Recently I have been disturbed by knee jerk negative reactions to things. Not just about 3D printing but about many new things or just in general. This creates a negative atmosphere and hampers creativity. I felt like this was another example of this. It is so hard to create things, requires so much energy, if we can’t help then we should at least not criticize. This is besides the fact that a lighter 3D printed colorful ramp is a much better solution than a piece of wood. Let me count the ways. Weight, Loud and Proud (maybe someone will notice this and it will help bring about permanent ramps,) This maker “created” them, karmic income for him. There is much wonderful in this. The comment I remarked on negative and unwarranted. I sought to make the poster blush and since this is a blog I can write whatever I damn well please. Ya follow me Skipper?
Better legislation in the States. As simple as that.
More importantly: They became less useful, because they were useful. Because people produced a lot of written stuff, depending on the household even on a daily basis. And the point was to get these documents now, on a case by case basis, with low numbers of copies. Very often there was only one copy. So outsourcing this to a real printer was pointless and not cost effective.
That’s why people had a decent cursive handwriting, which in turn got supplanted by them using a typewriter and those got crushed by personal printers once even 8-dot matrix printers became affordable.
Today, even the simplest inkjet printers can produce the kind of documents and simple pictures people used at home, but they still can’t produce a decent book or anything like a large print. Still not economically feasible, that’s why photo print companies are still in business and will be as long as people want to have a tangible memento or a large 1 m x 2 m print.
Yes, but we do not need them right now. The vast majority of things people have are already mass-produced or at least produced by professional workshops with a wide area of tools and materials. These products are vastly superior to 3D prints.
Anecdotal example: A couple of weeks ago I was actually considering of 3D-printing (at a shop, of course) an axle of one of my adhesive tape dispensers my kid hid in the house.
Not because I was thrifty, as printing it would have been as expensive as buying a new one, but because I didn’t want to throw away something that could be repaired easily.
Well, I simply wrote an e-mail to Tesa, who in turn sent me an axle free of charge.
But I digress: Even if I had gone the 3D-printing route, it would have been much more sensible to order this from a shop and have it sent.
Now, hobbyists, that’s a different matter. They might need fast prototyping or arrange themselves with the inherent problems of current 3D printing technologies.
Oh, by the way, yes, we need “things”. But we need drink and food even more and yet the vast majority of people have no need produce the stuff they consume at home. At best they buy various ingredients themselves and cook or bake them, but even among those it’s rare to find people who roast their coffee beans or make their own flour.
Edit: Besides, merely 3D-printing templates isn’t making. Otherwise, putting a frozen meal into the microwave would be cooking.
Yes, because you can’t print those at home. Even CAH recommends to “download the PDF and take it to a print shop” and “have them print the game on heavy, white card stock (80-pound or higher).”
and many very old buildings that would be difficult to adapt in ways sympathetic to the original design. that’s not to say it’s impossible, but it is more difficult to get right.
3D printers do not serve a good vehicle for mass production - definitely.
I have worked in engineering for 20 years. At my last job, the manufacturing floor was right outside my office. I had regular interaction with the people who were doing the actual manufacturing and who were very skillful with machining, soldiering, and gluing. This place also had a great shop for designing prototypes and retrofitting/adapting specialized parts for smaller production items or items that were just entering production and needed little kinks worked out still. They also had a 3D printer (nicknamed “God” because it could create anything.)
The 3D printer was used less than anything, mostly because the engineers did not know how to use it (except one, who was there briefly) and the shop people did not use computers in a sophisticated way.
However, at another place where engineers did have more CAD skills, the 3D printers were used for prototyping, especially for prototyping plastic items. With electrical engineering the choice of plastic affects heat dissipation, so it is good to examine different materials before dealing with the expensive process of having prototypes made by a plastic molding place.
I think for these online crowdsourced things, they have a great use for crowdsourcing design ideas.Let’s say this ramp gets perfected over the next few years by actual wheelchair users who try it in a bunch of cities with different kinds of streets. After a while, maybe the design is tested enough that it’s not getting updated much but we see lots of people printing out this great design.
There’s two options at this point - either it’s just too low of a population that needs these to ever put this into a mass manufacture, so it’s always going to be a one-off printed item OR someone takes this design and then starts mass producing it, which definitely makes more sense.
As far as whether it might be more accessible to start designing with wood, aluminum, metal, etc., well, there are times when plastic is really the best material for an item. For this one, I think lightweight but strong and resilient qualifies it for being a better choice. And while someone can share instructions for their woodcrafted, etc., item, no one can print out that exact existing design first and then base a new design off of that; it’s always going to be off a bit due to how each person interpreted the design and their skill level. Maybe for some things that’s not an issue, for others, it could be a big deal.
I also think that for a handicapped person, CAD design is probably something he can access more easily that metalworking or woodworking. I think it’s pretty exciting that a handicapped person can be a maker.
It’s nice to work with old time machinists who can take a rough sketch and then make a functioning metal machine. Too many people today couldn’t make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without a CAD file. Making them the gatekeepers, especially when they lack real world experience in fabrication, is a real step backwards.
Yes, that’d be a valid point, if there weren’t lots of post 1980 buildings that are utter shite w/ regards to accessibility. And lots of older, totally banal buildings of no special architectural value that got a refit and still have no ramps.
And old building or not: It’s totally unacceptable that, for example, a court isn’t accessible to a wheel chair user.
Because that wouldn’t lead to people tripping and falling or rain water backing up, or cars being able to drive right onto the sidewalk… etc
Something like this seems like the best solution. http://www.cnet.com/news/stair-climbing-wheelchair-turns-wheels-into-legs/
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