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Why we didn't have 3d printers before?
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Mr. Scram:

--- Quote from: vk6zgo on February 16, 2020, 01:18:29 am ---One reason was that the existing methods were highly developed & efficient for mass production.

My Dad's old job of Engineering Patternmaker, which was a complex thing, combining the skills of a sculptor, woodworker, & machinist, along with good mathematical abilities was just about gone by then with the advent of CNC, where a machine could be used to produce a pattern quickly, without any  such skills required, where the pattern was used in the time-honoured way to produce a mould, & so on.

Or

To machine the mould directly, with the "inverse" shape of the ultimate product
The same could be done for the dies used in forging.

Or

To machine the complete product from a billet of solid metal

Most of the above applies to plastics, too.
Plastic stuff was cheap as dirt to mould or extrude, or whatever, so factories really didn't stand to benefit much from 3D printing.

3D printing doesn't really seem to offer much advantage to large scale manufacturers, even now, despite all the hype.

--- End quote ---
Thinking 3D printing is supposed to replace large scale manufacturing is a classic mistake. Instead it offers flexible and fast manufacturing which means quick design iterations and cheap small scale or custom products. It can also be used to speed up traditional processes in the shape of providing molds. Especially hybrid processes tend to be both practical and allowing for much more flexibility. We need to get rid of the notion of 3D printing as a magic product making solution and start thinking of it as another useful tool in the box which interacts with existing tools.
langwadt:

--- Quote from: Mr. Scram on February 16, 2020, 05:23:23 pm ---
--- Quote from: vk6zgo on February 16, 2020, 01:18:29 am ---One reason was that the existing methods were highly developed & efficient for mass production.

My Dad's old job of Engineering Patternmaker, which was a complex thing, combining the skills of a sculptor, woodworker, & machinist, along with good mathematical abilities was just about gone by then with the advent of CNC, where a machine could be used to produce a pattern quickly, without any  such skills required, where the pattern was used in the time-honoured way to produce a mould, & so on.

Or

To machine the mould directly, with the "inverse" shape of the ultimate product
The same could be done for the dies used in forging.

Or

To machine the complete product from a billet of solid metal

Most of the above applies to plastics, too.
Plastic stuff was cheap as dirt to mould or extrude, or whatever, so factories really didn't stand to benefit much from 3D printing.

3D printing doesn't really seem to offer much advantage to large scale manufacturers, even now, despite all the hype.

--- End quote ---
Thinking 3D printing is supposed to replace large scale manufacturing is a classic mistake. Instead it offers flexible and fast manufacturing which means quick design iterations and cheap small scale or custom products. It can also be used to speed up traditional processes in the shape of providing molds. Especially hybrid processes tend to be both practical and allowing for much more flexibility. We need to get rid of the notion of 3D printing as a magic product making solution and start thinking of it as another useful tool in the box which interacts with existing tools.

--- End quote ---

yeh, the only thing "magic" about 3d printing is the can make part that are impossible to make with any other method

Cerebus:

--- Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on February 16, 2020, 04:48:15 pm ---...
2) Open Source wasn't a thing, ...

--- End quote ---

Oh it very much was, various user's groups such as DECUS, IBM User Group and others circulated open source software back as far as the 60s. It just didn't get called "open source" until later.
David Hess:
The primary reason consumer grade 3D printers were not available earlier is the patents.  Immediately after they ran out, desktop 3D printers became available.

And with no printers, there was no reason to develop the CAD and CAM software for them.  Computer performance was more than enough with early 16 and 32 bit processors.  There was plenty of CAD and CAM software on the 8086 and 68000.


--- Quote from: Brumby on February 16, 2020, 03:50:42 pm ---Speed: If you just look at the trend expressed by Moore's Law, in 1980, you were getting around 50,000 transistors on a chip.  Today it's around 50,000,000,000.  That's a factor of 1,000,000.  Assuming this translates into an equivalent effect in processing speed, something that would take you 1 second today would take more than 11 days back then.  A single "oops" you would think nothing of today and undo in another second could set you back weeks.  Manual scrutiny of code and actions was much more necessary in those days.
--- End quote ---

Having used CAD/CAM back then and now, most of the increase in processing power has been wasted.  The biggest difference is the much better visualization which is available now.  Preprocessing would have taken longer, like generating Gerber files, but that would be insignificant compared to printing time.
vk6zgo:

--- Quote from: Mr. Scram on February 16, 2020, 01:17:21 pm ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on February 16, 2020, 08:48:57 am ---I was just watching The-8-bit-guy's lateswayt video today where he cooks up a couple of key stands for the C64.

He pulled the file off the web and sent it to the printer and walla.

--- End quote ---
Where's walla?

--- End quote ---

It's probably what people in "Walla Walla Washington" call their hometown, in the same  way  that the inhabitants of "Wagga Wagga" often call their town just "Wagga".

All you need to do is mentally add the other "Walla" & "voila!"------you have it. ;D
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