3D Printing goes mainstream?

There are three reasons why desktop 3D printers have yet to take off in the mainstream. Price, quality of output and the complexity involved in making a 3D print.

While big corporations and high end manufacturing have been enjoying the benefits of industrial grade 3D printers for quite some time, desktop 3D printers have been largely limited to hobbyists and a subset of industrial designers and entrepreneurs.

The desktop 3D printer is set to experience resurgence next year, however, thanks to the expiry of key patents.  The patents cover ‘laser sintering’, an extremely low cost but high resolution 3D printing technology capable of producing 3D objects that can be sold as finished products.

Laser sintering has been almost exclusive to expensive industrial 3D printers but the market is expected to be flooded with open-source desktop 3D printers next year equipped with the much sought after technology. We saw the same thing happen when the patents for the more primitive form of 3D printing, Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), expired in 2009, which created an explosion of open-source printers that saw the cost of 3D desktop printers go from $14,000 to as low as $300 today.

Another major benefit that Laser Sintering technology brings to the table is the ability to work with a wider range of materials including metal and various colours of plastic.

Just last month, Laser Sintering allowed 3D printing company, Solid Concepts, to make the first working metal handgun made entirely from a 3D printer. It comprised of more than 30 3D printed components.

Cheap Laser Sintering 3D printers could be a boon for medical practices and dental surgeries where a crown or prosthetic can be created during the medical procedure.

Cheaper 3D printers could also finally mean wider distribution on a scale that could be disruptive in the manufacturing world.

The other major hurdle for broader consumer adoption is the complexity and effort involved in actually putting together a 3D design for the printer which for the most part, requires knowledge of CAD.

Breakthroughs are being made in this area with the recent release of the $400 Sense 3D scanner, a hand-held operated device that can produce print-ready high quality 3D models by simply scanning real-life objects. While 3D scanners are nothing new, this is the first consumer grade 3D scanner to break the sub-$400 price range.

Sense 3D is expected to face some stiff competition in 2014, however, with a number of companies planning on releasing competing products that may further drive down the price of 3D scanners.

Wearables also have potential to simplify the 3D modelling process and it might come as early as next year.  One such example is Space Glasses developed by start-up, Meta, who are planning to release a 3D Sculpt+Print Tool application in January that uses augmented reality to sculpt and design virtual 3D objects with hand-controlled tools that can be sent directly to a 3D printer.

Cheap Laser Sintering 3D printers coupled with an accessible means of producing 3D model files has the potential to not only make an impact on the consumer market but seriously disrupt traditional manufacturing.

There's also: Mini Metal Maker 3D Printer Launches On Indiegogo For $750. A bit rough, even at 200 microns, but an interesting development. Surface irregularities could always be hand-finished.