Larger than Modern Civilization that was forged in the factories of the Industrial Revolution after the invention of the Steam Engine.
James Dines, who has become legendary for having made correct forecasts that were in complete contradiction to the rest of the financial community, says that this is the biggest thing he has ever seen.
Dines says it is already occurring on one level in the way that virtually every business is being redefined as the internet evolves. Yelp has made Yellowpages obsolete, Amazon has driven retailers to do something else with the space they had devoted to selling books, and Kindle has forced publishers into layoffs. If not outright bankruptcy. Indeed, while internet continues to transform business on an accelerating pace, that is not what has Dines really excited.
No, it is the transformation of manufacturing and Society, and the marvels that will occur from the invention of the 3D Printer.
Very soon 3D Printers, or the ideas they have spawned, will have developed to the state where they will be producing in everything from metal, carbon fiber, ceramic cellulose, even food. Soon you will just push a button and that part you needed for your car, or the hearing aid your Doctor prescribed to you at noon that day will be printed layer by layer, atom by atom overnight. In the morning you'll just pick it up off the family 3D Printer. The 3D Printer that every household has since society will have become built around its abilities in the way that it became built around automobiles.
More here in this Michael Campbell interview with Dines.
the rebirth of the craftsman. If only we didn't have to look over our shoulders, beware the environmentalists.
Don't forget the 3D printing of guns. Bwaaahaaahaaa. Take that Feinstein.
I have a problem with the concept of 3=D printers. I think the idea is much overblown.
"Very soon 3D Printers, or the ideas they have spawned, will have developed to the state where they will be producing in everything from metal, carbon fiber, ceramic cellulose, even food. Soon you will just push a button and that part you needed for your car, or the hearing aid your Doctor prescribed to you at noon that day will be printed layer by layer, atom by atom overnight. In the morning you'll just pick it up off the family 3D Printer. The 3D Printer that every household has since society will have become built around its abilities in the way that it became built around automobiles."
Having spent my life as a metallurgical/materials engineer, I can't believe a 3-D printer can produce anything that resembles a forging, casting, superplastic formed, or complex integrated (hearing aids?) items. James Dines is letting his over productive imagination run away with his keyboard. There is more to a product than a pot of material "printed" into its final shape. Some items, for example, require forging which produces microstructural flow lines aligned in certain stressed directions. There is going to be a 3-D printer locating organic and inorganic materials in exactly the right places? That 3-D printer is going to produce a semiconductor with just the right material surface properties with the electron holes in exactly the right places? 3-D printers can not print microstructural alignment, cant print strength, cant print electrical domains, etc. Sorry, this whole subject, as described by James Dines is bull tickey. Everybody, go hide your wallets. Another Algore is on the loose! Star Trek is just a movie or TV show. Physics says we will Never have replicators, except for the female kind. My gosh, SDA can't even make Captcha work, let alone replication.
So 3-D printers are what, the precursor to Star Trek's replicators? "Computer, tea, earl gray, hot" and presto, out comes a cup of tea?
No. In this world we obey the laws of thermodynamics. Old Country Boy there laid it all out in detail.
Old Country Boy....he did not say it would work,just that there is were you should put your bucks and short. Like the green scam.
3D printing will transform industry. How much it will is open to time with debate.
Its still in its infancy.
frankly I think real skills are disappearing. From Mechanics to Medicine.Tin Bashing to Business models.
Take automated auto control. Soon if things fly apart. No one will have the savy to put it back together.
3D printing will absolutely revolutionize our world naysayers be damned. What we have is only the beginning. Metals will eventually get printed and forged. There's a 3D printed Derringer. Molecular printers will make drugs available to everyone.
Agreed, 3D printing is being a bit overhyped at the moment. Mostly overhyped by those who have little knowledge of manufacturing processes & materials.
This whole "OMG!!1! anyone can make a gun now!" hype is also pretty amusing. Seems many don't realize for +15 years now you could buy a CNC mill or lathe for as little as several thousand and make almost anything you want in your garage.
Look, I`ve always been a Luddite, but I find all of this very scary.
Yes but are the 3D printers unionized?
I like the idea of printing a part for your car.
Now who's going to install it?
Can it do a wife? Hot diggie dog!
He lost me when he said "we have global warming".
With the advent of the home CNC mills & lathes I'm not entirely sure I'd agree. I think that big industry will likely move more towards producing raw materials as we move forward. The home PC wasn't considered a viable option in 1984 and now again as we move into 2014, this time because in some ways it's nearing the end of it product life cycle.
Old Country Boy nails it above...
I've been reading James Dines for roughly 30+ years, mostly for AMUSEMENT, because of his long record of being wrong ... but Dines is always soooooo enthusiastic in his VERY over-confident forecasts that you have to have been reading / hearing him for a long enough time to know that he's been WRONG - and very vividly so - not just for months or years, but for DECADES! Dines is JUST as out-to-lunch in HIS special way as gloabl warming / enviro loons like Al Gore and David Suzuki are in THEIR special way.
The Dines Letter has lost MORE money for MORE people than almost any other investment advisory there is ... read for laughs, do NOT read it to make money!
New technologies have helped government track and record billions of pieces of data on us .... however, that leaves us with the cover of anonymity. Who has time to sift through billions of bits of information unless you have stuck your head up and got 'whack a moled" by government for whatever reason they decided that you were a target. Don't be a heads up mole.
Nextly, those same new technologies have provided an avenue for more freedoms and for the exchange of ideas at the street level en masse. This makes governments nervous because ... don't forget ... they are the enemy of the people. Look at your pay stub if you have any doubts. If we get too prosperous and free-thinking, they might have to work to convince us that they are worth something .... they aren't. We will be able to print restricted stuff like 30 round magazines for rifles and who knows what else ....
As we gain more and more freedom and opportunity from the new technologies, don't be surprised as governments work to restrict it all and try to control our activities with those technologies. They already are trying hard to control the internet. Even China can't quite do it and they have cart blanche to do whatever they want to their hapless population.
I predict they will have the same result as they have had with the war on drugs and the war on terror .... in others words .... ferget about it .... they are not bright enough to succeed at anything and there are a hell of lot more of us than there are of them.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.
The blue chip stock is 3D Systems, symbol DDD.
Problem is, it's trading a 119 x EPS, so it's a bit pricey now.
Any good internet trading website will list peers ... if you believe in this technology's future.
For now, I'm holding back until mid-October, when I can get the information straight from the horses' mouth.
Isn't Jim Dines an old cohort of Art Bell? (theme from twilight zone in the background)
Yep, Old Country Boy nails it.....making a katanna for example involves much more than cutting a chucka steel the right shape and polishing it.......unless ya wanna steel bowtie when ya try to swing it......
I have a Khukri that some fella with a simple forge in Nepal crafted from a car spring.....much superior to the WW2 Birmingham crafted British issue.....
Another thing that will happen to stifle this tech will be DRM(digital copyright).
I'm still waiting for the flying cars we were promised...
We have had 3-d "printing" since the late 90s if not earlier. We called it 3-D prototyping. Good for seeing form/fit/function. Not usable for real items unless you like delerin guns. Yes folks, that is what you are in awe about, a delerin one-shot gun of very small caliber. You can get some plastic parts like grips, etc, but not strength/heat metal. Dream on. Remember what I said about hiding your wallet.
The only new feasible technology for emplacing metal atoms in a matrix is nanotech, and that ain't 3-D printing. Carnegie Mellon University is doing some of this - go look them up. I think they are limited to carbon and things like that. For you science fiction dreamers, 3-D printing of the Brooklin bridge is at least 10 melinium off, by nanotech, maybe 1-200 years off.
By the way, My nephew has two CNCs in his garage (and a big garage it is) and he makes a bundle working from home, just like those ads say.
I know diddly squat about metallurgy, I come from a straight technological background.
I agree with LAS.
Many times I've seen technological ideas in their infancy poo-pah'ed by those within whatever industry that technology is encroaching on, which given a decade or more of work, took over the industry.
In printing (press, that is) you have direct to plate, proof-capable plotters, imposition and layouts, and PDF based work-flows. That doesn't even include things that are straight software like quick print templating systems. Every one of those had their nay-sayers within the industry.
The nay-sayers were correct in that at the time the hardware and software couldn't do it as well or as astute as the human could. The nay-sayers were wrong in that they said it could never be done.
Cheers,
lance
"hearing him for a long enough time to know that he's been WRONG - and very vividly so "
Makes me wonder what you were actually reading. I was warming a broker chair at Merrill Lynch when he was "in his VERY over-confident" manner yelling buy Gold at $35 an ounce. People thought he was nuts then, thought he was nuts when he made the call about the internet too. Yes he's an unusual sort, but I witnessed people make utter fortunes in those two market moves. Making the call that China would dominate the 21st just after Mao died?
"he's been WRONG - and very vividly so" - not on those markets he wasn't, and they were massive moves.
As for the 3D Printers, doubtless that is just step 1 in the long term evolution of the idea. Science has come a long way in the last 150 years. DNA Sequencing & cloning must have seemed like pretty wild ideas in 1945.
When I was taking auto in high school back in 1971 the auto teacher was constantly telling us how worthless what he was teaching us was. Apparently the rotary engine was going to make everything we were learning obsolete and we were just wasting his and our time. The poor guy was actually bordering on despondent most of the time.
Dines is wrong. 3D printers will continue to grow in use, but mainly as an adjunct to existing manufacturing technologies. It's more likely that a surgical implant / robotic medical procedure will be used to improve hearing than a 3D printed hearing aid. Or instead of a 3D food printer it's as likely that we'll eat pablum, but have a brain app that lets us think we're eating steak. I guess Dines figures leading technology is just as predictable as global warming.
You are absolutely right. You don't know diddly squat about metallurgy. If you did, you wouldn't take the optomistic stand you are taking. However, go ahead, put YOUR money up. I didn't say it was impossible, just that it ain't ahappenin' in your lifetime, or your childrens lifetimes. Dont compare 3-D printing to offset lithography or wallpaper printing. As long as you believe in this con job, I would propose you put your money in tachyon printing. That is the new and old coming and going thing, and probably more feasible than 3-D printing.
THINK...
So with all material goods free the only way to give them value would be to turn humanity itself into currency.. That car is worthless unless there is a person in it.. Our breeding heritage, our breeding rights sold into the next stage of human evolution..
The government of the day (like today) will control the amount of currency in circulation.. There will be walking talking 1000 dollar bills and walking talking 5 dollar bills.. Some will be discontinued or reprinted, others will be part of a limited edition run of some sort..
This is a evil science that reminds me of the end of times..
Well that made for a good laugh. Hmmm the gold thing. I was in the Army and overseas when that crap happened and didn't pay much attention but I do remember gold hit it's high mark (with adjusted dollar) in the early? 70's and hasn't passed that point yet (thank you inflation oh and how's that for inflation protection?).
China? Well China has a good chance of imploding soon. I'm betting on at least three successor states so.... no not investing in China so I guess I'm bearish to. Yes China is cranking out a lot of stuff nowadays. After all the hundreds of billions poured into their economy they should be. The question that the next few years will answer is can they sustain it on their own while treating their people like cattle? I swear if soylent green ever comes to earth the first factory will be in China.
3D printing? This Dines fellow is confusing 3D printing with Molecular Assembly Devices. Molecular assembly devices could, theoretically, build very intricate items for us if they ever figure out how to even approach making a potential process. In other words nano tech. The closest anyone is to this is the preliminary experiments with using DNA like molecules to build random scaffolds of material.
Thank you for your advice Mr. Dine now excuse me while I ignore you.
Right now I'm undewhelmed with 3D printers, but the technology is in its infancy. I'll probably be buying one in the near future just to play around with it. While Old Country Boy is correct for the moment, the moment we start being able to lay down single layers of atoms at a practical rate, metallurgy, as we used to know it, will be the domain of retro-metallurgical hobbyists. All of the metallurgical processes that Old Country Boy described will be capable of being duplicated by atom printing methods. It may well be that, aside from very tiny metal gears and other such items that can't be made conventionally, the present way of doing things may persist for a long time.
Right now we're laying down layers of metal atoms at micron scales with ion beams. IC's have parts which are laser trimmed to give cheap measuring instruments on a chip that are far better than similar instruments that used to cost thousands of dollars each only 30 years ago. IC manufacturing is the mass production of today in giant silicon foundaries but it's also possible to make circuits with non-conventional semiconductors.
There's a huge amount of research being done into organic semiconductors where one can print circuits with an inkjet printer. These will be flexible circuits and one can in principle, for example, print and EKG sensor as well as pressure sensitive circuits on someones shirt to record their EKG and breathing rate while they run. This is not futuristic stuff, it's happening now but not yet widely commercially available.
Another way of creating metal parts is via electrical deposition from solution -- we already do chrome plating of various metal bits and there's a huge amount of room for improvement in terms of using existing technologies with a huge amount of software control to create metal objects that aren't just a thin layer of one metal on another. 3D printing is getting to be high resolution enough that one can make quite tiny plastic parts and, if these parts were made of a conductive enough plastic, one could then on could electroplate a layer of metal on the plastic in order to greatly strengthen it. Not strong enough for a 3D printed gun that would get off more than 1-2 shots.
The other thing that occurred to me is the 3D printing of human organs. We already sort lymphocytes using flow cytometry where, through is what is essentially a tiny ink jet nozzle, single labelled lymphocytes are squirted through and either counted or directed to a specific location if one wants. What one would need would be a nutrient medium and a sustrate onto which one would spray layer after layer of fibroblasts, blood vessel precursor cells, and the various specialized cells one needed in an organ. The nice thing about partially differentiated cells is that they don't know if they're in a fetus or in a lab being used to create an artificial organ. Encapsulated pancreatic islet cells and skin would be the easiest to print followed by livers and maybe then kidneys. Given enough evolution of the process, it might even be possible to print functional brains for moonbats. Even just being able to print skin would be a huge step forward in dealing with burn patients.
My first nanotechnology book was purchased in 1988. Thus, I'm a bit leery of anyone who claims this future breakthrough is just around the corner. I think that nanotech will start with modifying insects -- who would ever suspect a fly in a room as being a nanotech bugging device? Likely wasps could be created to inject ricin and other high potency toxins. The reason I mention wasps is that they and bees have quite remarkable brains; very tiny but capable of learning a lot and performing a huge amount of pattern recognition. Thus, they'd be the ultimate biologic weapon if a way was found to isolate the insect from the highly lethal toxin they were carrying. The nice thing about biologic nanotech is that one already has self-reproducing entities and one just has to hack them a bit to make them perform desired functions rather than duplicate the whole self-reproducing process de-novo.
Unfortunately, governments will try to get involved and M$ has been actively colluding with statists -- as if one didn't need yet another reason to boycott the Redmond evil empire. M$ is trying to acquire enough patents to make sure that no 3D printer will be allowed to exist without having builtin DRM and thus would be only able to print allowed structures. This is something that's going to get the open-source/hacker community outraged once it becomes publicized enough and it's going to be another dismal failure for the statists. What the statists don't seem to be able to understand is that someone who really understands how things work has a level of curiosity which drives them to overcome everything that stands in their way to grok in its fullness their latest obsession, especially if it's totally illogical restrictions like arbitrary laws that are standing in their way. In my experience, a very large fraction of tech types, especially the really creative and knowledgeable ones, are either Libertarian leaning or declared Libertarians. Thus, any attempt at restricting what 3D printers can produce will be an utter failure.
I'd like to see 3D printers working in metal in my lifetime but I should probably put a CNC machine on my wish list of things needed to deal with the upcoming SHTF scenario.
"3D printing" is a highly overrated buzzword.
Its the 80's, so where's our rocket packs?
Agreed OCB. When I saw the article, it's the first thing I thought of, sure printed, but printed of what? Within certain very limited parameters I suppose certain things could be printed, but so much of modern manufactures derive their value and utility in no small part from the materials of which those products are made. The idea of printing in the office something made of a rather complex alloy just doesn't make sense.
I was wrong about what's possible....
http://americanlivewire.com/woman-pregnant-by-3-d-movie/
For a guy reputed to investigate behind the headlines to predict the future, he lost me when he said, "The truth is that we've got global warming"
He's been selling his newsletter since the sixties. If he followed his own advice shouldn't he be stinking rich by now?
I guess if you're trying to sell a newsletter, more customers would like to read, "Buy Company X and double your money quick, rather than "Buy Coke shares and wait 20 years".
I will only start to worry when a 3D printer prints another 3D printer.
3D printing is a disruptive technology still in in its infancy. The tech is at about the stage personal computers were back in around 1978 - that is, mostly a hacker thing for now, but getting ready to explode. I remember seeing TV news spots back in the late 90's: "What is the internet, and how will it change your life?"
A technology like 3d printing (or "additive manufacturing") plays to the strengths of the user, just like computers in general or the internet. Sure, you can't get all the material properties you want, yet - but what could an experienced metallurgist do with the ability to print one-off lost wax molds in a few hours for a few bucks? A cake decorator can 3-d print with icing. Aircraft manufacturers have been 3D printing with powdered titanium in a stream of Argon, sintered with a laser to make incredibly strong lattice-like beams, impossible to make with a CNC, and at a fraction of the weight and materials cost.
The car parts market could evolve into a car parts design market, and digital rights management becomes an issue. It will be driven by the economics. Once it becomes cheaper to buy a 3-D printer and materials and print out your car part than it is to just buy the part, then people will be buying 3D printers on a large scale. I could definitely see auto repair shops as early adopters.
It hasn't reached that tipping point where it becomes a must-have for everybody, yet, and the resolution certainly isn't where it needs to be for a Star Trek type replicator (not to mention those pesky thermodynamics) but the applications available just over the horizon are dazzling.
Even better, those capabilities will be transferred from large-scale manufacturing to a distributed worldwide network of individuals running their own machines. That changes the way everything is manufactured. A factory with 1000 workers on the floor is very different logistically from a thousand individuals distributed worldwide. It's outsourcing writ large.
Having looked at a couple of consumer grade 3D printers they reminded me of dot matix printers back in the day. 25 years on I think nothing of laser printing full colour presentations - but I don't actually own a printer and only very rarely have to print anything.
Rather than taking a flier on 3D I would be much more interestes in the companies producing the technologies supporting "precision farming". Stuff like tractor auto-drives, precision soil and crop sensing technologies: long term farming is a growth industry and tech which makes it more efficient will find a ready market.
I can't wait to see what Anthony Weiner prints.
This is my first comment on SDA. I really don't have anything to this topic except that where else can you find such intelligent comments & opinions on such a variety of topics than here. Most days I read SDA, my brain gets bigger. Thanks Kate!
I am with old country boy on this. fantasy is great but a printer will never smelt the iron ore to make the steel that makes the product.
I don't see this changing life too much for my region of the world (Ontario). Where I do forsee a huge impact is in China, where many millions will be suddenly unemployed. The sad thing is, where this product could have a huge impact is exactly where it won't. 3D printers don't run on air, they need energy. And energy is being controlled, constrained, and inflated in price by the war on CO2 (aka plant food).
Thank you Davers6!
I was gonna say earlier that I followed him after the stock market crash of 1987 but that I did not find his advice helpful.
All I know is that my son the dentist takes a few pictures of my tooth, hits a button and produces a perfectly new ceramic cap in minutes. A little fine tuning, a little glue and I am walking out of the office.
The real issue is the on going deterioration of the middle class and government's hopeless attempt to stop it. Capital is taking today's technology and moving past labor's ability to take it's share.
The issue is what form of governance will succeed our existing system when the eventual collapse happens.
Of course for every technical innovation which liberates humans into more independence from the monopolies of big government and big business, the kleptocrats are scheming ways to defeat it. In this case the files needed to feed the technology are transferred on the internet - a cyber community which ALL governments are working furiously to completely control. If NSA is monitoring 90% of internet communication traffic, you can bet they have or are developing the ability to filter and control 100% of file transfer - why? Because thi i what big government does = if it make your serfs freer or more independent of you, you regulate, tax and ban - such as it' always been.
I've been very interested in the 3D printing thing for quite a while. The disruptive aspect of the technology is not that it can reproduce -anything-, but that it is -cheap-.
This means that the average hardware geek can afford to have rapid prototyping printers in his basement/garage/bedroom that can reproduce what used to take a shop full of trained pattern makers to do.
This is exactly the same thing that Lotus 123 did in the late 1970s, it put a horde of office workers out of a job. Spreadsheets used to be done by hand, remember?
As to the capability of the current crop of machines, they are slow and really only do plastic. CNC mills are still pretty expensive, and still require that you know what you're doing.
However.
Let me lay on you two signs of things to come. First, the SIM card in your smart phone is a very capable little piece of electronics, which is printed. Currently there's a chip embedded in the card and just the contacts are printed, but it turns out you can make semiconductors out of plastic and print them lithographically. So I'm sure eventually some genius will be printing the whole thing out of plastic with a really small dot-matrix printer or similar. Eventually being not very long, assuming there's a buck in it.
Second, powdered metal. Currently all OEM connecting rods and similar high-stress engine parts are sintered out of powdered metal, not forged. They're not the strongest possible con-rods you could ever make, but they're good for 100,000+ miles in the average car. In fact the rest of the car rots away long before the engine does. There's no reason you can't print a connecting rod with powdered metal and a suitable binder. There's no reason you can't sinter it in a suitable microwave furnace or similar electric oven arrangement.
So I'm less skeptical than you are that this will be the thing, or one of the things, that re-energizes Western manufacturing. No, you probably won't be able to print a watered steel katana... unless some hacker someplace figures a way. It could happen.
After reading this thread I began thinking about disruptive technologies.
Governments are wary of them - Seeking to either limit or take advantage of them. (Think cronyism and / or taxes). Telephone, radio, television, cable and the internet all come to mind.
Given that that 3D printing may have a significant economic impact by empowering people and displacing traditional manufacturing workers I can envision new legislation requiring owners of these devices to purchase government-mandated "health " insurance for inevitable breakdowns and retirement benefits for their eventual obsolescence.
The future belongs to products with parts that breaks easily and you can easily replace them by 3D-printing. Examples of product categories: toys, garden tools, furniture. Short China.
"Second, powdered metal. Currently all OEM connecting rods and similar high-stress engine parts are sintered out of powdered metal, not forged. They're not the strongest possible con-rods you could ever make, but they're good for 100,000+ miles in the average car. In fact the rest of the car rots away long before the engine does. There's no reason you can't print a connecting rod with powdered metal and a suitable binder. There's no reason you can't sinter it in a suitable microwave furnace or similar electric oven arrangement.
The mind and thought is in the right place, but the connecting rod is not just made of powdered metal, but of sintered powder metal. You can't sinter in a microwave. That takes a closely controlled furnace - that is why it is called a sintering furnace. In addition, the powdered metal and fluxing agents are very carefully cominuted (co'-my-nute'-ed), I expect they are corned, because they must be PERFECTLY mixed, and they must then be compressed in a forging -type die. They are then lpaced in the sintering furnace. Any contaminants destroy the strength of the product.
Some things sound simple, but they ain't. This process should be of far greater efficasy using nanotechnology. However, before anyone jumps into that CF, remember, for a programmed nanobot breaks down and assembles atome and molecules, remember - breaking down and often assembling requires an expenditure of energy. We currently (no pun intended) use electricity and heat to do this. The same heat will still be required in a microscopic entity does it. I suspect the amount of heat involved will be enough to destroy the acting nano-agent. Look it up. Find the energy bond requirements among FeO (1:1), Fe304 (3:4) and Fe2O3 (2:3). Now go do your homework! Remember - you can't get something for nothing; you can't violate the laws of thermodynamics; you can't violate the laws of conservation of energy.
each granule of metal must be in enough intimate contict with the sintering or fluxing agent. SDA Captcha stinks!
3D printing is bullshit. It always will be.
All it does is allow young f*ckwit "industrial designers" to sell hapless inventors 3D prototypes of horribly conceived industrial designs that 3 times out of 4 turn out to be really bad when it comes to setting up the actual moulds and production. Sorry. That's just the truth.
Here are 2 reasons why 3D printing will never grow much to applications beyond producing prototypes and desk sculpture:
1)Pretty much any product that requires flexibility or sheer strength can not be formed by a 3D deposition process. Even simple stuff like bolts, tools, toys, tableware, containers, or machine parts.
2)no matter how fast the system is, it won't be able to compete with purpose engineered production processes like injection moulding for speed, cost-effectiveness, and durability.
3) most real products aren't monolithic - they're assemblies of very specific parts, each requiring very particular qualities. How would you 3D print a safe and functional light switch, (which requires flexibility in the electrical contacts), or a pencil that would actually work properly?
So unless you're producing something that no one would want to create in a factory, why would anyone bother.
I think this guy read "The Diamond Age" and got confused about what 3D printing actually is.