That is one big may.
3-D printing supports a limited variety of rigid and flexible thermoplastics and some (but not all) powdered metals. Its strong feature is the ability to create a near net shape part with no tooling. What I would call show and tell models for marketing meetings.
The process is inherently slow as it builds the part at a rate determined by the laser spot diameter and the melting point of the material. When using powdered metal the process slows down because of the higher melting point of metals requires the laser to dwell longer to insure fusion.
Conventional powdered metal production puts the powder in a die, presses it to near net shape, and sinters it in a furnace with a reducing atmosphere. This produces a strong metal matrix which is porous. If your part needs to be completely solid you pass them back through the hydrogen atmosphere furnace with a small copper block in contact with the sintered part. The copper melts, capillary attraction sucks the copper in and brazes the part into a solid piece. You'll note that the conventional PM process can produce hundreds of parts at a time with the only tooling being a pressing die, whereas the 3-D printer builds one part a few molecules at a time.
Another aspect of the 3-D printing process is the selection of materials suitable for fabrication is limited. If you are working with electric motors and such you need materials that can be magnetized and demagnetized rapidly. If you are designing gear trains you'll need materials that are heat treatable. Some parts need to be hard all the way through. Some parts need a hard surface for a few ten thousandths and a relatively softer core for impact strength. &c. &c. &c.
In sum, 3-D printers will be useful for producing tooling (dies, master patterns, core boxes). This will speed up the prototype development process while permitting final tweaking of a design while avoiding major expense in production tooling early in the design cycle.
Regards,
GtG
Current materials include heat treatable steels.
At the retail level no one cares if it takes overnight to print out a new toaster. You only need one.
If you owned the machine, you’d be able to build anything you wanted in hours to maybe days. Less time than it would take to go shopping, or for Amazon to ship one to you.
It would be like owning your own oven. You don’t bake every day, and when you do, you don’t find an hour’s wait for cupcakes objectionable.
You’re not Hostess, you don’t need to bake 100,000 Twinkies a week.
Methinks you are missing the possibilities in large-scale customization (i.e. single item to short production runs for which producing dies/forms isn’t profitable). Also for producing replacement parts for items that are no longer made, but still in use.
Many of the disadvantages you cite are or are being whittled away. In some cases, the properties can be MORE closely controlled than for regular mass production methods.
One very interesting concept is one which combines “positive” (i.e. deposition-based) 3D machining with “subtractive” (i.e. removal of material with standard CNC) in the same device:
http://store.qu-bd.com/category.php?id_category=23
It looks like their price for the combined unit will be on the order of ~$2500.
My company bought a Roland MDX-40 (not normally thought of as a production machine), and it has paid for itself many times over in short-run production of very specialized parts...the QU-BD unit has FAR more capabilities and costs ~1/4 as much as the Roland did when we purchased it.
This would be perfect for McDonalds. They could print the McRib out of a meat by-product printer year round instead of stamping them out seasonally.
Soon you’ll be able to do this at home. Yuk!