Beginning in June Staples will be the first major retailer to sell a 3D printer.
Beginning in June Staples will be the first major retailer to sell a 3D printer.
The price, $1299, is reasonable, but the printer will likely be capable of only making very small parts. Nonetheless, this is a start. The price will drop, and the capabilities will go up.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Beginning in June Staples will be the first major retailer to sell a 3D printer.
The price, $1299, is reasonable, but the printer will likely be capable of only making very small parts. Nonetheless, this is a start. The price will drop, and the capabilities will go up.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It also could mean a reduction in the price or increase in the availability of printing materials. Most people I know currently buy PLA and ABS on the Internet and have it shipped.
Now if someone comes up with an affordable 3D scanner, things will really take off.
Oh, they’re around.. most of them are Kinect based.. but it still takes a fair amount of skill to turn a point cloud into a 3d model which the printer can print.
My apologies. I should have said affordable and accessible. When the average person can have what amounts to a machine shop on their desk for a couple – three thousand dollars, and able to take credit cards (now available), there’s going to be a whole new industry. The potential is mind boggling.
We’re a long way away from that. 3D printers are neat, but they’re just another tool in the toolbox.
Absolutely. With a 3D printer you don’t first have to make a mold which makes it more accessible to more people. But it’s not the best tool for high production.
It reminds me of that saying that if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
There are many niche markets (model building, for example) where you don’t need high production to make a nice profit. The introduction of consumer – grade 3D printers and scanners is going to open a world of possibilities. I expect to see magazines devoted to hobbyist 3D printing this year (if they don’t already exist).
I’m still seeing this as a niche market. The materials are high cost, you can’t make anything of much size, they take all night to print one thing, and most importantly, there is too steep a learning curve to make anything useful easily. I see this as a boon to people already in the business of making small prototypes for R&D, but other then that, its for geeks only. Even if the price drops significantly to lets say $300, how many people want to spend $300 to make $5 items? After all, its not like a machine shop at all. It only produces plastic.
Can’t wait for the more advanced (& lower-cost) 3D printers to come out – I’ll snap one up & “print out” a Ferrari for myself – or would that be copyright infrigement ??