For those of you who are not in the know, I have been working for a VERY long time to set up a 3D Printing project. This last Christmas, my broke ass asked for the first piece from my family, the Filastruder (Number 2653, what what?). First and foremost, this means that my first piece has to deal with filament, and NOT printing.
That's because 3D Printing starts with filament. Kind of like how 2D Printing starts with ink and paper. You can load yourself up with documents, but if you don't have any ink, you don't have any prints. As with 2D Printers, the average 3D Printer comes with a trial run of filament (most 2D printers come with ink, and some even come with those trial sizes of super expensive picture paper that you will save in your drawer until Armageddon, trying to save them for the time where the investment of your shiny expensive paper is worth the print). However, just like 2D printers, buying additional ink is often where the company makes the real dolla dolla bills.
So, being half German, I'm looking to build the thing to be ugly, indestructible, and entirely sustainable.
But when I talk to people about WHY I am working on this project at all, when we live in a time period where buying a 3D printer is a VERY fringe concept, and in an economy where buying luxuries is not really affordable, I try to go to places they know. "You want a spoon? You print yourself a spoon."
And then my imaginary counterpart says "Or you could go to the store and buy a pack of a hundred for a couple bucks."
I mean, hell, that's absolutely correct. I mean, the time to find or scan a shape of a spoon, recycle the plastic, ready the equipment, print it successfully has an opportunity cost worse than running on a treadmill to charge a battery, sell that battery, walk to the store, and buying a hundred of the same thing. 3D Printing, after all, is better used for creating prototypes and specialized designs, than mass production (unless you use it to make a machine that mass produces the prototype, but that's a little more intensive and requires that you actually WANT to have a machine to mass produce spoons).
So, below, I am connecting you to a handful of links which will explore why I am so interested in 3D Printing. That way they can do the work for me, and I can go back to playing video games.
Practical (Conventional) 3D Printing:(and less practical 3D prints)
Alternative 3D Printing:
Concrete Construction Printer
Metal Printing
Shapeshifting Plants VS Planting Shapes
Food
Neat Filaments:
30 Cool Filament Types- Includes stone, wood, and metal.
Nutella VS Candy
Cool applications:
Medical
Automotice- Parts VS Cars
Circuit Boards
3D Printing other 3D Printers
