coexist with existing manufacturing methodologies.

43 (21.4%)

Moderate Importance: 3D printing will challenge and slowly replace a large number of existing manufacturing businesses.

104 (51.7%)

Major Importance: 3D printing will completely flip the table on conventional manufacturing and quickly destroy existing business for anything you can make with them.

20 (10%)

Critical: 3D printing will disrupt conventional ideals of work and money so much that they collapse and are replaced in a paradigm shift.

20 (10%)

Total Members Voted: 199

[Scelly9]

What's the likely plan to control this?

What do you mean?

[forsaken1111]

What's the likely plan to control this?

What do you mean?

He thinks you can control individual printers in people's homes, or somehow control information on the internet such as plans for dangerous things to print from said printers.

[i2amroy]

What's the likely plan to control this?

What do you mean?

He thinks you can control individual printers in people's homes, or somehow control information on the internet such as plans for dangerous things to print from said printers.

Technically the government did file an injunction against the website that was providing the 3D plans for the printed gun due to the fact that it's illegal to disperse weaponry blueprints like that, forcing the company to take it down. Within about an hour the plans then showed up on several torrent sites (which I am not going to link to), and there it will probably remain available until the end of time or the internet, whichever comes first.

[sneakey pete]

I'm not sure easily how you can print a printer. Generally you need something hot to make whatever you print with melt a lot or a little, therefor whatever you print with will be able to melt at the temperature you need to use to print.
I suppose you could solve this by printing ceramics for the hot parts of the printer and then heating it in a kiln, but that adds layers of complexity that are way beyond what you'd be doing with a home printer setup.

[Sheb]

Well, I'm not sure we'll ever get to fully replicating printers, but most of the printer could be printed by another copy of itself, you'd just need to put in a few motor and heating element afterward.

[SalmonGod]

It's already being done.  The motor and a couple other parts I can't remember (heating element probably) have to be bought seperately, but the rest can all be printed.

[Scoops Novel]

What's the likely plan to control this?

What do you mean?

He thinks you can control individual printers in people's homes, or somehow control information on the internet such as plans for dangerous things to print from said printers.

Christ. No, i don't think even the small chunk of manufacturing goodness this could at least give us is going to be something that no ones planned for, for dozens of reasons. We've already talked about the upset it could bring, i doubt that's faded from anyone's minds.

[RedKing]

Saw an ad for a Cube 3D printer in my SkyMall mag last week. 

Prices now are definitely getting down to where I could see light mfr co-ops starting up, especially in tech-heavy areas like RTP or Silicon Valley, where you have a bunch of geeks and tech-heads pooling money to buy some 3D printers and assorted gear and timesharing them to do their own pet projects. You were already beginning to see some of that around here with machine shops popping up with CAD software, industrial lathes, laser cutters, etc.

3D printers will just make things that much more cost-effective (for some items). You'll still need the lathes and cutters and welders if you wanted to make something robust. Although now that printers can do materials like glass and polycarbonate, you're starting to get closer and closer to being able to print your own lasers. Which is pretty damn sweet.

Also, as regards the heat question, I looked at currently available info on 3d printing metal. Shapeways can do items in stainless steel infused with bronze after the initial casting. According to their own site:

It is heatproof to 831C/1528F degrees

.

That's pretty damn impressive. It's lower than either bronze or stainless steel (I'm guessing it's an issue of differential thermal expansion causing the bronze and steel to seperate?) but still quite high and well high enough to withstand the heat levels to do thermoplastic melts.

[DWC]

What's the likely plan to control this?

What do you mean?

He thinks you can control individual printers in people's homes, or somehow control information on the internet such as plans for dangerous things to print from said printers.

Technically the government did file an injunction against the website that was providing the 3D plans for the printed gun due to the fact that it's illegal to disperse weaponry blueprints like that, forcing the company to take it down. Within about an hour the plans then showed up on several torrent sites (which I am not going to link to), and there it will probably remain available until the end of time or the internet, whichever comes first.

Really? This seems strange to me, because there are no specific laws against manufacturing firearms for personal use, I wonder why schematics relating to them would be illegal? Hell, you can go to Cabela's and buy a kit for a firearm to assemble and fit and finish it yourself and I'm sure it includes instructions on how to do so.

[Scelly9]

What's the likely plan to control this?

What do you mean?

He thinks you can control individual printers in people's homes, or somehow control information on the internet such as plans for dangerous things to print from said printers.

Technically the government did file an injunction against the website that was providing the 3D plans for the printed gun due to the fact that it's illegal to disperse weaponry blueprints like that, forcing the company to take it down. Within about an hour the plans then showed up on several torrent sites (which I am not going to link to), and there it will probably remain available until the end of time or the internet, whichever comes first.

Really? This seems strange to me, because there are no specific laws against manufacturing firearms for personal use, I wonder why schematics relating to them would be illegal? Hell, you can go to Cabela's and buy a kit for a firearm to assemble and fit and finish it yourself and I'm sure it includes instructions on how to do so.

I believe they sited "Weapons Trafficking" as the reason.