The REPL for Hardware
<i>I’ve decided that 3D printing is the REPL for Hardware.</i><p>That sounds so 2005. 3D printing is sometimes useful, but it&#x27;s not magic. It&#x27;s a prototyping process, far slower and far more expensive than high-volume methods of making things. Injection molding is so cheap. The former CEO of Autodesk, Carl Bass, thought 3D printing was going be a much bigger thing than it is. He thought every home would have one, because his daughter was printing dollhouse furniture. Didn&#x27;t happen. He&#x27;s gone now.<p>What this VC seems to be doing is buying up marginally successful 3D printing companies.  That&#x27;s OK; some of them were just going too slow due to lack of money. It&#x27;s probably a good time to pick up some of the overenthusiastic ones that were going zombie.<p>Glowforge (formerly a Kickstarter) finally shipped, but they were too late. Now others have laser cutters in their $2500 price range. Laser engravers are now below $200 on Amazon. This might work out if tariffs prevent Chinese units from getting into the US.<p>It&#x27;s not a &quot;3D Laser Printer&quot;, it&#x27;s a 2 or 2.5D laser cutter for flat materials, like all the the other low-end machines. There are real 3D laser cutters.[1] Glowforge isn&#x27;t one. Laser cutters are quite useful, but they&#x27;re a tool, not magic. Also, despite what Glowforge says, they need a serious exhaust system.<p>This fund also bought Formlabs. Formlabs has a nice stereolithography 3D printer. It doesn&#x27;t really matter what they charge for the printer, because the resin cartridges are $149&#x2F;liter.<p>You want to change manufacturing, make injection molding dies as cheap and simple to make as printed circuit boards.
Or a low-end laser cutter with enough power to cut light sheet metal.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=1NsM0-9_n3Q" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=1NsM0-9_n3Q</a>