Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Line
People looking at the 3D printers need to think very very hard about it.3d printers require specialized technical knowledge to set up, print, and maintain. In addition, teams have to ask themselves how useful a 3d printer would be to their FIRST program. I can't think of a single part on our robot last year that could have been 3D printed. Not one.
A lot of people think '3d printer! cool!" but don't really think about everything that has to go into making one work effectively. Heck, look how many FIRST choice 3D printer jobs were never purchased.
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Tom, you hit the nail on the head here. I've been responsible for running and servicing the 3D printers at my job for the last 5 years or so, and they're quirky machines at best (These are 'production' capacity machines). Yes, they do provide an awesome medium for prototyping and small parts production, but to truly make use of the machine's capabilities, the person operating it should have a good understanding of how the machine works. I can only imagine how the experience could be with a 'DIY' or Entry Level machine.
With that being sail, the 'ground floor' level of 3D printing is probably a bit more useful than you might think. There are a lot of parts that I've made over the years, spacers, mounting fixtures, gears, etc, that are fairly forgiving when printed as long as you know how to turn the machine on and press start. Things like sensor mounts and interfaces are probably a perfect example of this, last year our encoder mounts for just about everything (I think everything, by the CMP) were made using a 3D printer. None of them required exploitation of any of the 'tricks' that can be done with 3D printing, most were just plastic 'plates' with some sort of integrated spacer or interfacing geometry.