Where next for this developing technology?
3D printing is undeniably one of the more successful technologies to emerge in the last few years, having only recently become commercially viable. But at present, 3D printing is in its infancy. The vast majority of us have never touched a 3D printer or anything made by one. So is this a fad that will disappear once everyone who wants to try one has had a go, or are there big things in store? What, if anything, is the future of 3D printing?
Current Technology
It’s widely accepted that 3D printing is going to have a truly revolutionary impact in the manufacturing and medical sectors, where rapid prototypes will allow for quick innovation, and 3D printed bones and organs will make creating bespoke treatments as simple as clicking a button. But as optimistic and exciting as that is, it isn’t going to have a huge impact on most people’s daily lives. We’re interest in what will.
If you own a 3D printer, there are obvious applications for it that might make life simpler. If a piece of plastic breaks on something that’s either expensive or irritating to replace (a part inside your vacuum cleaner or the battery cover on your TV remote control, for instance), you could just scan the pieces in 3D, fuse them digitally and print yourself the part you need. This is the dream of 3D printing. It’s wasteful to throw out something large because a small piece of it breaks, but it’s also uneconomical for companies to sell small parts individually.
But that future relies on a number of things happening: first you have to buy a 3D printer, then you have to buy the materials to print with, and then you need a 3D scanner (or the item schematics) available and software that allows you to easily manipulate the items you want to create. You’ll have to print a lot of battery covers to recoup the cost of a full 3D printer in salvaged remote controls.
The price of 3D printers and their materials is, of course, dropping as economies of scale kick in and drag the technology out of the rarefied air of the enthusiast sector. But are they dropping enough? And if not, what’s the alternative? If 3D printing can’t be the same as it is now but cheaper, what might it be instead?
CES 2015
If you want to see what the future of consumer electronics looks like, there’s only one place to get that information: the Consumer Electronics Show. Held every January, the CES show brings together electronics manufacturers from every market sector to demonstrate their next big thing alongside proof-of-concepts and experimental prototypes. If you don’t see it here, it probably won’t exist any time soon. And if you do, it probably will.
The original 3Doodler – a 3D pen – was a hit on Kickstarter, having proven its capabilities and viability as a commercial model. The 3Doodler 2 was a similar hit at CES 2015. A quarter as large as the original and half the weight, the 3Doodler is perfect for making everything from 3D wireframes to simple 2D decoration. It’s debatable whether it’ll ever become essential in the home, but if the maker can keep refining and improving it, 3D pens such as the 3Doodler are sure to become far more common in the coming years.
But that’s not really a 3D printer in the conventional sense, so what about the standard idea of a desktop-bound box?
Budget 3D printing is certainly becoming a big industry. Everyone from MakerBot to Ultimaker to XYZprinting debuted their cheapest 3D printers ever, which should allow more casual interest in the form to be acted on. The ‘da Vinci Junior’ costs just $349 and has a build size of 5.9” cubed, weighs just over 11kg and can print from an SD card. The future of wireless printing, unsurprisingly, is affordability.
Elsewhere, Airwolf 3D introduced the AW3D HD-R, which is a wi-fi capable printer that can be controlled over the internet or from a smartphone app. Its build volume of 11” x 8” x 12” is pretty big, and it comes with a built-in camera so you can remotely monitor items as they’re being produced. Airwolf 3D clearly believes that wireless is a feature all 3D printers should have, because it also introduced an upgrade kit so users could add functionality to their existing Airwolf machines.
And finally, Voxel8 has found its own direction to take 3D printers in by producing a device that can 3D-print electronics by using a conductive silver ink to create circuitry within 3D items. The idea is in its infancy, but it’s not outside the realms of possibility to imagine that you might one day be able to create your own computer components by printing off the base and simply inserting the required chips and components. Proper DIY stuff.
Beyond Plastic
While 3D printing seems like a neat way to make small models and replacement bits, that’s not the only thing manufacturers are thinking of. Getting away from the standard idea of 3D printing, there are companies that are making 3D printers that don’t use plastic as their sculpting materials at all.
For example, XYZprinting’s Food Printer uses three different food pasts to create sweet or savoury items that can be printed into any 3D shape and then cooked and eaten like normal food. Similarly, the 3D Systems CocoJet can 3D print chocolate. At the moment, the technology is simplistic, but it’s not just designed to make Charlton Heston drool; it could also change the way you cook at home. A kitchen with a 3D printer rather than a microwave might yet happen.
And once you take the idea of 3D printing food to its logical conclusion, the possibilities seem endless. Imagine 3D printing a sandwich with its own filling or a pizza with its own topping or an edible replica of the Eiffel Tower, if that’s what you prefer. In theory, you could print nutritionally complete food so everything you eat has the right nutrients or combine the technology with a built-in oven or microwave, so it’s ready to eat from the moment you remove it from the printer. If that’s not futuristic, what is?
Last but not least, the Welder 3D printer promises to make emergency trips to the hardware shop to buy a particular-sized washer or screw a thing of the past. Created by students of the Delft University of Technology, the Welder prototype cost £650,000 to make but uses a combination of a welder and 3D printing parts to create metal items in a way that doesn’t involve poisonous fumes and industrial-grade lasers, like its industrial equivalents do. It’s still going to be a long time until you can stick one of these in your garage, but the technology could exist sooner than you think.
Of course, none of this guarantees that 3D printing will definitely stick with us, but with over 20 different commercial models already on the market, it’s clear that the commercial will for it to stick around is there. Maybe it’s time to become an early adopter?