Predictions for the 3D Printing eco-system in 2015

2015 Predictions for the exciting home, consumer and business 3D printing eco-system.

Time to dust off the 3D printed crystal ball and make some predictions for 2015. Here is my view looking forward in the 3D printing industry. 

Tell me what you think? below in comments, over on G+ here or Twitter - @Richrap3D

- 3D Printing -

The Hype is dying down a little, users are moving into the useful phase of 3D printing. Both quality and speed is improving with software and processing tools lagging behind expectations. The 3D printer price war is still on, but to a lesser extent as users can see what you get for ~$200 is not what they really want or need.

New developments, designs and ideas for 3D printing continue to bloom from the open-source community. We may even start to see some early and innovative ways to reward designers and developers that share their work, collaborating with others and the wider maker community.

The gap between ‘professional’ and home / consumer 3D printers will continue to bridge, with users in both sectors and the manufacturers / suppliers.

High end 3D Printing manufacturers will slowly refine their technology reducing price points at the lower (entry level). The market will get more competitive before starting to shake down to a few clear market leaders.

- Materials –

This year we have seen so many more filament suppliers pop up, and many of them have had quite shocking and bad tolerance control (material swings from under 1.55mm to over 2mm, sometimes in less than 1M lengths).

2015 will be the year that users no longer tolerate poor quality – “If it’s crap – send it back”. Tolerances of +/- 0.1mm will be considered ‘standard’ and premium suppliers / manufacturers will be able to hold +/- 0.05mm for most material types. 'Demand good quality materials'

We will see many more materials and ‘value added’ unique formulas that help with the further expansion and creative process of 3D printing.

We should see some actual conductive materials appear (rather than just anti-static / high resistance currently available) that could make printing basic circuits for electronics possible for everyone.

Hopefully we will see a better understanding by the media and users – e.g. -  thermoplastic materials and resins are still just that even when filled with wood, ceramic or metal fibers. It’s still not magic or revolutionary, just evolution of a well established process.

A viable and universal support material will finally be developed (and it will be good and low cost).

- Machines –

We will see many smaller machines; things will get further miniaturised and become truly portable. Higher quality and faster results.

Bigger machines will also be popular, but will be focused more towards specific materials and uses.

Further excitement around printing metals, reality is that’s still incredibly complex, messy, dangerous and expensive.

We will start to see more 3D Printers designed for specific functions and less ‘general purpose’ printing, especially in Food and all sorts of Art & Sculpture applications.

I still don’t see multi-function machines being a success in the next 3-5 years. Machines that combine many functions (Print-Scan-Mill-Laser-Cut-Make-Toast-Walk-The-Dog) will continue to appear but users will be very disappointed with poor results and complexities.

Topical example -> FLUX All-in-one - Will it be any good? – I really wish them success and a good product. - $1.4Million as I type this – Keep an eye on the Kickstarter comments for this one, and as they say, time will tell…

Specific machines, getting more focused on an application is still the way to go, we are still in a very early eco-system for 'desktop manufacturing'.

We will see many more SLS/SLA/Laser/DLP/Resin printers. Along with advancements in Resin/powder based materials, they will be a very viable choice over FFF/FDM based machines in 2015.

At least twice as many home/pro-consumer 3D printers will be sold in 2015 compared to 2014.

- 3D scanning –

Still a long way to go, but improvements and further products like Fuel3D, will open up a more creative design flow for individual users and designers.

- Processing software –

Some early advanced slicing algorithms will start to make more robust and stable 3D Prints by form analysis and a deeper understanding of the materials being used. Giving the user more advice and less failures or unexpected results.

- Firmware / Electronics –

2015 will finally be the year of ARM based control systems (used in many more production machines), much more sophisticated control algorithms and emphasis on user machine interfaces that are actually intuitive. Setup will be easier to configure and printing machine profiles will start to have ‘dynamically controlled parameters’ for specific materials being used – more than simple Slicer and Gcode control.

- Model / Design –

We will see many more people wearing 3D printed designs / objects and Jewellery and other wearables.

We could see a backlash against the license / subscription ‘cloud-only based’ design/model offerings.

Free-flowing organic design will start to get easier and more accessible for users and designers – combined with improvements and cost reduction in new scanning technology.

Verification of model designs so they can be successfully 3D printed will improve along with better advice for designing for the 3D printing process – awareness and more appropriate use in designs / applications. Just because you can 3D print it…

A viable and usable CAD to 3D Print eco-system will start to emerge – probably driven by Autodesk (Spark etc.)

- Education –

More of a wish than a prediction – I hope we will see more companies and individuals supporting learning and education in schools. Not just by giving or discounting machines and materials, but actually helping with understanding, training and long-term support for teachers, students and the entire education system (all around the world). This goes for all and any technology and ‘making’, not just specifically 3D printing.

- Kickstarter and Crowdfunding –

I have supported more crowdfunding projects this year than previous. Unfortunately the quality and delivery is definitely getting worse, it’s having quite an impact on how people view crowdfunding and tech start-ups. I will personally be more cautious in 2015.

- Patents and Closed-Source Developments –

Well, they are not going to slow down anytime soon, but people the world over are starting to understand the power of cooperation and open-innovation so that’s making a more balanced and sharing eco-system for the future.

- Open-Source and Open Innovation –

Most of these things still need a strong force behind them, person or cause, mission or desire. And it’s getting stronger as more ideas are being shared instead of being trapped or never seeing the light of day. 'Share and Support'

- 3D Printing Shows / Events / Conferences –

It’s going to be ‘war of the shows’ in 2015, things will hot up for global presence, visitors and sponsorship. It’s getting serious business, as interest grows in 3D Printing and all aspects of the design & making process, we will see some collaboration but mostly strong competitive signals in the 2015 show calendar.

- Standards / Associations / Hubs and Resources –

More adopted standards will help growth of 3D printing and usability for many different industries. Global associations will continue to grow with members and support from manufacturers will strengthen the industry.

Community Hubs and file / design / idea sharing resources, will have some significant terms and conditions to work out with their users. The rapidly expanding use of 3D printing has already started to overtake the ability to control what people do with it. And how appropriate or safe it is for a task or application, either implied or assumed. *A very complex and legal issue indeed *

2015 3D Printing predictions are my own and could well be incorrect, see you next year to see how many of these will ring true.

And if you are sat around with nothing to do or want an idea for a business, pick one from the above and make it happen.

Rich.

2013 review of developments, 3D Printing book release and more challenges.

#2014

I missed doing my annual roundup of 3D Printing adventures before Christmas, so here it is, with some plans and updates for 2014.

Firstly thanks for reading this blog and to all the wonderful people who contacted me in 2013, I believe this year is going to be the best yet for 3D Printing, stay tuned and do get in contact if you have something to share or a project collaboration idea.

To catch up on other things I have done over the years, here are past annual reviews, 2012/11, 2011/10

My 2013 year of 3D printing development started with a pledge to be my year of ‘yes’, wherever possible I planned to say ‘yes’ and get as involved as I could manage (with time available).

This led to trying out many new things including speaking at various shows, festivals, events and even on the BBC website and World Service about 3D printing.

I'm working on new designs, prototypes and ideas. Collaborating with different people and always looking out for other 3D printing projects and experiments too, do keep in contact and let me know what you are up to too.

3D Printing for Dummies -

One of the real highlights of 2013 was the experience of writing a book. It’s always been on my lifetime achievement list, and it feels really good to now be a published Author, I really hope to do more as the experience really was exhilarating from start to finish, something I will never forget.

It was a real privilege to be part of this book, and I was very lucky that my co-author Kalani Kirk Hausman had already put in so much work to get the project off-the-ground with the world famous publishers Wiley – so when the chance to contribute to this project came about it was a very easy ‘yes!’. We had a short timescale for the 300+ Page multi-chapter book, and it had to cover a wide range of 3D printing aspects.  The book covers some of the 30 year history of an already well established additive manufacturing industry, and looks at the current and future uses for this technology.

Many people and fantastic developments have helped to make this book a reality, I want to thank everyone involved in the project and all who kindly allowed images to be used for the book.

3D Printing for Dummies on Amazon - Here - 

You can take a look at the Dummies guide to 3D printing book on Amazon now, it’s available in either print or eBook, and various translations are planned. If you do get a chance to read it, Kirk and I would love to know what you thought.

Another interesting aspect was a flurry of 3D printing writing activity from many different people who contacted me during 2013; asking for image permissions in their own books, some are also now released and some ongoing with releases this year. I’m sure much more will be written on the subject, it’s such an amazing technology that will some day impact and benefit the lives of everyone. I'm sure plenty more will be out soon.

On that note, I also finished reading MAKERS by Cory Doctorow ( @doctorow ) again over Christmas, it's now available for free or donation download in many formats here. A fantastic story (it's fiction, not history, but will be :) for anyone living and breathing the 3Dprinting and the fabulous Maker movement. I highly recommend reading it.

I have not added as much as I wanted to RichRap.com some of this was due to the already heavy level of traffic on it, it’s about to blow another bandwidth limit so at some point this year I will fix that, update and add more tutorials and content. In the mean time I also plan to get shorter but more frequent blog posts up on here, some while I do developments rather than a massive post at the end.

Tiny Printing - 

Printing small was a lot of fun, it taught me a lot about 3D Printing and how best to control plastic extrusion, when to use heat and when to cool, more information here.

RepRap Magazine - 

The RepRap Magazing was launched, this is again another great project by people in the community to document and give a wider voice for all things RepRap. - We would like to do and release more issues in 2014.

3D Printing in NYLON - 

My Nylon printing and colouring experiments attracted a lot of attention, this was a lot of fun and very much still something I continue to experiment with. I plan to do a follow-up article later this year about Nylon, mixed materials and further colour experiments.

3DR –

I have always planned to release a RepRap 3D printer, and after a frantic 5 week development during the earlier part of 2013, I had the first 3DR ready for testing.

For me 3DR has been amazing to watch as it goes out into the world as my take on a 3D printed Delta, watching it then evolve into something much more is great.

Releasing 3DR as an open-source project occupied a lot more time than I had expected last year, but it also led to some really great conversations with people and lots of other great things. You initially think that releasing everything and seeing what people do with it would allow more time to work on other things. That was not the case, it's as much work as if you released it for sale or started a company.

I'm planning to release at least another three machines this year, keep an eye out ;)

For me the starting point into the delta geometry was the Rostock, this was a great printer to build and allowed a lot of experimentation, especially with tall prints that had not been possible before.

Open Hand (and an open heart)- 

The Open Hand project by Joel Gibbard was a fantastic project to see come into life, and with healthy backing the project is well underway.

Joel also won the Venturefest award for best newcomer. Congratulations again, and best wishes from me for the ongoing project.

IndiGoGo perks shipped out and hand-designs well under way.

Shows and Events - 

The London Makerfaire, London 3D printshow and TCT Shows were another great highlight of 2013, we have more great things planned for shows this year, TCT is moving to a 3 Day event and will be bigger and better than ever.

Associations - 

We are starting to see many different 3D printing associations and 'standards' being setup, so I was delighted when the 3D printing association asked me to be a member of the board of advisers, we are aiming to promote, guide and advise as many people as possible with 3D printing and all forms of additive manufacturing.

News and dedicated 3D printing websites boomed in 2013 and will continue to grow and mature with both content and advice. It's almost hard to ignore 3D printing now and it's also very apparent, that many people are starting to be aware this technology is becoming useful for small businesses, and at a justifiable cost level.

My go-to news sites for 3D printing news are the 3DPrintingIndustry who I also try to write interesting articles for as time allows, most recently I posted one on filament recycling (tech for trade).

And another is 3DERS.org - an entire website with news and everything you can imagine to do with 3D printing, it's amazing what and how fast they pick up 3DP news and PR.

Sharing - 

We have also seen sharing sites grow and evolve. There are far too many to mention now, but one I have used and will continue with is the Excellent Youmagine (by the Ultimaker team).

And GitHub, where all sort of cool things happen, all the time :)

Kickstarter and IndieGoGo  both had a huge number of 3D printing and associated projects up for funding.

3D Printing Future - 

As usual time and other work got in the way of all the other things I wanted to experiment with and do, my list of projects and ideas grows bigger every month, but I still managed to design and do a lot of things over Christmas, I'll get up blog posts and images as soon as I can on these and future planned work, if any of you want to collaborate on any projects or innovation, do get in contact.

Lots more to share soon. It's going to be a very interesting year indeed.

Nils posted some great predictions by a few in the 3D printing community, lets see how many happen or disappear.

And for inspiration it's world #InventorsDay - go invent something... anything.

Rich.