Not a surprise to me though since I am operating in the CNC industry I have seen the same struggles and changes, albeit, from a slightly different perspective.
I work with the Smoothieware/Smoothieboard project. It seems, from my observation, that most people are not working with hardware like they were a few years ago. The "homebrew" machines and shadetree makers are becoming few and far between.
The lie has been heavily sold to the maker community that you are "wasting your time if you make something yourself" since it is cheaper to offshore even small 3d prints and machining projects. Not only that but people have been convinced that they don't have the ability to make a machine.
Instead of spending time learning something new/valuable (i.e. Reprap) it is now popular to just have someone else do it...be it AI or a factory in another country with subsidies that create massive differences in bottom line.
The ability to make things at home is disappearing. People cannot/will not learn to make their own machines. Companies that make machines that care about their community and customers are disappearing.
> The lie has been heavily sold to the maker community that you are "wasting your time if you make something yourself" since it is cheaper to offshore even small 3d prints and machining projects.
> The ability to make things at home is disappearing
I do not know what you are talking about.
3D printing at home is more popular than ever. Even families I know who don’t have a computer at home, only their phones, now have 3D printers and use them.
> People cannot/will not learn to make their own machines
I think this is an appeal to 3D printing purity that drove me away from many of the communities. In the early days we all swapped tips and shared reviews of parts (like the Smoothieboard I still have) with other people who liked to build machines because that was the only way to do 3D printing at hobby level prices. When asked what we used the 3D printers for, the joke was that they were used to print parts for our 3D printer. It wasn’t really a joke, though. We spent more time keeping the printers working and trying to tune them than we did printing other things we needed.
That has flipped. Now it’s easy to get a cheap 3D printer and start getting parts out of it without thinking about the printer much. This is great if you’re a person who wants to use the output of the printer. This is boring if you think the value is the process of building and changing the printer hardware all the time.
I’m tired of hearing takes about how this is wrong or bad. Most “makers” want to make other things, not spend their precious free time trying to debug failing prints. There are more opportunities and knowledge available now for people who do want to build their own machines and it’s very cheap. People who want to do that can, but don’t look down upon the people who don’t want to do that.
> There are more opportunities and knowledge available now for people who do want to build their own machines and it’s very cheap.
And what happens if China decides that it is no longer in their interest to allow Americans access to cheap aluminum extrusions, hotends, motors, and controllers?
Between the American tariffs and Chinese prioritization of 3d printing in a past five year plan American hobbyists and small scale producers are in a potential bind.
> And what happens if China decides that it is no longer in their interest to allow Americans access to cheap aluminum extrusions, hotends, motors, and controllers?
Then home 3D printing will be the least of our concerns? What kind of question is this?
Decades of prioritizing manufacturing capacity and talent lead to China being able to prioritize the development advanced additive manufacturing for industrial purposes and to being able to dominate international sales of consumer level 3d printers.
Ignoring the development of the sorts of skills and abilities in the general public that come from tinkering with small bench top machines like lathes and 3d printers is detrimental to nation’s ability to be self sufficient and raise the next generation of mechanically inclined people.
China seems to get that while other countries don’t.
It has never been a better time to be able to make parts at home in USA than right now. A formlabs form 4 is cheaper than a Bridgeport, there is a glut of desktop CNC mills (aluminum routers) under ~5k, in wood the shaper origin and sienci altmill are pretty strong as is the avidcnc router family which happens to use domestically sourced extrusion from 8020…
Frankly, I am confused by much of what in reading here
> Ignoring the development of the sorts of skills and abilities in the general public that come from tinkering with small bench top machines like lathes and 3d printers is detrimental to nation’s ability to be self sufficient and raise the next generation of mechanically inclined people.
I replied to your topic about China stopping exports of stepper motors and aluminum extrusions, now you're switching to yet another goalpost.
For what it's worth, I've spent a lot of time with 3D printers in the past decade. The amount I've learned doesn't hold a candle to any of the deep dives I've done for real engineering work. A couple months of paid full-time engineering work on in a new area would bring any engineer up to speed.
3D printers are cool, but the self-importance some people attribute to this hobby is a little too much some times.
I think mechanical / electronic intuition are important, and they come from tinkering (especially at younger ages).
Sure, being able to do math and detailed analysis are important. But having a good guess on step 1 is important, too, to narrow the search of huge design spaces.
I think we've all experienced different kinds of engineers. The one you trust to do a month-long trade study with deep mathematical reasoning is usually not the one you trust to just know a plausible path forward. And we need both.
> And what happens if China decides that it is no longer in their interest to allow Americans access to cheap aluminum extrusions, hotends, motors, and controllers?
We make our own. You seem to be under the common delusion that because only a tiny % of people work in manufacturing compare to 70 years ago, that mean the US doesn't to manufacturing. In fact the US is manufacturing more than ever with just that tiny % of people. Be glad you don't have to work a boring assembly line job.
I mean, on the one hand, manufacturing has grown near-continually for those 70 years, and its demand for labor has reduced. So, it's not like you're wrong.
At the same time, our production of lower value, commodity-ish things has indeed shrunk rather than grown with population of demand. That manufacturing expertise is more concentrated more on higher value (aerospace, information technology, etc) things and less on fasteners, bulk materials, or extrusions.
We are not vertically integrated in the way that China is.
Ccecil · · focus · HN ↗
Not a surprise to me though since I am operating in the CNC industry I have seen the same struggles and changes, albeit, from a slightly different perspective.
I work with the Smoothieware/Smoothieboard project. It seems, from my observation, that most people are not working with hardware like they were a few years ago. The "homebrew" machines and shadetree makers are becoming few and far between.
The lie has been heavily sold to the maker community that you are "wasting your time if you make something yourself" since it is cheaper to offshore even small 3d prints and machining projects. Not only that but people have been convinced that they don't have the ability to make a machine.
Instead of spending time learning something new/valuable (i.e. Reprap) it is now popular to just have someone else do it...be it AI or a factory in another country with subsidies that create massive differences in bottom line.
The ability to make things at home is disappearing. People cannot/will not learn to make their own machines. Companies that make machines that care about their community and customers are disappearing.
Maybe it's by design? I don't know.
Aurornis · · focus · HN ↗
> The ability to make things at home is disappearing
I do not know what you are talking about.
3D printing at home is more popular than ever. Even families I know who don’t have a computer at home, only their phones, now have 3D printers and use them.
> People cannot/will not learn to make their own machines
I think this is an appeal to 3D printing purity that drove me away from many of the communities. In the early days we all swapped tips and shared reviews of parts (like the Smoothieboard I still have) with other people who liked to build machines because that was the only way to do 3D printing at hobby level prices. When asked what we used the 3D printers for, the joke was that they were used to print parts for our 3D printer. It wasn’t really a joke, though. We spent more time keeping the printers working and trying to tune them than we did printing other things we needed.
That has flipped. Now it’s easy to get a cheap 3D printer and start getting parts out of it without thinking about the printer much. This is great if you’re a person who wants to use the output of the printer. This is boring if you think the value is the process of building and changing the printer hardware all the time.
I’m tired of hearing takes about how this is wrong or bad. Most “makers” want to make other things, not spend their precious free time trying to debug failing prints. There are more opportunities and knowledge available now for people who do want to build their own machines and it’s very cheap. People who want to do that can, but don’t look down upon the people who don’t want to do that.
Teever · · focus · HN ↗
And what happens if China decides that it is no longer in their interest to allow Americans access to cheap aluminum extrusions, hotends, motors, and controllers?
Between the American tariffs and Chinese prioritization of 3d printing in a past five year plan American hobbyists and small scale producers are in a potential bind.
Aurornis · · focus · HN ↗
Then home 3D printing will be the least of our concerns? What kind of question is this?
Teever · · focus · HN ↗
Ignoring the development of the sorts of skills and abilities in the general public that come from tinkering with small bench top machines like lathes and 3d printers is detrimental to nation’s ability to be self sufficient and raise the next generation of mechanically inclined people.
China seems to get that while other countries don’t.
aaronblohowiak · · focus · HN ↗
Frankly, I am confused by much of what in reading here
Aurornis · · focus · HN ↗
I replied to your topic about China stopping exports of stepper motors and aluminum extrusions, now you're switching to yet another goalpost.
For what it's worth, I've spent a lot of time with 3D printers in the past decade. The amount I've learned doesn't hold a candle to any of the deep dives I've done for real engineering work. A couple months of paid full-time engineering work on in a new area would bring any engineer up to speed.
3D printers are cool, but the self-importance some people attribute to this hobby is a little too much some times.
mlyle · · focus · HN ↗
Sure, being able to do math and detailed analysis are important. But having a good guess on step 1 is important, too, to narrow the search of huge design spaces.
I think we've all experienced different kinds of engineers. The one you trust to do a month-long trade study with deep mathematical reasoning is usually not the one you trust to just know a plausible path forward. And we need both.
bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
We make our own. You seem to be under the common delusion that because only a tiny % of people work in manufacturing compare to 70 years ago, that mean the US doesn't to manufacturing. In fact the US is manufacturing more than ever with just that tiny % of people. Be glad you don't have to work a boring assembly line job.
mlyle · · focus · HN ↗
At the same time, our production of lower value, commodity-ish things has indeed shrunk rather than grown with population of demand. That manufacturing expertise is more concentrated more on higher value (aerospace, information technology, etc) things and less on fasteners, bulk materials, or extrusions.
We are not vertically integrated in the way that China is.
cryptonector · · focus · HN ↗