3D Printing It seems to me the world of 3D printing is accelerating. There seems to be no end to what can be created this way. The main thing will be is the object you are going to print cheaper being printed and more stable than using some other process. As I write this article the first 3D printed rocket is poised to be launched into space. By the time you read this, if all goes well, it will have been launched hopefully. The rocket was built by a new startup, but I am sure other aerospace companies are watching the launch with a lot of interest. The company is Relativity Space. The rocket is the “Terran” and the company is so anxious it is skipping all testing. Talk about confidence. The rocket which was printed is 110 feet tall. The rocket was not 100% printed but it was about 85%. The company plans to boost this to 95% in the future. One of the great advantages of printing a rocket is thousands of tiny parts, which were very time consuming to assemble, can now be printed all together and assembled by the printing. The company boasts it can print a rocket in under 60 days. Compare that to the years it took to build Boeing’s new moon rocket. To be fair Boeing’s rocket is much larger and more complex. News update, the Relativity rocket was a partial success with the first stage firing successfully. We already know some homes have been built using 3D printing. One thing about printing homes is you can just about print anything you can imagine. Sometimes the printers can use the elements by the home to build them. There has been talk about building structures on the moon using the 3D printing process and the minerals that are available in the soil. The people who are building the homes claim they can build a home faster than anyone else using the conventional processes. They also claim they can do it cheaper. Some also claim the printing process is better for the environment and allows for more options in the construction. One of the reasons it is cheaper to print a home is said to be the fact the labor costs are greatly reduced since only one person is needed to monitor the process. When they say printing is faster, the claim is a house can be built in one day except for the doors, roofs and windows which still need contractors right now. There were some 3D printed cars made last year. Some of them are tiny but others look incredibly good. When a car is built traditionally, there are thousands of parts involved which have to be assembled. Even using machines to do this takes time. Many experts believe that all cars will eventually be 3D printed. When a car is printed it uses less material, saves factory space and can use strong lightweight parts. This also allows for designs with almost no limits. Another advantage is a car can be quickly prototyped to test out a design. Recently there are a few 3D printed car parts available. A supercar was printed and it is incredible. It was created by Divergent and is the Czinger 21C. It has a top speed of 268 miles per hour, a 1233 horse power engine. Another car was printed named the Blade. It has 629 horses and also is beautiful, but before you try and buy one, I have to tell you these are exotic sports cars and the prices prove it. It is only a matter of time before we get to see printed vehicles of all types. There are so many ideas on what you can print at home on your 3D printer. I think all of us by now know about the ghost guns. These are guns being printed which are illegal in many places. It seems many people are printing them and many are getting arrested with them. This seems like trouble. I don’t know how economical it is to print at home, but there are plenty of things you can print. One of the simplest things I saw was a sort of clip for squeezing tooth paste out of the tube. Another was an equally simple device for carrying many grocery bags at once. As I looked at these two simple devices, I wondered what was the cost to make them? One material was advertised between $15 to $20 per Kilogram or 2.3 pounds. The best I can calculate using the material I listed above is a one ounce object would cost between 53 to 64 cents. If your coat hanger weighed an ounce, to print a dozen at the lowest price would cost about $6.36 a dozen and as much as $7.68. Do not take this as gospel I could be wrong. I checked out Amazon and found some plastic coat hangers which were selling for $13.99 for 20 and the Amazon slim coat hangers sold for 22.66 for $50. There were also the usual type being sold at $15.99 for 30. I imagine if you went to a dollar store you could even do better. My conclusion is it doesn’t pay to print coat hangers and this is probably true for many ordinary plastic things. What I have just said is not true for people who want to create something original. Selling original objects you printed might be worth it, but trying to sell ordinary objects and make a profit seems impossible to me unless you could figure out how to get the material used to print much cheaper, perhaps in bulk and have a fast enough printer to make it worthwhile. I have seen many people try and sell objects they made before 3D printers and many of them failed even though they believed they had incredible objects for sale. I believe the same would be true for many 3D objects.
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