Three-D printers have the potential to spark a revolution of creativity and self-sufficiency.

It looks like this: you use your last drywall anchor in the middle of a shelving project and, instead of running to the hardware store, you turn on the printer. You design a nightlight in the shape of your child’s favorite animal and you turn on the printer. You need a spare house key and you turn on the printer. It’s going to happen, but there’s one big thing holding us back. Today, a decent 3-D printer costs at least $1,500.

A price tag alone can delay a revolution.

Two reasons caused regular computer printers to catch on—a development that took more than thirty years: The cost went down far enough that most could afford to buy one and printing shops opened up for those who couldn’t. The same changes are already starting to occur in the world of 3-D printing.

Bringing down prices
This month, Matt Strong, a product developer in Pleasant Grove, Utah, started a campaign on Kickstarter to build and sell a clone of the MakerBot Replicator, one of the most popular 3-D printers on the market for hobbyists. He’s altering the design a bit here and there and renaming it the TangiBot, but the biggest change is the price. He wants to sell his machine for nearly a third less money than MakerBot.

The Replicator’s design is licensed as open-source hardware and it’s available for anyone to see and use. “All the data was there in some form, but I had to go through and clean it up and verify the materials,” says Strong.

The main thing he wanted to do was find a cheaper way to produce it, namely by setting up an assembly line in China.

Critics have accused Strong of working against the spirit of open source by trying to resell a product without contributing anything to its design. However, Strong says that he is applying creativity where it is most needed—in the printer’s manufacturing.

“The way something is assembled is absolutely additive. That’s how prices come down,” he says. “A lot of people want to see the project taken down. I’m not going to do that.”

Strong has caused some alarm in the open-source community (though MakerBot itself has maintained a diplomatic silence). So far, he has reached less than 10 percent of his funding goal on Kickstarter. But even if his project fails, he has loudly declared that the MakerBot could be manufactured for less, and it’s only a matter of time before someone does it.

A lesson from history

Such a development could very well push the price down to about $1,000 in the near future, which is the same amount you would have paid for Hewlett Packard’s first personal DeskJet in 1988. At that price, HP was able to sell enough printers to awaken a whole new market and from there on out prices plummeted. Those who still could not afford to buy a printer benefited from a relatively new service. By the nineties, Kinko’s copy stores were selling printouts by the page.

This trend is just emerging with 3-D printing. A passerby looking through the window into Diane’s Mail Room, a shipping provider in Buckley, Wash., can see the 3D Touch, a $4,000 double-headed 3-D printer, next to the laser printers and inkjets.

“We’re probably the most innovative mailbox store you’ve ever seen,” says owner Ted Griffiths. “We’re probably the only retail store in America that’s got one.”

7 Comments

1. 1. Acoyauh2 03:50 PM 8/28/12

   Uh... no, we wouldn't type out each copy - we used to photocopy them instead. Xerox has been around for a while, y'know. 50's I believe. Before that...? Ok, ok, type 'em out - a good point.
   Interesting article; I just wish we won't have to wait as much as five (or ten) years for this to happen...

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2. 2. hughrutledge 04:04 PM 8/28/12

   carbon paper.

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3. 3. Bob_CA 04:25 PM 8/28/12

   Hugh beat me to the obvious one, but I guess this writer is a LOT younger than me. In school, most of the tests I took were mimeographed. THAT was the mass printing technology that was really widespread before copy machines became affordable.
   
   With regard to the printer, I have no problem with trying to produce the MakerBot for less, but having something developed by individuals for open source efforts mass-produced in China is offensive in the extreme. I seldom wish failure on someone, but I sincerely hope this wrong-headed effort crashes and burns. Besides, one of the main goals of this movement is that to the greatest extent possible, the printer be able to produce copies of itself. This is supposed to be about "making" not buying from China.

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4. 4. Steve3 12:19 PM 8/29/12

   I second Bob on the concepts of auto-replication and "making" not importing.

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5. 5. Daniel35 03:04 PM 8/29/12

   I'd be happy with having 3-D printers at Kinko's, and having the software needed to draw, in pseudo 3-D, what I want. I'd also be happy with a directory to show that most of what I want is probably already available somewhere nearby, perhaps needing reasemmbly. If the printers are private, what new kinds of weapons are going to be perhaps mass-produced?

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6. 6. singing flea 04:09 PM 8/29/12

   3D printing will be a niche market for many years to come. There is very few practical applications for such a device in the home. Some business can possibly make use of one but that will not make a mass market for the devices. The biggest problem with these machines is the software. As a graphics artist who specializes in 3D design, I can only say that the average computer user has absolutely no idea how complicated 3D design really is. Unless you want to use copyrighted designs that you have to purchase and then are only licensed for non-commercial use, you are going to need software that cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars and you are going to have to spend years mastering the software so you can create intricate designs good enough to rival engineered mass produced parts already on the market.
   
   The examples given in the article are really lame. You could spend hours trying to design and print a drywall anchor that costs 10 cents. The same goes for a key that costs a dollar to copy on a key duplicator and if that key is made of easy melt plastic, good luck getting more then a few uses out of it. Don't forget, just to make that key you will need another device to measure and map it to a tolerance of a thousandth of an inch.
   
   Just try and design a 3D animal for a lamp shade sometime. Unless you have access to designs other artist spent hours or even days perfecting, it simple isn't all that easy.
   
   I am not trying to say we will never have the technology to make a economical 3D printer, but take a look around at ant flea market or second hand store, there is literally millions of perfectly good 2D photo printers for sale simple because most people just don't have the time to bother printing out pictures they can view much better on a big screen TV, or for that matter the camera they took the pictures with.
   
   The fact of the matter is that until businesses and home owners come up with a practical application beyond the novelty market at the county fair, this technology will never be more then a pipe dream.
   
   
   
   

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7. 7. vidvicar 10:54 PM 8/29/12

   Current technology for "home use" is limited. The machines require programing and the materials are not very durable or strong.
   
   There is 3D tech using metal powders that is more durable. Perhaps not as strong as molded or forged, but strong enough for certain uses.
   
   To bring the cost down through advancing the techniques of creating the machines is a good start.
   
   Lets go a little farther out on the limb. Suppose a company offers a modified home version of high-end 3D printing machinery not for purchase, but rental. The maker sells access rights to other companies. For example, a car manufacturer creates the program to duplicate your car key in metal deposit. If you have the machine the car company can pay a fee to the maker of the machine to electronically put the specs onto your machine to duplicate your car key. If your key gets lost or stolen, you can then electronically ask your car dealer to create a duplicate on your home machine. If not entirely as durable as the original, it could get you through long enough to having that 3D print duplicated at a key shop later.
   
   The consumer doesn't pay the full cost of the machine, it remains the property of the company producing it. That company makes it's money off licensing rights to other companies.
   
   Party planners sending specs to create plates and silverware for the occasion. (Possibly recyclable materials the homeowner gets credit for.) A small part to fix a home device (many people would pay a small mark-up rather than drive around to find the part.) Sculpted artwork - if it's in the catalog, why spend the gas, buy on line. Guitar picks! Stakes to mark bulb plantings. There are many things companies can offer as incentives and benefits.
   
   The point is that the cost of the equipment doesn't have to be born by the homeowner. The equipment is rented to them. The manufacturer gets reimbursed through contracts with other companies that use the technology to help the homeowner. There might even be various subscription plans available to the homeowner.
   
   Once the technology is there to use, uses will be created that provide financial benefit.
   
   The public is drawn to the easy life. They don't pay for the printer, just the item with a small mark-up.
   
   If they are savvy enough to program it, so much the better for them. But the way to push this is not through just lowering the cost to buy the machine. It is through creating the uses for it.
   
   The guy who "invented" toothpicks gave them away until people expected to have them available. Then he had a market.

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