3D Printing Flies High now. Articles on three-dimensional printers are popping up everywhere these days. And nowadays there are many 3D printer products. Some are small enough to fit in a briefcase and others are large enough to print houses.
Everything you ever wanted to know about 3D printing article tells that 3D printing is having its “Macintosh moment,” declares Wired editor -in-chief Chris Anderson in cover story on the subject. 3D printers are now where the PC was 30 years ago. They are just becoming affordable and accessible to non-geeks, will be maybe able to democratize manufacturing the same way that PCs democratized publishing.
Gartner’s 2012 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies Identifies “Tipping Point” Technologies That Will Unlock Long-Awaited Technology Scenarios lists 3D Print It at Home as important topic. In this scenario, 3D printing allows consumers to print physical objects, such as toys or housewares, at home, just as they print digital photos today. Combined with 3D scanning, it may be possible to scan certain objects with a smartphone and print a near-duplicate. Analysts predict that 3D printing will take more than five years to mature beyond the niche market. Eventually, 3D printing will enable individuals to print just about anything from the comfort of their own homes.Slideshow: 3D Printers Make Prototypes Pop article tells that advances in performance, and the durability and range of materials used in additive manufacturing and stereolithography offerings, are enabling companies to produce highly durable prototypes and parts, while also cost-effectively churning out manufactured products in limited production runs.
3D printing can have implications to manufacturers of some expensive products. The Pirate Bay declares 3D printed “physibles” as the next frontier of piracy. Pirate Bay Launches 3D-Printed ‘Physibles’ Downloads. The idea is to have freely available designs for different products that you can print at home with your 3D printer. Here a video demonstrating 3D home printing in operation.
Shapeways is a marketplace and community that encourages the making and sharing of 3D-printed designs. 3D Printing Shapes Factory of the Future article tells that recently New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg cut the Shapeways‘ Factory (filled with industrial-sized 3D printers) ribbon using a pair of 3D-printed scissors.
The Next Battle for Internet Freedom Could Be Over 3D Printing article tells up to date, 3D printing has primarily been used for rapid commercial prototyping largely because of its associated high costs. Now, companies such as MakerBot are selling 3D printers for under $2,000. Slideshow: 3D Printers Make Prototypes Pop article gives view a wide range of 3D printers, from half-million-dollar rapid prototyping systems to $1,000 home units. Cheapest 3D printers (with quite limited performance) now start from 500-1000 US dollars. It is rather expensive or inexpensive is how you view that.
RepRap Project is a cheap 3D printer that started huge 3D printing buzz. RepRap Project is an initiative to develop an open design 3D printer that can print most of its own components. RepRap (short for replicating rapid prototyper) uses a variant of fused deposition modeling, an additive manufacturing technique (The project calls it Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) to avoid trademark issues around the “fused deposition modeling” term). It is almost like a small hot glue gun that melts special plastic is moved around to make the printout. I saw RepRap (Mendel) and Cupcake CNC 3D printers in operation at at Assembly Summer 2010.
There has been some time been trials to make 3D-Printed Circuit Boards. 3D Printers Will Build Circuit Boards ‘In Two Years’ article tells that printing actual electronics circuit boards is very close. Most of the assembly tools are already completely automated anyway.
3D printing can be used to prototype things like entire cars or planes. The makers of James Bond’s latest outing, Skyfall, cut a couple corners in production and used modern 3D printing techniques to fake the decimation of a classic 1960s Aston Martin DB5 (made1:3 scale replicas of the car for use in explosive scenes). The world’s first 3D printed racing car can pace at 140 km/h article tells that a group of 16 engineers named “Group T” has unveiled a racing car “Areion” that is competing in Formula Student 2012 challenge. It is described as the world’s first 3D printed race car. The Areion is not fully 3D printed but most of it is.
Student Engineers Design, Build, Fly ‘Printed’ Airplane article tells that when University of Virginia engineering students posted a YouTube video last spring of a plastic turbofan engine they had designed and built using 3-D printing technology, they didn’t expect it to lead to anything except some page views. But it lead to something bigger. 3-D Printing Enables UVA Student-Built Unmanned Plane article tells that in an effort that took four months and $2000, instead of the quarter million dollars and two years they estimate it would have using conventional design methods, a group of University of Virginia engineering students has built and flown an airplane of parts created on a 3-D printer. The plane is 6.5 feet in wingspan, and cruises at 45 mph.
3D printers can also print guns and synthetic chemical compounds (aka drugs). The potential policy implications are obvious. US Army Deploys 3D Printing Labs to Battlefield to print different things army needs. ‘Wiki Weapon Project’ Aims To Create A Gun Anyone Can 3D-Print At Home. If high-quality weapons can be printed by anyone with a 3D printer, and 3D printers are widely available, then law enforcement agencies will be forced to monitor what you’re printing in order to maintain current gun control laws.
Software Advances Do Their Part to Spur 3D Print Revolution article tells that much of the recent hype around 3D printing has been focused on the bevy of new, lower-cost printer models. Yet, significant improvements to content creation software on both the low and high end of the spectrum are also helping to advance the cause, making the technology more accessible and appealing to a broader audience. Slideshow: Content Creation Tools Push 3D Printing Mainstream article tells that there is still a sizeable bottleneck standing in the way of mainstream adoption of 3D printing: the easy to use software used to create the 3D content. Enter a new genre of low-cost (many even free like Tikercad) and easy-to-use 3D content creation tools. By putting the tools in reach, anyone with a compelling idea will be able to easily translate that concept into a physical working prototype without the baggage of full-blown CAD and without having to make the huge capital investments required for traditional manufacturing.
Finally when you have reached the end of the article there is time for some fun. Check out this 3D printing on Dilbert strip so see a creative use of 3D printing.
2,078 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/03/3d-printing-threaded-replacements/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16929-tehokas-saehkoemoottori-valmistettiin-ensimmaeisen-kerran-3d-tulostamalla
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/10/3d-printer-eliminates-the-printer-bed/
Tomi Engdahl says:
OpenSpool Makes Proprietary Filament a Thing of the Past
OpenSpool is an RFID reader for 3D printers, designed to eliminate the proprietary barriers associated with filament detection systems.
https://www.hackster.io/news/openspool-makes-proprietary-filament-a-thing-of-the-past-20cf8e85cef0
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/01/09/3dbenchy-starts-enforcing-its-no-derivatives-license/
Tomi Engdahl says:
9 software tools you need for your 3D printing ventures
https://www.xda-developers.com/software-tools-you-need-3d-printing-ventures/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/04/the-lowest-effort-way-yet-to-make-3d-printed-lenses-clear/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://all3dp.com/2/the-state-of-open-source-3d-printing/
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https://hackaday.com/2025/02/19/mit-demonstrates-fully-3d-printed-active-electronic-components/
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https://keygen.co/
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Ruotsalainen 3D-tulostimia kehittävä ja myyvä Freemelt on ulkoistanut koko tuotantonsa Scanfilille: https://www.scanfil.com/fi/uutishuone/press_release/freemelt-ulkoistaa-tuotantonsa-scanfilille
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/tekniset-artikkelit/17559-3d-tulostus-on-tie-kestaevaeaen-elektroniikkavalmistukseen
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/06/09/turning-up-the-heat-on-ht-plas-marketing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robot is 3D-printed upside-down in one piece, then walks out of the printer
https://newatlas.com/robotics/3d-printed-soft-robot-walks/
While there are many potential uses for soft-bodied robots, the things are still typically only built in small experimental batches. Scottish scientists are out to change that, with a mass-production-capable soft bot that is 3D-printed in a single piece which then walks off of the print bed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/07/22/paste-extrusion-for-3d-printing-glass-and-eggshells/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/07/22/nylon-like-tpu-filament-testing-cc3ds-72d-tpu/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/04/how-to-design-3d-printed-parts-with-tolerance-in-mind/
Tomi Engdahl says:
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Josef Prusa Warns Open Hardware 3D Printing Is Dead
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/13/josef-prusa-warns-open-hardware-3d-printing-is-dead/
It’s hard to overstate the impact desktop 3D printing has had on the making and hacking scene. It drastically lowered the barrier for many to create their own projects, and much of the prototyping and distribution of parts and tools that we see today simply wouldn’t be possible via traditional means.
What might not be obvious to those new to the game is that much of what we take for granted today in the 3D printing world has its origins in open source hardware (OSHW). Unfortunately, [Josef Prusa] has reason to believe that this aspect of desktop 3D printing is dead.
Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead – you just don’t know it yet
https://www.josefprusa.com/articles/open-hardware-in-3d-printing-is-dead/
What happened?
Well, if you are in 3D printing a little bit longer, you must have noticed that over the last 5 years, a huge number of vibrant brands died. Basically every country in Europe and many states in the USA had a couple of their own machines and the industry was very very creative in that regard. Somebody brought an innovation, others adopted it and shared it back.
But around the year 2020 we registered the first mention of 3D printing as a strategic industry by the Chinese government. We know that now, after a few years of research. We first realized something is off when the price of the parts is higher than the sale price of a complete machine in some cases. That is what sparked our interest and research into the subsidies. They exist, and are very efficient https://rhg.com/research/far-from-normal-an-augmented-assessment-of-chinas-state-support/. Our industry, desktop 3D printing, faces a bleak future. Comparable to the automotive sector as if only one high volume car brand, say Audi, remained outside of China. That’s it. An inch away from complete dependency on China in an vital piece of tech, the one absolutely critical for creation of new IP.
Patent minefield
When looking into the data we were wondering why there is suddenly a multiple fold increase in 3D printing patent applications in China just around the year 2020, take a look yourself.
WTF has happened?
3D printing became a strategic industry and things like “Super deduction” became applicable to it. It is quite normal that R&D costs are tax deductible around the world. But definitely not 200% as in this case. From our understanding you have to prove the true innovations to qualify and of course a patent application is clear proof! It doesn’t even have to be granted! Perfect!
So even in industries where a lot of the low-hanging fruit is gone, and the true innovations are now really rare – like 3D printing, you just patent spam every little variation of the stuff out there. And that is why open hardware is very disadvantaged because it’s just so easy to file the stuff which is out there already or do minimal modifications to it. From what we’ve seen the validity checks are not stringent at all and prior art doesn’t seem to matter much.
Are these patents bogus?
Mostly, but when hunting with a shotgun you don’t need to hit with all the pellets. With the sheer number just statistically some have to land.
Are they dangerous?
There are already some patents on our watch that could hamper the industry if they slip through and get granted in the EU or USA.
Isn’t there prior art for everything in 3D printing?
There is a huge discrepancy at the cost of filing the patent and then striking it down. 125 USD to file it in China. It is almost unrealistic for an open source project to even monitor these, let alone try to strike them in the application stage if not local to China. Proactively striking down the application when brought to EU/USA roughly 12,000 USD in really straightforward cases and multiple times that in other cases. When already granted it is 75,000 USD just to start and it is not a short run.
The fact you hold a prior art in your hand, doesn’t mean much. The patent will still prevent you from importing/selling etc of the “infringing” stuff. And you will have to battle the thing in the court to use the prior art card you hold. That can be a nice million dollar bill all while not being able to do your thing for years …
Open hardware has a huge disadvantage as it has to be manufactured/transported/sold and even if you do not want to manufacture and sell your own product, you want someone else to do it. And they will always try to avoid the risk.
Once the patent is awarded, there is a priority period for filing in other IP markets when you can ask for the protection and you have a good head-start compared to fresh filing.
All in all I think this super deduction is a great exploitation of the global IP law treaties but as always the small innovators and businesses outside are hurt the most.
Impact
True impact is still not here “you just don’t know it yet” because of the timescale IP protections take, it can be well over 5 years from first filing in China to having someone’s project killed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/21/cal-3d-printing-spins-resin-right-round-baby/