{"id":27233,"date":"2015-01-15T12:27:37","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T12:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/2015\/01\/15\/the-real-revolution-in-3d-printing-its-normal\/"},"modified":"2022-03-29T19:02:26","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T19:02:26","slug":"the-real-revolution-in-3d-printing-its-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/2015\/01\/15\/the-real-revolution-in-3d-printing-its-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Revolution in 3D Printing: It’s Normal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3D-printed-printer\" <\/picture><\/a>Reading through my email this morning I saw an update from the “maker” site\u00a0Instructables <\/a>and I glanced at it quickly: “how to make a 3D printable printer” And I thought, “just buy one, duh, blah, blah, blah how do people have time for this…” wait, 3D printable printer?” CLICK.<\/p>\n

So this 17 year old kid used his 3D Printer,\u00a0an arduino board and parts he scrounged from old DVD drives to make a 3D Printer. Read about it here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0This kid, wootin24, designed and built an X, Y, Z positioning device that could be fited with a dremel tool to be a CNC machine, or an extruder to be a 3D Printer. \u00a0No CAD experience, no formal engineering training, just a smart person. \u00a0And the ad that popped up on the side of the how-to this kid wrote was for a Dremel 3D Printer, available at Home Depot. Not some kickstarter funded rehash of an opensource\u00a0printer, Dremel. The big guys.\u00a0\u00a0As I was feeling bad about how I spent my time when I was 17 (I’m not going to go there but I never did become a the backup bass player for Rush nor did I get a second date from T—–) and starting to worry about how systems from very capable\u00a0companies like Dremel will impact our sales of Stratasys equipment,\u00a0I realized that the true revolution in 3D printing happened and most of us involved day-to-day in the industry didn’t even notice.<\/p>\n

3D Printing is Now Normal<\/h2>\n

When a revolutionary technology comes out there is a lot of hoopla and press. Tons of people start jumping on the bandwagon and your Aunt’s friend in Topeka is sending you links on Facebook about 3D Printing and how it is “going to change everything.” \u00a0Do not get\u00a0me started on how 3D Printing is not new, we’ve been doing it at PADT for over 20 years, and certainly do not ask about the “3D printed gun.\u00a0 The false-newness and fear-mongering stories are what the mainstream press picked up on. The good news is that the hype got the word out. And then smart people like this kid and the engineers at Dremel said “hmmm, that is useful. I can do something with this” and boom, the real revolution happened.<\/p>\n

After all these years this tool that was really a special tool used when needed, has become just another screwdriver in the toolbox. \u00a0A standard part of the process it is something most engineers understand well, and a majority of non-engineers are aware of. When we first started showing people our SLA machine back in the 90’s they would either not understand what they were looking at or become flabergasted and amazed, treating it more like a magic box than a fairly simple additive curing system. \u00a0Now when we give tours we hear “that one looks like the one we have in our office” or “oh yea, an Objet, I’d love to trade my older system in for one of those.” And the dreaded “oh, we have three of these in our robotics lab at school, do you have anything interesting?”<\/p>\n

\"3d-printers2\" <\/picture>
Amazon now has a section for all the 3D Printers they sell.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So What<\/h2>\n

There is a lot of power in 3D Printing. \u00a0That is the real reason why the technology has blossomed as it has. \u00a0The power of 3D Printing is that it lets you make physical objects without special equipment or knowledge<\/a>, the laser printer of manufacturing.\u00a0However, as long as the tool is treated as something to be used in special cases or as a mystical new magic bullet, it will not be used correctly. \u00a0Now that it is mainstream, the use of additive manufacturing\u00a0becomes mainstream and the power it brings to the table can be fully realized. \u00a0We see this every day at PADT. Product managers have “3D Printed Prototypes” as a standard line item in their budget templates. \u00a0Customers are increasingly talking about going back to their current product lines and identifying parts that are machined, injection molded, or cast and determining which can be replaced by 3D printed parts. \u00a0And most importantly, the\u00a0supply chain and quality people are sniffing around and starting to make paperwork to control and manage 3D Printed components.<\/p>\n

As proponents of the technology since the early days, we could not be happier than when we see a check box for “Created with additive manufacturing” on a quality form. When it becomes part of the <\/span>bureaucracy, the revolution has truly\u00a0happened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading through my email this morning I saw an update from the “maker” site\u00a0Instructables and I glanced at it quickly: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":27234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,23],"tags":[222,515,1011,1012,1013],"post-podcast":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27233"},{"taxonomy":"post-podcast","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-podcast?post=27233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}