The product already exists, and it’s incredible. Invisalign orthodontic aligners are high volume items that are custom made for each user. The thing is… any company that has a great product like Invisalign is going to build 3D printing into their own production process, not outsource it.
I’ll say the biggest problem I’ve seen is that companies perceive their customers won’t accept that some of their parts are 3D printed (where I work has this issue, we only use it for prototyping). This applies even if the parts are well designed and cost or strength competitive.
That is why design is so important. The companies think that but the cutomers don't care. When has anyone looked at an item and said "This looks like good quality molding." The customers do not care as long as it is a good product.
@@slant3d I disagree with your point that people don't care. At my consumer products company we do a lot of prototyping and tons of testing those prototypes with customers. Literally every person notices that it is a prototype and we usually have to supplement prototypes with photorealistic renderings to show those customers what the product will look like after it gets molded. If it's a hidden component it may not matter, but anything aesthetic or externally facing, it's a non starter.
The only real advantage 3d printed parts can have is they are able to prpduce something with complex internal geometry that would not be possible to manufacture with any other process. There is however, not many applications where you couldn't just make something in 2 halfs and bolt them together to get the same product. The only area it shines in at the moment is small run production or prototyping, where it would cost more and take longer to produce the tooling to injection mold your parts.
Retired now but for a while in our shop we were using a large flatbed router to make fast turn around short to medium parts runs for other manufacturers. We sold the idea that while their company could spool up their production to make them we could start making them tomorrow. They might not save per part cost but they didn't need more employees, equipment or shop space. Their employees still assembled but at the end of the month more finished product was out the door so more money in the bank. They also didn't have the headaches of long supply chains and variable quality that foreign manufacturing can have. I see that potential in the 3D printing market but selling this idea is a considerable effort. I think printing is considered a geeks hobby or a novel idea but not for full scale production. That's what the world needs to learn and it's slowly happening I hope.
The only 3d printed mass product that I know is the suppressor of the sig sauer mcx-spear, which will be the standard rifle of the us army. They got a 10year contract in April 2022.
Invisalign printing all those patient specific aligners which you are not able to produce conventionally in this high quantities. So it is a real success story. I was part of that when I was at 3D Systems.
Great video! You really hit the nail on the head in the end. Still waiting on that "killer app". It needs customizability or modularity, manufacturability agnostic (any kind of geometries), and scalability for this killer 3D printed product to be a success. Or maybe am I missing something?
I feel like 3d printing will always be that middle ranged go to method for manufacturing of simple things that can be injection molded but don't have the volume to invest in the molds. If there is that one breakthrough product that is a hit and its 3d printed, chances are they may go injection molded at some point if the volume is there, so I don't think 3d printing will ever overtake injection molding because of its own limitations. What needs to happen in my opinion is a product needs to be developed that cannot be made by any other method. For example lets say an internal combustion engine that gets 150 miles per gallon that utilizes some sort of complex geometry inside the bores of the cylinder that just cannot be done any other way besides 3d printing. This will launch 3d printing to new heights and people will begin to discover ways to utilize its potential to make groundbreaking new products.
3D Printing currently matches injection molding, and long term will be far more affordable even without complex geometries. But you are correct, products that really take advantage of 3D Printing are will be a great jumping off point
There are specific parts that can only be printed using additive methods such as some of the new heat exchangers used on aircraft. So it depends on how it's being used. The 3d printed part however has to make sense to mass produce in that way. Even if the 3d printed part is much more efficient and lighter than a conventional part if the cost is too high it won't get used except in specific instances where the efficiency or weight savings is more important than the cost. This is the case in some of the heat exchangers for aviation or rockets but that is a niche market.
One additional point is patent are also holding back competition which would bring down the 3d printing costs and increase capabilities. Stratasys recently had a patent that was ending (heated chambers) and they have managed to extend that by making some "evergreening" changes to the process.
The dental industry has been using it for a while. Some medical metal implants are 3d printed. 3d printed Casts/braces are coming along. But none are high volume. I have seen some fancy metal 3d printed focets, heat exchangers and brackets. But all in more bespoke uses or extreme cost. The problem is cycle time. It just will never compete with molding unless you are making something that can do 50-100 on one buildplate.
Aren’t you getting processes mixed up in manufacturing? You’re looking to create a demand for a process of manufacturing rather than creating a demand for a product. It’s the product that sells, not the process that made it. The general consumer doesn’t care.
i guess since the inherent benefit of 3D printing is design flexibility, the killer app is customized product with parametric design. Though i guess but its nature it's gonna be niche and relatively expensive, just logistically, not even accounting for the production method compared to a mass produced products
Every attempt at customized products (aside from dental) has been a fad market or outright loser. One needs to look no further than apple to see how much consumers don't care about customization.
@@slant3d There are probably other places it makes sense to consumers, like getting accessories that fit their specific vehicle's console, closet or vanity or refrigerator dimensions, etc. - these really aren't so much "customization" as "combinatorics that don't make sense with mass production". But the data needed to make it happen without getting out calipers & DIY isn't there.
The open sourcey vibe of everything 3D printing related points towards making printers a household appliance that replaces 50% of your house appliance purchases. The only thing holding printers back is slicers. True 3D printing with active Z axis is coming soon as a standard way to do things and in 5 years people will start experimenting with placing cameras and thermal cameras on extruders and buildplates to run AI algorithms to dynamically generate gcode in real time to make sure the intended shapes are always achieved.
In many industrial level PBF the issue is still cost of materials and postprocesses. The speed is slowly getting there. There were some new interesting propositions in Formnext but I still think we are too far away from a cost competetive solution for the whole end-to-end solution. Right now a lot of the work is manual and the solutions out there to automate things are not even close to the finish line.
FDM already matches the cost of injection molding because it has the same inputs. Only proprietary materials with limited scale are still expensive (think of 2d printer toner)
what about about ppl that cant walk very easily, a 3d printed and with electronics could help them. my wife i wish i could do this for but dont know how to begin...... got to think outside the box, think how to help ppl then go
I took a glance at 3D prosthetics for animals. There seem to be a few companies doing it. Although I have no idea, I’d imagine you’d have to have a pretty good idea on anatomy, be able to design and apply it individually as, no 2 animals are exactly alike and neither are their defects and injuries, design for it, and use a material specific to the application, internal or external, often for long term or lifelong use. But, ask them.
Please cover NNDM I think they have much more upside potential than any other 3D printing company. They have 1.3 billion in assets with no debt and just had their first profitable quarter and are also doing a share buy back for 100 million dollars.
Its primarilyu a product prototyping and development tool. Once you have a proven and successaful product it is cheaper to make it in mass via other manufacturiing techniques.
@@slant3ddo you mean under 100k? Because that seems like it would make more sense. Beyond that the cost of a tooling would pay for itself rather quickly vs having to run and maintain a ton of machines 24/7.
That's easy you need a reasin plastic mix that hardens fast Fter printed ..and it will make body armor that can be made to your size..it will allso lock the hoby gun people ..reinforced plastic will make so much money
1st... WTF is Cloud 3D Printing Services. That's nothing. It literally means nothing. Just a bunch of Buzz Words Smashed together to try to sound cool. You have to have a product or service, not just a string of popular cool sounding words.
I’m researching for my first 3-D printer purchase, in about the $1k range. 3D printing is challenging and extremely quirky from all the vids I’ve watched. And quality and consistency issues seem to always be looming. I’d assume the high end manufacturing grade 3D printers are free of quality and consistency issues?
3D printing isn’t really that challenging or that quirky when you have one printer. Like anything, doing it really well involves learning and skill. But you can buy an entry level FDM printer like an Ender 3 and a spool of PLA and get pretty good prints without a lot of trouble. The real challenge of doing it at scale is figuring out how to maximize quality and consistency - how to make sure every one of your hundreds of printers prints a model at precisely the same size, how to make sure that every print sticks to the bed, where to buy filament so that e.g. the red that you’re using this week matches what you used last month, etc. IOW, it’s a massive exercise in quality control.
Although 3d printing can obviousy do relatively high volume, injection molding is just way more efficient and well-established, especially when you factor in that industrial 3d printers aren't cheap to buy or maintain. I always saw it's killer app as R&D or low-volume parts where injection molding isn't attractive, or special geometries. And that's enough! I think these companies simply over-invested. Like every new technology, people are way too fast to jump on the hype train, instead of taking the time to really understand it. That said, I'm still bullish on FDM/FFF manufacturing long-term.
@@slant3d With 3d filament at $15/kg at best, how can that possibly compare to the dirt-cheap prices of raw pellets? And production speed/effort required? And those machines are way simpler and cheaper to maintain. There are many advantages of FFF, but AFAIK speed and per-unit cost are not those. Is my information outdated?
Filament is made from pellets. Much of your information is outdated. We outperform molding in our mass production print farms on a regular basis on cost and other specs.
@@slant3d I know filament is made from pellets, but someone has to make the filament, which is an added cost. I'd love to see your numbers and get the most up to date info! I'm a huge 3d printing nerd but I'm also an engineer, and going by data I have.
something does not need to be a commercial product to be a "killer App" the "killer App" for 3d printing is rapid prototyping and on site fabrication of parts, the Printer IS the killer app! not a 3d printed doohickey that people can buy
@@slant3d It would help them to diversify and introduce the adoption of Foundry to DM HP may bid.. They got the experience to integrate it. Absolutely bargain buy market cap right now $10.59 Million. Bound to be bidders.
You talk about the problems of 3d printers. The thing you dont seem to get is, 3d printers came out in the 1990s. 3d printers have had the same problems for 30 years. Dont you think someone would have found that one great product to make with a 3d printer in the last 30 years? I ask you this, because you seem to think the solution will happen in the next month, or two. Let me know your thoughts.
🙄 Same problems for 30 years? Sounds like someone with no idea what they're talking about. The technology has changed so much just in the last 5 years, and there are countless great things to make with various forms of 3D printing, but they don't necessarily mesh with the ideas people have for making money, or the skills traditional product designers have, even when they're a great fit for the parts needed. Slant 3D seems to be doing interesting stuff in this space.
@@daliasprints9798 Layer lines,... same problem for 30 years. Same reason for 30 years you havnt seen a FDM 3d printed product. Im not against 3d printing at all. But please stop with the story that the solution to FDM 3d printing being used in commercial products is just around the corner. That is one long 30 year long corner.... and the end is not in sight. The dream never catches up with reality.
@@tazanteflight8670 Layer lines? Total non issue, just like ugly splines in injection molded parts. Depending on application, you either design the part so it looks good with them, don't care because you don't see it, put a finish over it, use a print material that hides surface texture or that's smoothable, etc.
@@daliasprints9798 Sigh. The layer lines are a structural problem, and a confidence problem. Nobody wants a 3d printed part, because they believe it will split on a layer line. You are the genius,... you tell me why there are no FDM 3d printed products? The only 2 companies I can think of are prusia, and out of darts. Everything else is an etsy / ebay / cottage industry product. People dont trust 3d printed parts, people dont want 3d printed parts. So use a CNC machine. Carving it out of a block is art. No layer lines, total structural confidence. Tada!
Might I suggest these companies are charging absurd rates to use their services and sure it was great as a fad market but in reality when the fad age is over people just cant justify these absurd rates!
Possible also an issue. Though the companies operate generally with a 50% margin which is not unreasonable in the general 3D Printing market. At the hobbyist or professional level. Especially when a 30% margin is the minimum requirement in order to sustain a company at any level
The product already exists, and it’s incredible. Invisalign orthodontic aligners are high volume items that are custom made for each user. The thing is… any company that has a great product like Invisalign is going to build 3D printing into their own production process, not outsource it.
I’ll say the biggest problem I’ve seen is that companies perceive their customers won’t accept that some of their parts are 3D printed (where I work has this issue, we only use it for prototyping).
This applies even if the parts are well designed and cost or strength competitive.
That is why design is so important. The companies think that but the cutomers don't care. When has anyone looked at an item and said "This looks like good quality molding." The customers do not care as long as it is a good product.
@@slant3d good looking products sell better.
@@slant3d I disagree with your point that people don't care. At my consumer products company we do a lot of prototyping and tons of testing those prototypes with customers. Literally every person notices that it is a prototype and we usually have to supplement prototypes with photorealistic renderings to show those customers what the product will look like after it gets molded. If it's a hidden component it may not matter, but anything aesthetic or externally facing, it's a non starter.
"3D printing is a solution in search of a really good problem".... great line/great video/great insight.
Thanks
The only real advantage 3d printed parts can have is they are able to prpduce something with complex internal geometry that would not be possible to manufacture with any other process.
There is however, not many applications where you couldn't just make something in 2 halfs and bolt them together to get the same product.
The only area it shines in at the moment is small run production or prototyping, where it would cost more and take longer to produce the tooling to injection mold your parts.
Everything to do with aerospace is 3D printed, this is nonsense.
Retired now but for a while in our shop we were using a large flatbed router to make fast turn around short to medium parts runs for other manufacturers.
We sold the idea that while their company could spool up their production to make them we could start making them tomorrow. They might not save per part cost but they didn't need more employees, equipment or shop space. Their employees still assembled but at the end of the month more finished product was out the door so more money in the bank. They also didn't have the headaches of long supply chains and variable quality that foreign manufacturing can have.
I see that potential in the 3D printing market but selling this idea is a considerable effort. I think printing is considered a geeks hobby or a novel idea but not for full scale production. That's what the world needs to learn and it's slowly happening I hope.
The only 3d printed mass product that I know is the suppressor of the sig sauer mcx-spear, which will be the standard rifle of the us army. They got a 10year contract in April 2022.
You articulated your thoughts very well in this video. I understand perfectly what you are getting at. Thank You!
Thank you. Happy to help.
Invisalign has been successfully using 3d printing for a long time now. Obviously that requires a lot of customization which is a good fit
Invisalign printing all those patient specific aligners which you are not able to produce conventionally in this high quantities. So it is a real success story. I was part of that when I was at 3D Systems.
Great video! You really hit the nail on the head in the end. Still waiting on that "killer app". It needs customizability or modularity, manufacturability agnostic (any kind of geometries), and scalability for this killer 3D printed product to be a success. Or maybe am I missing something?
I thoght prostetics was that solution? Each one bespoke and created as needed for a single customer.
I feel like 3d printing will always be that middle ranged go to method for manufacturing of simple things that can be injection molded but don't have the volume to invest in the molds. If there is that one breakthrough product that is a hit and its 3d printed, chances are they may go injection molded at some point if the volume is there, so I don't think 3d printing will ever overtake injection molding because of its own limitations. What needs to happen in my opinion is a product needs to be developed that cannot be made by any other method. For example lets say an internal combustion engine that gets 150 miles per gallon that utilizes some sort of complex geometry inside the bores of the cylinder that just cannot be done any other way besides 3d printing. This will launch 3d printing to new heights and people will begin to discover ways to utilize its potential to make groundbreaking new products.
3D Printing currently matches injection molding, and long term will be far more affordable even without complex geometries. But you are correct, products that really take advantage of 3D Printing are will be a great jumping off point
There are specific parts that can only be printed using additive methods such as some of the new heat exchangers used on aircraft. So it depends on how it's being used. The 3d printed part however has to make sense to mass produce in that way. Even if the 3d printed part is much more efficient and lighter than a conventional part if the cost is too high it won't get used except in specific instances where the efficiency or weight savings is more important than the cost. This is the case in some of the heat exchangers for aviation or rockets but that is a niche market.
One additional point is patent are also holding back competition which would bring down the 3d printing costs and increase capabilities. Stratasys recently had a patent that was ending (heated chambers) and they have managed to extend that by making some "evergreening" changes to the process.
The dental industry has been using it for a while. Some medical metal implants are 3d printed. 3d printed Casts/braces are coming along. But none are high volume.
I have seen some fancy metal 3d printed focets, heat exchangers and brackets. But all in more bespoke uses or extreme cost.
The problem is cycle time. It just will never compete with molding unless you are making something that can do 50-100 on one buildplate.
a good example of a product being 3d printed at mass scale is adidas printing shoe soles with resin printers
Aren’t you getting processes mixed up in manufacturing? You’re looking to create a demand for a process of manufacturing rather than creating a demand for a product. It’s the product that sells, not the process that made it. The general consumer doesn’t care.
i guess since the inherent benefit of 3D printing is design flexibility, the killer app is customized product with parametric design. Though i guess but its nature it's gonna be niche and relatively expensive, just logistically, not even accounting for the production method compared to a mass produced products
Every attempt at customized products (aside from dental) has been a fad market or outright loser. One needs to look no further than apple to see how much consumers don't care about customization.
@@slant3d There are probably other places it makes sense to consumers, like getting accessories that fit their specific vehicle's console, closet or vanity or refrigerator dimensions, etc. - these really aren't so much "customization" as "combinatorics that don't make sense with mass production". But the data needed to make it happen without getting out calipers & DIY isn't there.
The open sourcey vibe of everything 3D printing related points towards making printers a household appliance that replaces 50% of your house appliance purchases. The only thing holding printers back is slicers. True 3D printing with active Z axis is coming soon as a standard way to do things and in 5 years people will start experimenting with placing cameras and thermal cameras on extruders and buildplates to run AI algorithms to dynamically generate gcode in real time to make sure the intended shapes are always achieved.
3D Printers will unforutnately never be an appliance. (Watch for new video)
@@slant3d disagree. My Silhouette Alta+ isn’t even up to my KitchenAid mixer.🤣
In many industrial level PBF the issue is still cost of materials and postprocesses. The speed is slowly getting there. There were some new interesting propositions in Formnext but I still think we are too far away from a cost competetive solution for the whole end-to-end solution. Right now a lot of the work is manual and the solutions out there to automate things are not even close to the finish line.
FDM already matches the cost of injection molding because it has the same inputs. Only proprietary materials with limited scale are still expensive (think of 2d printer toner)
what about about ppl that cant walk very easily, a 3d printed and with electronics could help them. my wife i wish i could do this for but dont know how to begin...... got to think outside the box, think how to help ppl then go
I took a glance at 3D prosthetics for animals. There seem to be a few companies doing it. Although I have no idea, I’d imagine you’d have to have a pretty good idea on anatomy, be able to design and apply it individually as, no 2 animals are exactly alike and neither are their defects and injuries, design for it, and use a material specific to the application, internal or external, often for long term or lifelong use. But, ask them.
Please cover NNDM I think they have much more upside potential than any other 3D printing company. They have 1.3 billion in assets with no debt and just had their first profitable quarter and are also doing a share buy back for 100 million dollars.
Good info
Have you seen the guy that made a giant tank and a giant 3D printer
Its primarilyu a product prototyping and development tool. Once you have a proven and successaful product it is cheaper to make it in mass via other manufacturiing techniques.
Additive is more affordable than molding or machining beyond 100,000 parts. Especially in US manufacturing
@@slant3ddo you mean under 100k? Because that seems like it would make more sense. Beyond that the cost of a tooling would pay for itself rather quickly vs having to run and maintain a ton of machines 24/7.
That's easy you need a reasin plastic mix that hardens fast Fter printed ..and it will make body armor that can be made to your size..it will allso lock the hoby gun people ..reinforced plastic will make so much money
And the cosplay people will love it hardend plastic for there armor and weapons..think Ironman or batman armor
And the larp people. ..live action role players ..
3d printed parts are, simply put, not robust enough. It is a prototype, looks like, works like process only.
Incorrect
1st... WTF is Cloud 3D Printing Services.
That's nothing. It literally means nothing. Just a bunch of Buzz Words Smashed together to try to sound cool.
You have to have a product or service, not just a string of popular cool sounding words.
I’m researching for my first 3-D printer purchase, in about the $1k range. 3D printing is challenging and extremely quirky from all the vids I’ve watched. And quality and consistency issues seem to always be looming. I’d assume the high end manufacturing grade 3D printers are free of quality and consistency issues?
3D Printing is a skill. No machine will guarantee good results. The machine has to have an good operator
3D printing isn’t really that challenging or that quirky when you have one printer. Like anything, doing it really well involves learning and skill. But you can buy an entry level FDM printer like an Ender 3 and a spool of PLA and get pretty good prints without a lot of trouble. The real challenge of doing it at scale is figuring out how to maximize quality and consistency - how to make sure every one of your hundreds of printers prints a model at precisely the same size, how to make sure that every print sticks to the bed, where to buy filament so that e.g. the red that you’re using this week matches what you used last month, etc. IOW, it’s a massive exercise in quality control.
No lol
Should look at "out of darts" they've been using 3D printing to make a business for a long time
Check out our "Giant 3D Print Farm Video." OOD is a great example
Any bidders got until 5th Dec to make a bid.
Although 3d printing can obviousy do relatively high volume, injection molding is just way more efficient and well-established, especially when you factor in that industrial 3d printers aren't cheap to buy or maintain. I always saw it's killer app as R&D or low-volume parts where injection molding isn't attractive, or special geometries. And that's enough! I think these companies simply over-invested. Like every new technology, people are way too fast to jump on the hype train, instead of taking the time to really understand it. That said, I'm still bullish on FDM/FFF manufacturing long-term.
3D printing is already able to out perform other processed in nearly every metric
@@slant3d With 3d filament at $15/kg at best, how can that possibly compare to the dirt-cheap prices of raw pellets? And production speed/effort required? And those machines are way simpler and cheaper to maintain. There are many advantages of FFF, but AFAIK speed and per-unit cost are not those. Is my information outdated?
Filament is made from pellets. Much of your information is outdated. We outperform molding in our mass production print farms on a regular basis on cost and other specs.
@@slant3d I know filament is made from pellets, but someone has to make the filament, which is an added cost. I'd love to see your numbers and get the most up to date info! I'm a huge 3d printing nerd but I'm also an engineer, and going by data I have.
Maybe Palantir will make a bid 🤔
something does not need to be a commercial product to be a "killer App" the "killer App" for 3d printing is rapid prototyping and on site fabrication of parts, the Printer IS the killer app! not a 3d printed doohickey that people can buy
Unfortunately onsite prototyping has been the application since the mid 80's and it has not created a large industry.
I speculate Desktop metals will make a bid
Unlikley since DM focuses on machinery and not services
@@slant3d It would help them to diversify and introduce the adoption of Foundry to DM
HP may bid.. They got the experience to integrate it. Absolutely bargain buy market cap right now $10.59 Million. Bound to be bidders.
Who ever wins the bid will be a great back door introduction for Palantir..
You talk about the problems of 3d printers. The thing you dont seem to get is, 3d printers came out in the 1990s. 3d printers have had the same problems for 30 years. Dont you think someone would have found that one great product to make with a 3d printer in the last 30 years? I ask you this, because you seem to think the solution will happen in the next month, or two. Let me know your thoughts.
🙄 Same problems for 30 years? Sounds like someone with no idea what they're talking about. The technology has changed so much just in the last 5 years, and there are countless great things to make with various forms of 3D printing, but they don't necessarily mesh with the ideas people have for making money, or the skills traditional product designers have, even when they're a great fit for the parts needed. Slant 3D seems to be doing interesting stuff in this space.
@@daliasprints9798 Layer lines,... same problem for 30 years. Same reason for 30 years you havnt seen a FDM 3d printed product. Im not against 3d printing at all. But please stop with the story that the solution to FDM 3d printing being used in commercial products is just around the corner. That is one long 30 year long corner.... and the end is not in sight. The dream never catches up with reality.
@@tazanteflight8670 Layer lines? Total non issue, just like ugly splines in injection molded parts. Depending on application, you either design the part so it looks good with them, don't care because you don't see it, put a finish over it, use a print material that hides surface texture or that's smoothable, etc.
@@daliasprints9798 Sigh. The layer lines are a structural problem, and a confidence problem. Nobody wants a 3d printed part, because they believe it will split on a layer line. You are the genius,... you tell me why there are no FDM 3d printed products? The only 2 companies I can think of are prusia, and out of darts. Everything else is an etsy / ebay / cottage industry product. People dont trust 3d printed parts, people dont want 3d printed parts. So use a CNC machine. Carving it out of a block is art. No layer lines, total structural confidence. Tada!
@Tazante Flight More than anything you seem like a troll focusing on the insignificant. Layer lines? Really? You ever heard of filler primer? 🙄🤡
Start making nail-on electrical boxes
Good idea. We do a lot of that for our production partners.
Are there specific ones you have seen that are supply limited?
Might I suggest these companies are charging absurd rates to use their services and sure it was great as a fad market but in reality when the fad age is over people just cant justify these absurd rates!
Possible also an issue. Though the companies operate generally with a 50% margin which is not unreasonable in the general 3D Printing market. At the hobbyist or professional level. Especially when a 30% margin is the minimum requirement in order to sustain a company at any level