The Future of 3D Printing

The MakerBot Replicator- Arguably the most well-known consumer-grade 3D printer on the market

 

There has been a lot of talk in the past year about 3D printing, and a lot of hype. Recently, even President Obama weighed in on the topic. While 3D printers are fantastic tools with great potential, I think people are stretching a bit when they imagine a world where everyone has a 3D printer in their home.

 

3D printing will undoubtedly continue to have huge impacts on prototyping, small-batch manufacturing and hobby building, especially as machines and materials improve, and sooner rather than later I hope to have a printer sitting on my workbench. But the question I am interested to see answered is whether 3D printers will become a technology that makes it all the way down to the the consumer who isn't already inclined to have a set of tools and a workbench, as an alternative to purchasing things online or at the store. The hype right now says that this is inevitable.

The first thing that needs to happen is that printing a 3D part needs to be as simple as printing a pdf. That is, the steps would be: 1) Google the part you are looking for 2) Download the file (and likely pay for it) 3) Print it to the device. Right now, software is still not robust, the machines still require a lot of care and feeding compared to a standard ink-jet, and part databases are sparse and still require a lot of digging (they will need to become less like Napster, more like iTunes or Amazon.) I'm confident, however, that these problems will be solved in the next couple years.

With the technological barriers sorted out, what are the benefits to the consumer to have a 3D printer?

• Faster- The consumer can have a part in, say, 1hr instead of the 2 days it would take Amazon to deliver it, and they wouldn't have to leave their home.
  
• Cheaper- The notion that part files will remain largely free is unlikely, but there will be some that are free and others that will probably be cheaper than buying the whole part, even when material stock is included.
• Things that are otherwise unavailable- Maybe you start to see shops that only sell design files, or maybe you can find replacement parts when the OEM wants to sell you a whole assembly.

There are still a lot of drawbacks though.

• Materials- will consumers keep a library of materials to feed through their printers? Not everything can be made out of ABS, and some materials will never be printable. The consumer will often have to make a tradeoff for a less optimal material choice. Also, product design really is a science that requires great skill to create robust parts.
• Space and cost- 3D printers by definition require some volume of space; even if you could collapse it, it will still take up room. And even as prices keep dropping, a decent printer will run hundreds of dollars for the foreseeable future. 
• More assembly required- how many objects do you use that are only made out of plastic (or even out of a few materials for that matter)? Until you have systems that can also print copper traces and place circuit components or add things like rubber buttons or metal shafts (metal printing capabilities are certainly improving), you are still going to need to buy other components and spend the time assembling the final part. 

The need for further assembly is, I think, the biggest obstacle to 3D printers becoming mainstream with consumers, and why I see the fate of 3D printing tied to development labs, small manufacturers and hobbyists for the time being. For further reading, Make Magazine has a good article outlining the 3D printing scene, and Deloitte has some market research.