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3D printing may bring US manufacturing back home

One company that will help bring manufacturing back to America is 2BOT. They manufacture a machine called the ModelMaker. This 3D printer uses inexpensive materials and its cutting speed is 1inch per second. www.2bot.com/product-info

Not a 3-D printing process - computer assisted manufacturing only.

While we aren't additive manufacturing, we are still a printer that prints 3D models through subtractive manufacturing. We are a CNC based machine but we have eliminated most issues that come with it, such as G-code, tool paths and other feature adjustments. All one has to do is load the model, size it, and hit make it. The machine does the rest.

Remember the dot matrix printers? Ugh, talk about poor resolution. I've been keeping up with this guy's blog (http://goo.gl/DqbLQ) documenting his attempt to bring an inexpensive stereolithography printer to the masses. It's like an arms race to see who can produce the best and cheapest 3D printer into the average person's home. This is such an exciting time to be a creative (n.).

Yes, manufacturing will return to the US, but it will be very different than today's factories, eh? You won't need to have large capacity factories that take up acres of land; instead, things will truly be print-on-demand, and will be localized to cut the cost of transportation.

Better yet, if they can utilize recycling of materials directly / indirectly into future generations of 3D printers, such that we get very close to zero waste, and the life cycle of products becomes a complete loop.

"print" in 3-D? And if it is so doable in everyone's back yard, why would "manufacturing" return to the U.S.? Why wouldn't it stay off shore? Creation of the product is but one of the costs of production. There is much more. And, none of those costs are taken into account, eh? Please, others' thoughts here are most welcome!

Manufacturing may well return to America but that doesn't mean that the jobs will return as well. Manufacturing with hi-tech machines needs much fewer workers and higher skill levels. People often talk about bringing the jobs back to the US but do not see that it will not bring back a large number of workers.

3-D printing will need very highly refined component materials (metals, plastics, ceramics, etc.) for the specific respective printing processes. Economics of refining the required special 3-D printing materials, energy and the transportation of those products will dictate the most economically attractive locations for 3-D printing- sans labor cost. Technology is the most portable commodity there is. The assertion that 3-D printing will bring jobs and business back to the US is provably erroneous and disappointingly naive.

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