I was surprised to see this article declaring the reasons "why home 3D printing never lived up to the hype". I was surprised because this is a very unpopular opinion. I know this because it’s been mine for the last 10 years. About 10 years ago I watched with interest as the RepRap Project filled space in the nerd news. At first glance I knew that this project was doomed. (Your RepRap hasn’t had any offspring, right?) I knew this for several reasons.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I was the entire manuacturing engineering department for a large (150 people, 150k sqft) machine shop. I did that for seven years. Although I have a relevant university engineering degree, that time in the shop learning from the machinists really opened my mind to how real manufacturing was done. And it’s not with 3d printers. If 3d printers were going to supplant traditional manufacturing it would have happened no later than the mid 1950s when the chemistry of thermoplastic resins (a.k.a. hot glue guns) was well enough understood.
The reason for this is that 3d printing enthusiasts today completely miss the point. There was a revolution in manufacturing. It was very, very important and profound. But it was not making flimsy plastic parts, slowly, using hot glue guns. The technology to focus on if you want to follow the trajectory of real progress in manufacturing is computerized motion control. The avalanche of hype for 3d printing is quite properly deserved by the concept of computerized motion control. What would make sense is if all instances of the words "3d printing" were replaced with "affordable computerized motion control". Then the hype would make perfect sense.
Over twenty years ago, I made quite a hobby of designing and building prototypes for a computer controlled positioning system. What would such a system position? Anything, including hot glue guns if that’s what you wanted. But just as interesting would be a laser or water jet cutter or a high speed spindle (from Dremel to wood router) or a welder. In fact if the focus were properly on computerized motion control you could be "3d printing" epoxy or concrete or chocolate mousse.
The problem seems to be that we’re now in a generation that is rapidly losing its hands-on practical people. Enthusiasts of 3d printing seem more influenced by the replicators on Star Trek than by actually tinkering in a garage their entire lives (and a manufacturing culture and tradition unbroken since the dawn of the industrial revolution). For example, the label "3d printing" to describe additive manufacturing is a glaring misnomer. The word "print" comes from the Latin "premere", to press, and if anything should be called 3d printing it would be sheet metal presswork. Of course there already is a well-established and adequate vocabulary for that art (though it’s being lost, e.g. my spell checker didn’t know that "presswork" was a word).
Another reason I was unmoved by the excitement for 3d printing was that I could easily refute one of its most important claims. The latter day enthusiasts of additive manufacturing like to remind us that with this kind of manufacturing, products are possible that can not be produced any other way. I understand that excitement because I felt it too - in 1992. It was then I first saw a demonstration of SLA. That is a strange acronym, which I’ve never understood, for stereo lithography. What the young people today would call, "3d printing". At the supercomputer center where I work, there are several display cases filled with ancient SLA relics from this time. They "printed" molecules and topo maps and human brain models and mathematical esoterica and it looks like loads of fun. But eventually they ran out of cool fun pet projects and we are left with some shelves of dusty unusual knick-knacks. I personally was absolutely thrilled at the prospect of designing some incredibly cool things that could only be created with an additive process (e.g. a sphere inside a sphere). But decades later I have not thought of a single thing that would be even mildly interesting that I could not also manufacture with an assembly or subtractive techniques. Easier and better.
It’s strange to me that the internet’s hype has turned its gaze to these hot glue dispensing machines. Just looking around, if there’s one thing the world didn’t need an improved production technique for it would seem to be cheap Happy Meal plastic trinkets. Why not focus attention on benchtop milling machines? Seriously, these are very cool. With a small desktop milling machine you do actually have a fighting chance of being able to build a copy of the machine itself. You can even clamp a hot glue gun to the spindle if you’re into that sort of thing.
Just remember the important new thing is really affordable computerized motion control. If we start concentrating on that, I’m certain good things will happen.