Will 3-D printers destroy jobs in manufacturing?

Considering how new technologies replace and reduce the amount of laborers in the work force quite regularly. Do you think it might be possible for 3-D printers made available in homes and offices, to reduce manual labor jobs?



This model shown above is the 3D printer that uses ABS plastic as a material for print. This one goes for $1,100 or more.

But they also have metal 3-D printers that can print in all sorts of different materials. You can make all kinds of things with them if you have the CAD file to do it. Or if you're skilled at CAD like I am, you can build anything you want.


For example:

Jay Leno 3-D prints metal car parts to replace rare and hard-to-find parts for his car collection http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/extras/articles/jay-lenos-3d-printer-replaces-rusty-old-parts-1/

You can 3D print your own weapons



Jewelery



Prosthetics




As the technology improves, these 3D printers will be more accessible for most households to own one.

 

Yes, I think that 3D printing is going to revolutionize a lot of things.

The beginning of "Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing" by Lipson and Kurman:

 

WOW! What will they think of next?

 

terminators to eradicate human beings..

 

Don't they have those already?

 

What manufacturing jobs?

 

Well bearing in mind most stuff in Britain (and the US!) is made in a tyrannical regime like China, I would say I certainly hope so!

But anyway, I dont think 3d print will kill manufacturing. Its just that manufacturing will change. You need top quality designs and research. And also, home printers aren't gonna make stuff like cars and aeroplanes.. atleast not for a zillion yrs.

I think 3d print is exciting because it might mean more of what is termed "mass customisation". I've read it could produce marble sculture(from marble powder!) and wood items etc, as well as steel etc etc.

Its takes brains, ingenuity and skill to work out how to use this tech. Whereas too much manufacturing is all about unskilled slaves currently.
So 3d print is good for that reason too.

 

Mayhaps we can make sex partners with these 3d printers.....;-)

 

Not for long. It's basically cnc programing where you have techs writing the code, and you have monkeys maintaining and loading the machines, pushing the button, removing the part, cleaning and packaging whatever widget...

I expect they will be using the same unskilled labor only less of them.

 

Yeah they do. In fact I'm working toward a design career that involves using a 3D printer. I used one for the first time 2 years ago. Currently most people cannot afford one of their own, nor do they have significant use for one. But I think they'll be as common as 2D office paper printers sometime down the line.

 

the perspective of jobs and money will eventually evolve out into obsolescence regardless of specific details of the unstoppable jugernaut of our collective inovativeness as a sapient species.

rather its being our only deferentiating nature defines what we are.

something other concepts, such as trade and money and markets and economics do not. not even ideologies and religions do that.

 

He is worrying about our fellow people in China :2thumbsup:

 

I doubt it.
I just find it very hard to believe that you are going to get the same strength and durability out of this process rather than milling.
I know I wouldn't want to fire a home-made gun made on a printer.
Plus they have had "3-D printers for metal" for a long time, CNC mills, only difference is one is additive and one subtractive, but I'll trust the strength from a CNC produced item over a printed one any day.

For small parts, prototypes, fucking around, sure, but I think we have a way to go in material techs before it replaces a lot of steel/metal applications.

Do you know if they can use carbon fiber?

 

I saw a program where they were using a 3-d printer to make a fancy door handle.

They started by building up the part from finely powdered stainless steel that has a binder added to it. The printer jets apply a layer of adhesive, then stainless powder is sprinkled on the adhesive, each successive layer representing a thin slice of the object.
Once finished, the fragile armature/ matrix part (after baking it to set the binder) is placed in a container and carefully buried with aluminum silicate. Then powdered metal (bronze in this case) is placed on top of and all around where the part is buried.
When this is fired the bronze melts and is sucked into the armature through capillary action, making a solid steel/bronze part.

 

But a fancy door handle is a little different then the inside of the firing chamber of a gun barrel.
I just don't see layering material as being that strong.
I know there is Damacscus steel which is essentially layers of steel melded together, but that is done through many, many, many thousands of high pressure shocking blows to the steel.
Just "gluing" layers one atop the other just don't sound all that strong to me.
Hence my doubts about it replacing manufacturing.
It is an awesome tech and has it's place, but after the initial "newness" and fad aspect fades into the commonplace, it won't replace as much as we may anticipate, at least not without more big advancements in material sciences and technology.

Actually saw my first 3-D printer in the mid 90's, a very early prototype Autodesk was working with. Not as neat and much messier with only one color/material choice. Strictly for design prototpes, not finished items.

 

Thats just for the porous armature, if you read further it ends up a solid metal.

Granted they can't (presently) make a barrel for gun that I would trust shooting. Steel gun barrels and firing chambers still blow up occasionally anyway.


I could see the possibility of high powered lasers melting and setting powdered steel as its laid down, but it would probably have to be done in an anaerobic atmosphere to prevent slag buildup.

 

i really believe a time will come when status will not be what you can accumulate, but your level of skill with technology and what you can create yourself with it and your own imagination.

so its not a matter of one kind of 'job' being threatened. and i'm not saying capitalism is going to be replaced by marxism, however much what i'm saying sounds like that, but rather that no ideology will be needed, as if it ever were, and people won't be using ideological prejudice as an excuse to refuse to do the right thing. the right thing meaning what is best for ALL people and ALL life forms and the health of the environment and the planet.

 

If I remember correctly and am seeing the picture right, that's a Ruger and they use cast parts rather than milled.
I don't trust cast handguns, especially a .44 Mag, I have seen the same thing happen before with other cast guns, not to mention that isn't factory ammo in the pic and I'll bet those fuckers are loaded pretty hot.

When it comes to holding a small cannon, I prefer it be milled from a nice solid hunk of steel. :sunny: