Jackie Blue writes:
Dis true, Mr. Economist?
My response:the first commenter says what I would have said, only he says it better.
John: "25 hours per item, I will assume they already factored in the need for ventillation and power for the device and move to the real issue. Quality control, repairs and finishing are going to eat up many hours the first time each person creates an item with many mistakes along the ways likely requiring reprints and modifications before it will work. Between the labour cost and the material losses from each reprint, I very much doubt their estimates of cost per item. This is the same logic that people use to say I can renovate my own house for half the cost. It may be true if everything goes well but since they lack experience will end up doing everything twice and wasting alot of material through the process eating up most if not all of the DIY savings.
Besides, most of the 3D printed items can be found in a dollar store, so unless you are comparing some high end spatula to a 3D printed one, there is no savings."
So, that's what I think. But it might be true that it is a small business opportunity. A place that's remote from transport could have a person set up a higher speed printer, and then run it to fabricate a bunch of things that would be expensive to bring in. There are parts of Australia, and of course much of New Orleans, that are like that.
Dis true, Mr. Economist?
My response:the first commenter says what I would have said, only he says it better.
John: "25 hours per item, I will assume they already factored in the need for ventillation and power for the device and move to the real issue. Quality control, repairs and finishing are going to eat up many hours the first time each person creates an item with many mistakes along the ways likely requiring reprints and modifications before it will work. Between the labour cost and the material losses from each reprint, I very much doubt their estimates of cost per item. This is the same logic that people use to say I can renovate my own house for half the cost. It may be true if everything goes well but since they lack experience will end up doing everything twice and wasting alot of material through the process eating up most if not all of the DIY savings.
Besides, most of the 3D printed items can be found in a dollar store, so unless you are comparing some high end spatula to a 3D printed one, there is no savings."
So, that's what I think. But it might be true that it is a small business opportunity. A place that's remote from transport could have a person set up a higher speed printer, and then run it to fabricate a bunch of things that would be expensive to bring in. There are parts of Australia, and of course much of New Orleans, that are like that.
