Listening to another pitch about how AI can empower workers at various jobs across my industry, I was striken by the comparison in the title
3d printing, just like generative models, have it’s actual niche uses, where it’s obvious downsides are irrelevant and they come handy, e.g. prototyping, replacements, small-series production
Where it comes to the top-down AI promotion trend, it feels not unlike the idea of printing the whole product - a car, or a house, from the smallest details - applying the least effective method, doomed to have a worse than average outcome due to technological limitations
And screws, the thing that we nailed down long before, and that is completely incompatible with that mode of production, is a screaming, growling, shrieking example of how helpful tech can be mispurposed in the most stupid way
Um. You do know that people already print screws using materials like metal and nylon, which are what a lot of screws are already made out of. Just saying. 😊
Edit: people even 3d print guns.
I think you’ve completely missed the point.
We produce screws at industrial quantities, out of various materials, lengths, heads, pitches, etc etc etc.
The industrial scaling of this production results in screws being really really inexpensive. So inexpensive that depending on quantity you’re looking at, the finished screws are no more expensive to you than the raw materials.
Yeah you can print a screw. The question is why?. It will be more expensive per unit, more labour intensive, of worse quality, and will do wear and tear to equipment you own. It’s a lose/lose/lose/lose.
The one exception is that it is some mystical bespoke screw. And even then, it is likely that there are traditional methods which would better achieve that end (buy some screws that you can develop a process to modify in order to meet your needs)
It’s a good analogy. Yes you CAN 3D print a screw. It doesn’t mean it’s appropriate or even economical to include them in your products. Yes you CAN vibe code something. It doesn’t mean it’s appropriate or even economical to include them in your products.
I mean, random bespoke dimensions show up all the time in 3D printing, including adding screwing features.
It doesn’t remove the point about standard screws being far better made the classic way, but screwing shows up plenty often anyways!
One thing it’s good for is that if you have the screw/nut on the bed with the part, you can scale both equally and the screw/nut will work with the part still, even if the threading is no longer a standard pitch/size. For a one-off or prototype that’s fine, but if you’re going to mass produce, it’s better to fix it in CAD to a standard size and use manufactured fasteners.
Yep. If it’s meant for mass production, that’s solid advice for ALL components, not just screws. Anything that’s not a standard part will need to be adapted to other production techniques anyways, as 3D printing is extremely inefficient for mass production.
Aren’t eggs produced at industrial scales from chickens, who super-abundantly exist?
How is that working out?
In no universe does the economics of a $1 egg make sense, yet here certain countries are. Did you know you can have chickens in your backyard, and they’ll turn bugs and cheap feed into eggs?
The less you can offload production to central untrusted parties, the better. When you manufacture something yourself, you get to know all the properties instead of trusting that some people elsewhere (whose primary motivation is money) still considered your interests by making a quality product.
So when you say “we,” what does “we” mean exactly? It is rhetorical.
Additionally, you get consistent reproducibility without reliance on large scale logistical networks. There are many other reasons I can think of off the top of my head beyond this.
If we lived in a more cooperative world, with ironclad democratically owned logistics networks and manufacturing, centralized manufacturing would make sense in the way you say. But the reality is, we do not live in that world, and more and more, we are all increasingly feeling what that means.
I’d just like to comment that keeping your own chickens is not economical unless you are basically willing to convert your yard into a chicken farm and slaughter your chickens once they stop laying eggs after a couple years, and even then its gonna take you a while to recoup (ha) the cost off the chicken coop, feed, etc, not to mention the time it takes to take care of them. What you’re really paying for with the cost of $1 (or really, 50 cents or less for most people) an egg is the convenience of eggs in the quantity you want them, with guaranteed quality, whenever you want them. Same with buying screws from the hardware store.
Edit: I’d originally written a response that matched your tone, and realized after a smoke that it’s needlessly confrontational and snarky, so I’m going to take another shot.
I don’t mean to imply that it’s imperative that you don’t make your own screws.
If you wanna make your own screws, go ahead, but I still don’t think you should 3D print them. There are existing tools to do that which are cheap, simple, and will produce vastly superior screws. Also cheaper. A tap and die set is your answer there.
Also, if you want to leverage your 3D printer, use it for what it is actually good at which is creating complex bespoke geometries. Design your components with interlocking geometries such that you don’t NEED screws.
Screws exist as the convenient solution to a manufacturing problem, being that it’s often easier to create complex geometries by producing a set of simpler geometries and then fastening them together. The underlying problem goes away if you can print arbitrarily complex components.
If you think you gotta 3D print screws, you’re probably not even actually leveraging the new technology to its fullest extent anyways, you’re still designing with an old paradigm despite having new options.
I will process wood vinegar and corn starch into PET plastic to 3D print expendable stuff eith, thanks
Ah shit I edited my post to dial back the snark, but this comment is on point
Anyone suggesting Ford or Toyota start 3d printing their fastening hardware in-house should have the head checked.
That’s the point of the analogy. You can do this, but in most cases, you probably shouldn’t, and you will get better results for less time and money with the traditional method.
I just watched a thing on the expensive mustang gtd. They do use 3d printed titanium for some pieces, but they didn’t go into much detail.
Point I want to make though, it always starts on the expensive things, then advances as the tech gets better. If Ford is using it for basically hand built mustangs, it’s only a matter of time before we see it on normal production vehicles.
Idk about that. For some custom built things it might be a better manufacturing method than setting up a production line to cast the piece or forge or whatever. But outside of some really weird screws there are always going to be extremely competitively priced screws of almost every imaginable type. It’s hard to imagine you’re gonna beat that with 3d printing, given you can just buy the screws you need for not much more per pound than the metal its made from.
Who suggested major manufacturers 3d print their parts? That’s not what the analogy said at all. But hey, make your own shit up if that makes you feel smug and superior.
They do, its just not economical for energy and time, when you are dealing with something generic. Good for broken one offs