Whatever happened to 3D Printing?

[Colon capital V]

I was told I would be able to print food, organs, guns, my waifu and more all in the comfort of my home and 3D Printer but such a future hasn't been realized yet. So what happened? Science couldn't possibly lie to me could it?

 

[Pixy]

The glowies are probably champing at the bit as they try to find a way to control what you can 3D print, and monitor what prints you're putting through. With paper printing, there's always microdots that are used to identify your specific printer and other identifying details on anything you have printed.

 

[PipTheAlchemist]

The glowies are probably champing at the bit as they try to find a way to control what you can 3D print, and monitor what prints you're putting through. With paper printing, there's always microdots that are used to identify your specific printer and other identifying details on anything you have printed.

If 2D-Printing is already regulated by the government, imagine how hard they'd regulate 3D-Printing. They'd probably kill you if you even think about 3D-Printing a gun. Let alone actually do it

 

[BONE_Buddy]

Plastic and Resin printing is here and cheap. Metal printing is a long, long way away from being private consumer affordable/capable. CNC Mills have been around for a while, and have started to get affordable for the hobbyist types.

Home manufacture of weapons is a protected right here in the States. Only one State bans it (New Jersey, IIRC and it is under challenge), A bare handful of states make you put a serial number on it (California, New York), the rest of the States are unregulated except for the fact that the weapon has to be generally legal otherwise (so home-made machine-guns are out unless you got the special license.)

So, you who lives in an even moderately red State, can make your own gun, without having to seek permission from anybody. The only real restriction is that you don't want to make a living selling your home-made guns without setting up an FFL and doing the paperwork. But so long as you home manufacture "without intent to sell" you are golden.

No, this is not me being a Sovereign Citizen type, it really is legal.

 

[Grinrow]

Gun files have gotta be honeypotted to fuck

 

[SomeDood]

In the end it's just plastic & resin printing.
It's available and relatively cheap but most people really don't need it, or don't know what to do with it.
Also most people don't know enough about 3d modelling to make the blueprints they'd need.
Printing food is an absolute meme because why not eat the sludge you'd need to feed into it without shaping it?
Printing human tissue is not feasable at the moment and all the useful bits used in medicine are coming from specific manufacturers and you still need somebody to actually open up your body and put it in.

 

[Vingle]

It looks weird or just shitty, so it's certainly going to be an alternative. But It's never going to replace the "real" thing.

Tbf, some of the geometrical stuff look like something from Ikea. But that's why I don't like geometrical stuff. It just looks cheap.

 

[Alligator Alcatraz]

People still like 3D printing, but it's just really expensive. 3D-printed things are also very laborous. You have to paint them, assemble them, and sand them. Printers aren't big enough to do a lot of things so they are quite limited. Additionally, learning 3D modeling is a large barrier preventing the common person from getting into 3D printing despite free and open source software like Blender. Overall, 3D printing exists but it is a difficult thing to get into.

My best recommendation is to download or hire someone to make a 3D model for you and have a service like Thingiverse professionaly print that model and mail it to you.

As far as others like organ printing it is proceeding well. Just the other day I saw an article about a 3D printed robot composed of dust and magnetic tape which could crawl into tight spaces like machines and perform repairs.

Organ printing is rather stagnant in progress, but recently there has been advancements in 3D printed corneas to alleviate donation supply issues.



There's also been issues with organ printing where the biomaterial collapses on itself mid-print due to gravity so people are considering 3D printing organs in space.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210601-how-transplant-organs-might-be-printed-in-outer-space