3D printing is now reaching the inflection point, when it is moving from sophisticated early adopters to people who just want to print something in 3D for the obvious benefits. It will not be used for everything. The big idea is that it provides the choice between customisation and mass-production.
If you injection-mould for production in a factory the old fashioned way, the initial tooling will cost around $10 000. But it will cost just pennies for the raw material and machine-time for churning out copies. On a 3D printer, the first printed product will cost just $20, but there are no economies of scale.
Many products actually make more sense in small batches, not millions. Practically every consumer item you own has been prototyped on a 3D printer. Up to about a couple of decades ago, the only option was handcrafting the prototype. Today digital fabricators can bring automated processes and provide near perfect quality for small batches.
With conventional manufacturing, the more complicated a product is and the more changes you make, the more it costs. But with digital fabrication, it is the reverse.
Variety is free: it costs the same to make every product different, or to make them all the same.
Complexity is free: a minutely detailed product, with many fiddly little components, can be 3D printed as cheaply as a plain block of plastic.
Flexibility is free: changing a product after production has started means just a simple software tweak.
The whole 3-D printing process is almost magical to watch. The beauty is that you do not need to know how the machines do their work or how to optimise tool paths; software figures all that out. Just like with inexpensive 2D printers, you do not have to think about how your 3D printer works, only what you want to produce with it.
People make jewellery, geometric brainteasers and sculptures. Children ask for strange toys and they can be conjured up before their eyes, first on a screen and then in the real world.
Once you have a design on your computer, you can prototype a single copy on your desktop fabricator, or upload it to a commercial manufacturing service and generate thousands: essentially, you ‘print local’ on your home 3D printer and ‘print global’ using soon to be available cloud manufacturing services.
Take a look at MakerBot, a well-financed startup that is manufacturing affordable 3D printers. These are not kits – they do not require wrestling with software. Simple desktop applications turn CAD files into physical things as easily as printing a photo. The entry-level MakerBot Replicator is priced at $2199.
So far, HP, Epson, and other 2D printing giants have been content either to license technology or focus just on high-end professional printers. But it will not be long until consumer volume becomes big enough. In the next few years, the market will be ready for mainstream 3D printers that will cost $99 and be sold by the millions at Walmart and Costco.
Technology megatrends
Four mega-trends are shaping the technology future: genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence and nanotech – ‘GRIN’ is a useful acronym. Complicating this technology shift are the emerging global middle-class, environmental challenges, global warming and water scarcity.
Occupied with today’s ‘busyness’, most of us tend to think that outlandish future possibilities are far out. But I remind myself – my grandchildren will still be in their teens when these things emerge.
Two new books outline the revolutions that will occur in the next decade. ‘Our Molecular Future’ and ‘Forbidden Gates’. They discuss the exponential changes that are about to be wrought by the coming genetic, nanotechnology and robotic revolutions.
Genetics research includes, among other things, rewriting human DNA and combining men with beasts (?) to develop live non-humans to perform work that humans do not want or cannot do.
Leaps forward in computing power will fuel artificial intelligence and will create robots capable of independent thought, emotional response and reproduction, producing what effectively is a new species, ‘Robo Sapiens’. One supposes that we will need to redefine what it means to be human to deal with issues of robot rights.
On the bright side, computing power will jump to almost unimaginable levels, bringing hitherto undreamed of capacities to transform our environment and ourselves. How will this help us cope with climate changes, earthquakes and other extreme natural threats? What will happen to jobs, health care and investments when these revolutions arrive? It all remains to be seen.
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