I actually see the quality being the bigger problem than the price. You just can’t get some materials properties that you can get out of other manufacturing methods unless you can layer on atoms to get perfect microstructures. Which is exorbitantly difficult.
When a non-nerd friend of mine wanted to learn about the human bones of the skull while being in professional training she got them 3D printed. That’s an application that’s allowed through 3D printing being cheap enough and relevant 3D models of the bones being available. This use-case is not about creating the kind of objects we normally used beforehand but about creating new stuff.
With Microsoft shipping Paint 3D in Windows by default and Apple providing a 3D scanner with the iPhone X design of new objects gets easier and a broader amount of people will have access to it.
When VR gets better and people start to interact more with VR objects they likely want to print some of them.
With Voodoo Manufacturing print-on-demand is getting cheaper and giving that shipping costs will go down even more with self-driving vehicles this means that a single customer can go for $20 worth of 3D printed goods without having to buy his own 3D printer.
In a completely different field you businesses that produce a low number of parts like rocket companies who use more expensive 3D printers.
I actually see the quality being the bigger problem than the price. You just can’t get some materials properties that you can get out of other manufacturing methods unless you can layer on atoms to get perfect microstructures. Which is exorbitantly difficult.
Source: was a materials science student
I think there are three variables:
1) Price of the materials
2) Capability of the material
3) Complexity of designing new items
When a non-nerd friend of mine wanted to learn about the human bones of the skull while being in professional training she got them 3D printed. That’s an application that’s allowed through 3D printing being cheap enough and relevant 3D models of the bones being available. This use-case is not about creating the kind of objects we normally used beforehand but about creating new stuff.
With Microsoft shipping Paint 3D in Windows by default and Apple providing a 3D scanner with the iPhone X design of new objects gets easier and a broader amount of people will have access to it.
When VR gets better and people start to interact more with VR objects they likely want to print some of them.
With Voodoo Manufacturing print-on-demand is getting cheaper and giving that shipping costs will go down even more with self-driving vehicles this means that a single customer can go for $20 worth of 3D printed goods without having to buy his own 3D printer.
In a completely different field you businesses that produce a low number of parts like rocket companies who use more expensive 3D printers.