Self driving cars and beyond

Re:Self driving cars and beyond by adrianN on Sunday February 11, 2018 @12:13PM (#16353512)

Cheap 3D printers produce only useless plastic trinkets. There isn't a big market for replacement parts that can't take any load, because those things don't break very often. Very few people need to print cases or the like in exotic forms. Buying traditionally manufactured stuff is cheaper than printing it yourself.

However, 3D printers are used in the industry. Not only for prototyping but also for producing parts that can't be machined easily.

So I'd say 3D printers are pretty successful.

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Re:Self driving cars and beyond by bjelkeman-again on Sunday February 11, 2018 @12:23PM (#16353564)

Not disaagreeing. It is possible to print useful plastic items. But what I found interesting when doing the research for a product we where producing, was that the price per item on a €1800 3D printer was about the same as producing them in quantities up to 2500-5000 units in India. The difference obviously was how many you could produce in a month, and higher quality from the injection moulded stuff.

I had expected the price difference to be more. In the end we didn’t go to larger volumes due to weak interest in the product.

The main benefit, as you point out, was the fast turnaround in prototyping.

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