Maybe Next Year

Relying on a product review-like format for much of the story,
I addressed the fact, fiction and hype surrounding
consumer-grade 3D printing as it is and as it will be in the future.

3D printers not quite ready to be under the Christmas tree

November 12, 2013 | by Rachel Weeks

It will feed steak dinners to starving nations without killing a single cow. It will replace every failing organ without carving up a cadaver. It will change the face of consumerism, putting the power to manufacture in the people’s hands. It will print silverware and clothing and chicken potpies, all with the push of a button. It has created skin, organs, guns, rocket parts, chocolate and leather; and within the next few years, it could be in every household in America.

But I doubt it.

By the way the 3D printer is hailed in the news, I expected my first face-to-face encounter to be mind-blowing. I expected to go out and buy my own 3D printer tomorrow. Frankly, it reminded me of a high-tech Crayola Crayon Maker; it’s pretty cool, if you want a machine that makes a lot of noise and terrible crayons, but I’m just going to buy the 32-pack. Don’t get me wrong; the 3D printer is changing the world, but maybe not the way we expected it to.

Like the first 3D printer before them, many consumer models today manufacture plastic items using a technique known as stereolithography. Essentially, the printer heats plastic filament—not unlike the cords used to make boondoggle key chains—and traces a path designated by the digital blueprint. This happens thousands of times, laying down thin lines of plastic—about 0.06 mm thick—until the object is complete. After seeing them in action, I’m not even sure why they’re called “printers.”

The media sings songs of the Star Trek Replicator, a machine that can make anything upon command, but 3D printing is only a small step in that direction. Skylar Tibbits, Director of the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT, is unsure about the fate of 3D printing in the consumer market. “Maybe, someday, the consumer will be the manufacturer,” Tibbits said. “But there are also huge concerns there: quality, IT (Information Technology), among other things. It may not be that you download the file and make it yourself; it may still be that 3D printing is a new opportunity for manufacturing on the industrial side.”

Despite some doubt, low-cost 3D printers are being purchased for home use and sales are expected to grow 75 percent in 2014, according to technology analysis company Gartner. 3D printers are available online and in stores, although most in-store purchasing is limited to New York and California. Staples claims it was the first major U.S. retailer to sell 3D printers, selling The Cube model by 3D Systems; however, sales are still limited to Staples.com.

The MakerBot Replicator is one of the most popular models of consumer 3D printers. It costs $2,199, while the MakerBot Replicator 2 costs $2,799. Other models of 3D printer range from roughly $400 to $3,000.

Bringing Technology to the People

In an attempt to introduce the general public to the technology without breaking the bank, public spaces across the country, like schools and libraries, are purchasing 3D printers. The Kirkendall Public Library in Ankeny, Iowa purchased a MakerBot Replicator 2X in July of 2013. The printer is the newest addition to the library’s Hatch program that offers the public free access to expensive technology like design software, video equipment, and a sewing machine.

Library Director Myrna Brayton had hoped that patrons would be able to use the printer without help from the staff, but that’s proven difficult. She believes there is a disconnect between the public and the technology. “I think the intention when the [previous] library director purchased it was that people would be intuitive,” Brayton said. “And they are not. Not at all.”

Since its opening in September, Suada Zulic, a library associate, has become the library’s resident 3D printer expert. In addition to her duties in the library, Zulic is constantly printing designs for library patrons who submit them. Over 40 patrons have used the 3D printer to create 50 items, which total roughly 80 hours of printing. The library charges 25 cents for every 15 minutes on the printer, so each print job costs approximately $1.50. 

Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

For a piece of technology that is predicted to change nearly every aspect of the modern age, the MakerBot Replicator 2X is oddly unimpressive. It shakes, whirs, clacks and beeps—much like an old 2D printer or scanner—and takes an hour to complete even the simplest projects. When I first saw the MakerBot, it was printing a blue, plastic octopus. After 45 minutes, it had made little progress.

Additionally, consumer-grade 3D printers suffer from low printing resolution, leaving the surfaces of 3D printed items rough and inexact. The tiny table Zulic gave me was crisscrossed with strands of 3D printing filament; and it was delicate—one leg broke off in my purse.

Tibbits compares the quality and speed limitations of consumer 3D printers to those of 2D printers. “If you look at passports, for example, or money, we’re not printing these things at home because of issues of security and quality and everything,” Tibbits said. “But we are printing airline boarding passes because our printers are good enough to do barcodes.”

Currently, home low-cost 3D printers are good enough to make blue, plastic octopi. Like the octopus design, most designs that are submitted to the library’s 3D printer come from Thingiverse, a website maintained by MakerBot that offers thousands of free blueprints for “things” that can be created on a 3D printer. The blue octopus was designed by the MakerBot staff and is titled, “Cute Octopus Says Hello.” The waving octopus is quite representative of the blueprints available on Thingiverse. While there are some practical designs like iPhone cases, cookie cutters, luggage tags and carabineers, the majority of the website seems to be knickknacks: weighted dice, bobble heads, Legos, plastic animals, and board game pieces.

Furthermore, consumer printers are not fool proof. Zulic, a librarian with little technological experience, has found herself frustrated with the MakerBot’s many quirks. “There are problems with filament. Sometimes it happens that it doesn’t turn out well. It stops working,” Zulic said. “A few times, the extruders were clogged. We tried to find support, but there is no support in the area. Nobody knows how to fix it. The extruder was clogged, so I had to find out what I could do. So, I took the motor apart, and I cleaned it, and it’s working now. But this has happened twice since I took it over.”

Today, home 3D printers are loud, slow, temperamental machines that create sub-par Happy Meal toys and cost $1,000. But there is hope. Current printers may have their problems, but if available to the right person, they have the capabilities to create objects that are impossible or very difficult for other media.

Not Entirely Useless

Dustin Tyler knows the benefits of low-cost 3D printing. A Des Moines Branch Manager for Hockenbergs Food Service Equipment and Supply, Tyler’s job is working with restaurant owners to design kitchen and restaurant plans that serve the purposes of the owner. In the past, Tyler spent hours creating digital renderings of floor plans that were often misunderstood by his clients. Today, Tyler uses a 3D printer to simplify the collaborative design process. With a small-scale grid of the building and 3D printed tables, chairs, refrigerators and other restaurant necessities—think restaurant Barbie furniture—Tyler and his clients are able to design a floor plan together easily. Like many other business professionals who use 3D printers at work, Tyler also uses 3D printers as a hobby. He is an inventor.

Last summer, he got an idea for a product that would make emptying the sewer hose on the back of his camper a much more sanitary process. But at that time, Tyler had no means to bring his idea to fruition, until he heard about 3D printing.

Not daunted by the high price tag of a 3D printer, Tyler tried to order a printer of his own, but was discouraged by the 28-week lead-time. So, Tyler turned to the Kirkendall Public Library to make his idea come to life. The day after the 3D printer opened in Ankeny, Tyler went to the library to investigate the machine. A week later, he printed his first prototype and, another week later, he had the patents in hand. In six short weeks, 3D printing made it possible for Tyler to take his idea to a prototype to an invention.

Despite his successes, Tyler agrees that 3D printing is not ready to be in every household. “Right now it’s a bunch of novelty crap,” he said. “There are a lot of people that are printing just because they can.” But he strongly believes that in the next ten years, after costs go down and quality goes up, that 3D printers will be essential in every home. Whether it is simply replacing a broken piece on the shelving or printing the whole shelf, the public will find use for them.

Looking Forward

Tibbits says that the jury is still out on how 3D printing will change product manufacturing, but recent studies show that 3D printing will almost certainly affect what we can manufacture. 3D printing has opened doors on a number of different fields of study, one of which is called programmable matter. Tibbits describes it as a movement to essentially print “Transformers.” “We want to be able to print things that can transform on their own,” Tibbits said. “We want to be able to program matter to change shape, change property, and turn from one thing into another thing—to make anything essentially. We’d be able to print anything from food to liquid to glass to solid to whatever, and then tell it to do whatever we want.”

Take the sportswear industry, for example. “They’re not going to 3D print the same stuff they could already make in other ways. Now, they can 3D print things like shoes and make them much, much smarter,” Tibbits said. “So, these shoes could transform shape, property, performance, whatever, on the fly. Basically, instead of having a sensor and a motor with some robotic application, now you can just print it and the material has that same type of intelligence.”

Within the next ten years, consumer-grade 3D printers be cheaper, more intuitive, and higher quality. They will likely be able to print in materials other than plastic, particularly metal and ceramic. And there is also the promise of printers that create objects with multiple materials. MakerBot just released a 3D copier that allows users to scan objects and print duplicates. Missing a screw from the shelf you were fixing earlier? Scan and print another.

The future of consumer 3D printers appears to be bigger, better, faster and stronger as models begin to require less maintenance and set-up as well. However, 3D printers are just as limited as anything else. “It has some capabilities, but it has some limitations. 3D printers are just one tool of many, many tools,” Tibbits said. “It remains to be seen whether it can live up to its hype.”

Tibbits directed me to a CNN interview with colleague Neil Gershenfeld, Director of MIT’s Center for Bits & Atoms. “It’s a little bit like in the 1950s, telling the chef the future of your kitchen is the microwave oven,” Gershenfeld said. “Microwave ovens are good, we have them, but it doesn’t replace the rest of the kitchen.”

Created by Rachel Weeks in 2013. Production took place during a Freelance Magazine Writing class at Drake University under the supervision of Jeff Inman.