Quote:
Originally Posted by HPLovecraft
I'm just a little confused. The video made this tech seem like a wonder product. Super easy and completely practical. I mean, the wrench WORKED.
So why isn't this far more prevalent, and why hasn't the company already exploded into a building full of money? Something doesn't seem right here. Did it take 6 months for the wrench to solidify or something?
|
Well the wrench, while strong enough to tighten a bolt a bit, wouldn't be nearly as strong as a metal one with that powder (though there's other 3D printing that actually use metals).
It's great for prototyping, or custom work of small batches, but it doesn't scale well.. The process is slow, imagine how many wrenches a wrench factory turns out, probably thousands in the time it took to print that one.
Plus the cost of the custom materials that let the printing work as well as it does are probably much higher than the cost of a simple metal or plastic in a mass production setup.
Still, very cool stuff and already there are businesses around it:
http://www.shapeways.com/
http://www.figureprints.com/
And as the costs come down and the products improve, they'll get used more and more.