www.slashgear.com: 3D printers have come a long way in recent years, allowing users to print just about anything they can think of. Typically, this leads folks to use them for fun hobby-based projects, like miniatures and environments for tabletop games, fidget toys, and other trinkets with little use.
5 comments:
Custom tools can be expensive and the ability to 3D print your own designs allows for endless innovation. Of the tools mentioned in this article I particularly liked the 3D printed vise grip. Shops always have oddly shaped tables that somehow never fit any form of clamp or vise securely. Creating customizable clamps could allow easy and truly convenient tools that work for your specific space. The one downside as the article mentioned is the durability of the 3D printed filament. There are currently some metal 3D printers that are beginning to be manufactured for the mainstream workforce rather than just high class machinery. Being able to create vices and clamps out of metal rather than plastic filament would fix most of the major durability and load problems. Although we might still be a couple years out from smaller manufacturing shops owning their own metal 3D printers, plastic filament can still create some pretty useful tools.
I often tend to come across videos or articles about the usefulness of 3D printers. I tend to think about the printers in terms of being used for crafting and for use in mechanical projects. There are many mundane problems that can be fixed with the application of 3D printed solutions. One problem I have found with some of these solutions is that the models can break under stress depending on the materials used. While there are metal 3D printers they aren’t available to the average person. Paying attention to the forces that will be working on the structure will improve the chance that it will work how you need it to. Like the article mentioned about the printed vise some things can’t be used for shop use but only for light-duty contexts. Maybe if I had my own printer I would be able to create models that would improve my life and solve problems like cable management or a way to organize my tools.
Honestly this is all super useful and good to keep in mind! People can now custom print some of these tools if they need to fit certain shapes and surfaces and I feel like that technology is often very overlooked when it is actually super useful. This is coming from someone who has thought about it, but not really too much in depth before this article. As long as the material used to 3D print is also strong enough to take whatever task is needed of the tool, you could practically create any tool of any size, shape, form, etc to fit anything and any task. The possibilities are endless and insane! On top of that, the technology is still advancing, and I’m sure one day material will also no longer be a limitation. I honestly can’t wait to see what people accomplish with this in the future and I hope more people keep an eye and utilize the useful tool that is 3D printing.
Since I started to see 3D printers used widely in our world I have thought, "What are ways that these printers can be used to make tools?". Though I quickly realized in high school after printing a wrench that the tools that you can make are severely limited by the quality of the printer that you are using, and the type of material you are printing with. After doing more 3D modeling here at CMU I have also realized that another major limiting factor to the strength of things made by a 3d printer can also be limited by the quality of the 3d model that is being used to make the print. At this point in the progression of 3D printing it is possible to own a residental sized 3D printer that can print tools like the ones showed in this article. You cant make a straight up hammer that can hammer a metal nail, but you can make a tool to hold a nail. Which is still a tool that has the function of protecting ones figure by holding a nail in place. As 3D printing technology advances more tool will be possible, but for right now only smart tools like the ones showed in the article can be made instead of standard ones.
I do own a 3-d printer, but I am a lot more hesitant to join the 3-d printing hype train than a lot of people. While printers definitely have their uses in rapid prototyping, I remain skeptical as to whether they are actually the best option for a lot of people who are trying to use them. Printers have gotten a lot better over time, but fundamentally they are limited to the filament that you spit out of them, which leads to a lot of limitations. The most common filament, PLA, is fine for fidget toys or gimmicky doo-dads, but it doesn’t have other great material properties. Much more exotic filaments are available, but they come at increased costs and with enhanced requirements to be printed. I think there is definite a use to have a 3d printer as one tool in an arsenal of maker tools, but I think that it is easy to use it instead of buying the correct part, or fabricating things in other ways.
Post a Comment