Good list - I think there's a definite hype bubble in cheap 3D printers. All the copy sounds very naive in relation with the reality of what these printers can actually do. Ex: "printer in every home" - that's like saying a CAD designer in every home - not going to happen. Even d/ling from Thingiverse isn't going to be that popular as most of the parts aren't super useful / attractive.

Would you have imagined that one of these would be in every home?

http://www.ttsw.com/SuesClasses/OldComputers/ENIAC.gif

It's not that I think the utility of the general public making things at home isn't attractive. It's that 3D printing, in current forms, will be obsolete by the time it's able to do this. People have been trained, and with Apple even more, to like beautiful things that combine multiple materials, the latest electronic hardware, and great packaging.

To believe this, you'd have to this we've got at least: - plastic/metal in the same machine - most likely simultaneously unless people are going to assemble it. - home printable silicon, maybe they could ship it in, but I feel like that defeats the point - they could just ship the device then.

Both of these are really hard material science problems that require tons of research.

The process/materials that 3D printing provide can do none of those things right now - probably not for 10+ years. So, I think all these RepRap clone guys who think, like GNU/Linux, they'll be able to go RepRap -> ? -> Replicator, are a bit naive / hyping it.

They should be creating things that compliment the 3D Printer - like a laser cutter like this:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nortd/lasersaur-open-sou...

To be fair, there never were nor should have been ENIACs in homes. I don't think he's saying a future 3d printer shouldn't be a real consumer model.

He said it was a hype bubble. Were computers a hype bubble when they were the size of entire buildings? Or later when you had to assemble them yourself and program them with toggle switches? Fortunately, a few people had the vision and patience to keep pushing the technology forward.

Hype means excessive claims - 3D printing guys right now are claiming the RepRap can do useful things for average people, and that's just not the case. Even the commercial machines, like on Shapeways, only produce tchotchkes.

DEC wasn't wrong about the "cloud" - just way too early and in the wrong environment. RepRap clones are at this point now.

A better analogy might be the early PCs sold as kits and targeted at hobbyists, which is basically what this Kickstarter is funding.

I think you're missing the beauty of having a a 3d printer at home and needing an enclosure to do an electronics project and just printing one out, or deciding to print out an ipad stand, fork, screwdriver, guitar, etc.

If 3d printers became widespread, we would have databases full of plans made by people and every 3d print wouldn't be a custom one off

I have the ee enclosure problem now. It's getting pretty bad with some of my deployed projects just kind of spread all over the place.

As far as the database full of plans: http://www.thingiverse.com/

"SeeMeCNC - uses software to drive stepper drivers via a parallel port"

Parallel port? Isn't that an anachronism, or are these still popular in the 'hobby' world?

They're nice for hobbyists because they bridge the digital<->voltage domains really easily, so you can just hook up wires to the pins and feed them into whatever you're building, rather than having to use a fancier microcontroller interface. But yeah it's getting to be more of a hassle that e.g. a typical laptop won't have one anymore.

In the past I've also used audio line-in/out as a simple two-channel (each way) I/O interface, but that runs into more problems with drivers getting in your way (buffering things and whatnot) than parallel ports do.

They're popular in the CNC world, yes. For instance, the recently Kickstarter-funded MyDIYCNC project also natively interfaces through the parallel port; Stephen McGloughlin, who's behind the project, is building an USB interface for it from scratch.

The main issue seems to be the timing with controlling... parallel i/o lines. From http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCBreakoutBoards.htm :

While there are boards the purport to simulate a parallel port with a USB connection, most of them don't work for CNC applications. The reason is that they are not high enough performance to maintain the exact timing relationships needed to produce a clean pulse train to control multiple servos or steppers.