3d printers haven’t changed that much… they’ve gotten easier to use, sure, but the materials and quality we’re printing is about the same as 10 years ago.
3d printers have changed significantly. They used to be very finicky and hard to get a decent print. Lots of tweaking and it was different for every printer.
They have evolved into true click and forget machines.
I tear apart medical and other machines to recycle parts. I do often see 3d printed parts inside commercial machines, probably because they are making so few of them and it's more economical to just print a couple specialized parts.
Most 3D printed parts have a telltale texture resulting from the layer-by-layer deposit of material. The same goes for many milled/CNCed parts bearing evidence of tool marks. Once you've seen and held enough, it's relatively easy to identify whether a given part was printed, cast, milled, lathed, etc.
I say most because there are finishing methods which can largely obscure these details and make it less obvious as to which method produced a given part.
Maybe it was 20? I just remember they took expense fluids, hard to keep, fragile.
Then month ago I was in a Micro Center, and there were dozens of very fancy printers that could take dozens of types of line feeds.
Feels like 3D printers have changed. A slicer from 10 years ago is not going to generate as good a print as one from today. And it feels like the variety of filaments from 10 years ago has greatly changed.
When I look at 3d printing advancements, I have hard time not thinking that with scaled up to houses, they wont have similar advancements, with time and resources.
Kind of like Steam Engines. After the Steam Engine was invented, it took many decades to dial it in to the large 'more' efficient models we are familiar with. It seems like large 3d printing will take a similar time period to grow to industrial levels.
Even the Iphone, wasn't that great at the beginning.
Maybe my overall point. They have made an entire neighborhood with a 3d printer. That seems to be now over the hump of proof of concept, and now there can be steady improvements.
Early attempts always look gimmicki.
Putting a camera in a phone, crazy, who needs it, just a gimmick. I use my phone to dial numbers and make calls.
This looks like it has a lot of room to grow and adapt. Materials change.
Just look at how 3d printers have changed in 10 years.