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by brittohalloran 4703 days ago
Except that anything large enough or detailed enough to be worth printing takes many hours to run. Not a great "stop by and get something printed" use case. I think the best type of business here is a "upload your file and receive the part in the mail in 2 days".
2 comments
gte910h 4703 days ago
If only they had a way to package it up and get it to you...
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brittohalloran 4703 days ago
Right, but it doesn't make sense for it to be on a retail floor then. All the machines should be in a big Amazon style warehouse to share supplies, service support, programmers, etc...
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gte910h 4703 days ago
> but it doesn't make sense for it to be on a retail floor then

It's showmanship and a selling point.

many 3d printers smell aweful too. Doesn't mean they're not still a spectacle.

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matthudson 4703 days ago
Generally speaking, 3d printing doesn't smell that bad. In a well ventilated area many people can't even pick up on the smell at all.

It's certainly no worse than the an unfamiliar smell you may encounter in an automotive garage. To say it's awful is a tad much.

If you are talking about the most common types of 3d printers on the market today, polymer extrusion printers, the smell is entirely dependent on the polymer you are using. The two most commonly used are ABS and PLA.

ABS has a more potent and unpleasant odor, but it's really not that bad. PLA, derived from sugars, ranges from almost no smell to a neutral "cooking oil" smell.

I haven't had the pleasure of working with stereolithography or laser sintering printers (yet). But I'm willing to bet that stereolithography printers have no odor or at least less odor than polymer extrusion printers (they use UV light to heat up a resin, somewhat similar base material as extrusion printers but probably produces less of the "hot polymer smell").

On the other hand, I'd also be willing to bet that laser sintering printers produce a great deal of odor sometimes, as they heat up powdered base materials to produce metal and ceramic parts.

Of the three main types of 3d printing: polymer extrusion (aka full deposition), stereolithography, and laser sintering; only polymer extrusion has somewhat widespread consumer adoption (as of today), and it just doesn't smell that much.

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gte910h 4702 days ago
I had a ABS plastic printer on my desk. It was headache inducingly bad at times.

From a OSHA perspective, I believe abs printers at least should be externally vented.

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brianbreslin 4702 days ago
current technology is slow. but think about picking it up the next day? the machines could print out stuff over night. in a day you could print a handful of 7x7x7 sized objects for pickup the following day.
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