There have been lots of interesting ideas and new approaches to 3D printing lately, both in software and in hardware. We’ve seen new printer designs, improved slicing engines and new filament options. However, i feel that 3D printing is not exactly ready for the mass-market yet.
What part of 3D printing do you think still needs the most improvement to make it accessible to as many people as possible?
Personally, i think that one huge part is the reliability and repeatability of the printers themselves - stuff like leveling the bed should not be necessary and automated as much as possible. Also, if the Universal Filament Identification System would spawn at least a basic subset of critical parameters, filament could be universally swapped without the user having to find the proper parameters for each.
The other huge part would be software - maybe @Windows_8 .1’s printing driver will turn out to be the savior here, but nonetheless the process of exporting as stl, slicing and then printing is too work-intensive (and non-straightforward) for the average computer user. Slicing and printing should really be integrated into the same piece of software, preferrably with a one-click “3D print” button that sends your design from CAD to the slicer.
@Thomas_Sanladerer repetierhost is that integrated solution, and I believe there are others. Still there are way too many knobs to twiddle, worse, sometimes without sensible defaults, and much much worse all of them sometimes require twiddling.
Between firmware settings, slicer settings, printer host settings, all separate even under the repetierhost umbrella… Ugh.
Educating the public about 3D printing with walk-in print shops like Deezmaker or my own upcoming ArtLab will be critical to getting the ball rolling towards mass acceptance. Right now, most people see 3D printers via television/internet as opposed to in-person experiences (which leads to sensationalism like the news reporting on the Liberator.) We need places not only visible to the public to use 3D printers, but places outside universities to teach people of all backgrounds. The more boots we have on the ground, the more people will understand how awesome it is to use this technology to invent a modern solution to everyday problems. I agree with @Jasper_Janssen that, at the moment, stuff like bed leveling is a bit too tedious for everyday folks. That’s just a matter of time though. It’s about educating the entire public, not just college students & the random tech nerds who are willing to dig through forums just to find a solution to a print error. At least that’s my 2 cents.
I think Closed loop Feedback and subsequent auto adjustment on anything that moves would make a huge impact on the accessibility of the technology. Let’s be honest though, it’s the Makerbots and cubes and closed source whatever’s that will be the winners in the mass market IMO. They will be the ones working with Microsoft, pursing patent violations, finding ways to DRM purchasable models etc. I suppose the other question is what is the mass market? Does every home need a 3d printer? Not an FDM printer I suspect and if not FDM, then what? For me the current technology reaches maturity when someone (who wants to make stuff) can just insert an model (or scan something) click print and come back n hours later to a completed model that requires the very minimum of post processing, and then do that again and again. The only user intervention that should be required is inserting extra plastic or metal powder or leftovers or etc.
“You mean we have to learn new skills to participate in the upcoming manufacturing economy? Oh no!”
Reduction of the cost of the control electronics.
Several areas -
- cad design needs to be easy and inexpensive. SketchUp is by far the most intuitive to use of the ones I’ve tried but it isn’t sufficiently parametric.
- process flow needs to be clear and automated. Repetier is good but not far enough in the right direction. STL->printer space->slice->gcode->print. Hide too much and it becomes frustrating when you don’t know where an issue is occurring.
- parametric files for each major component so that no one has to teak settings. Think class drivers. Each spool has material characteristics, each hot end has heating, nozzle characteristics. Swap out a hot end and the results should be the same.
- self-leveling beds so prints start off right every time.
- as much as I hate to say it, some form of DRM, or the really interesting ones will only be available from printing services where you never get the model files. I much prefer open source but artists, engineers, and others that need to make a living won’t post their work.
The question is what are we willing to pay for all this?
@Mike_Ashcraft if you’re doing some smart sourcing, you can already get the whole set of electronics for less than 40€ (Arduino Mega 11€ on ebay, five Geeetech drivers for 15€, plus the Ramps shield, which sadly is unnecessarly expensive and carries about 3€ worth of components).
Yea thats the worst part. I’m planing on using a beta set of electronics that will run me $44 shipped and that includes every thing needed.
No SD printing or any thing but to start out its not bad.
@Thomas_Sanladerer You hit the main points I was going to mention in your first reply to yourself. Software does also need to quicker and easier to use. What @Daid_Braam is doing with Cura is going in the right direction, but one huge thing that’s missing is a way for printer manufacturers to distribute settings to their customers. None of the slicers I’ve tried have a half-decent way to distribute and import sets of configuration files. We have to tell customers to open up the folders where the slicer stores its preferences and replace them with ours manually. It’s fine if we still have to copy them out the way we do, but the slicers need to be able to batch import them. Slic3r, for instance, can still only export and import complete configurations, even though the settings are now (as they should be) broken into separate configurations for the printer, the filament, and the print settings.
@Mike_Ashcraft a full electronics kit is under a hundred bucks now — they’re not getting much cheaper until we get rid of steppers.
I really think that there needs to be a lot more focus on printers other than FDM. FDM is nice, but I think laser sintering, etc is eventually going to get us a lot more of what we gripe about. Repeatability, ease of use, support structure just by nature of the design, finer detail, etc.
@ThantiK Good point. OTOH, powder- and resin-based processes aren’t likely to be zero-cleanup (especially from low-cost machines) any time soon, while many FDM prints are. The use of gloves, masks and goggles seems to be advisable when removing these prints from the machine and cleaning them. That’s not desktop-friendly.
Oooo, if this is a wish list. Dear Santa, for Christmas this year, I would like the ability to dynamically alter slicer settings while printing, to speed up tuning/ calibration time. Currently I just paste in new gcode at the right line in repetier but it’s not exactly elegant. I know there are some things you don’t want to do half way through (like enable supports) but tweaking retracts etc would be very useful…
We need auto slicing with a simple drop down choice for all printers (API?). All printers need to be connected online for open API web services. Auto bed leveling. Simpler software interfaces and OS agnostic software (read: browser based UI). Cheaper filament across the board. Easy to use, cheap scanners. A new thingiverse competitor. Better customer service. All bots should be fully assembled, calibrated and tested.
This is the roadmap for Printrbot.
Brook
I’d say:
The price of the fillament (or resin)
The calibration process.( bed leveling an extruder distance from the bed.)
Standard profiles for different printers and materials in slic3r and skyinforge. (This will make a huge difference in the use of meters and meters of filament with bad test prints.)
None, i think people are still smart enough and don’t buy what they don’t need. Having 3d printer in household will only bring problems, this way or another. I hope we are still smart enough to rather buy new bike or skies or whatever makes us social and not making new problems for ourselves. I am a owner of it solely to complete my business and nothing more. It was a nice toy first 14 days though, guess like with every new "boys"toys.
I 100% disagree with you Matej. That perspective is very shortsighted. If a 9 year old girl can designed and printed her own jewelry with little aid from her parents (outside calibrating/setting up the machine) & my grandmother can reprint her faucet handles + other home repair respectively, the last thing 3D printers are is a “boy’s toy.”