^^Ditto^^
That is basically what Shapeways and a few other services do.
Our 3D experts here (@mikeybugs, @model_monkey, and @Petition2God) also do similar, but will actually develop the file for you as well. A much better way to do it for those of us who don’t want the fuss of CAD and printing ourselves.
Great topic & contributions guys, part of me says jeez I just want to stick bits of plastic together & the other half says not so fast, there’s far more to this hobby than that.
I suspect it’s a generational evolution. Most of us who can remember what it was like when there was no internet or mobile phones will forever pine for the simplicity of just buying a model (from a SHOP!) and making/painting it. Some of us are better at adapting to current advances & techniques, or at least trying to & there’s many exceptions – me, technophobe at 66 yet my good mate at 83 has 3D design & printing up to a fine art and helps me out big-time.
If we could come back in 30 years or so after we’ve all popped our clogs, I think we’d be amazed/horrified/baffled by what model-making looks like. They’ll all have their 3D scanning/printing kits in a box worth a few days pay, and that will be old-school. The tyros will just pick a photo off the ‘net (or its then-equivalent), click & it’ll be replicated down to the last rivet on their production-pad in 60 seconds. I’m not sure what “skill” would then be required – weathering maybe?
But I like to hope in some remote log cabins & caves, there’ll still be some old fogies who actually know how to attach part A to part B.
[quote=“Uncle-Heavy, post:21, topic:31061, full:true”]
Can I just print the wanted item and then walk away from the printer or do I need to clean it
according to the ‘owners manual’ if I don’t use it daily? Weekly? Monthly?
I bought a laser printer to avoid any possibility of inks clogging up the works if I didn’t use it
regularly. Some modelers think that cleaning an airbrush after using it is too much fuss. [/quote]
I can’t talk to the support structure volume but for cleaning it depends. The vat doesn’t necessarily need to drained each time, I’ll run the printer until there’s a failure I can’t clean with just a plastic scraper. If the printer isn’t used for a few days it’s no big deal - the resin will have separated but a very good stir and light scrape will remix the resin and printing can resume. If you’re going to leave the printer for a long time, the resin should be drained and vat decently cleaned to avoid any sitting resin. The print hood is good at blocking UV light but it’s not perfect and resin can still cure slightly within the enclosure from external UV light. Overall, cleaning can be done when needed. It is always good to keep a clean workspace, however.
The problem I see is that you are assuming that the technology will remain the same forever. Obviously today’s printers are not for everyone, and the big change in hobby is already here in the form of masters for plastic injection kits and aftermarket items.
If they get easier to use in 10 or 20 years, we may see them at many homes and probably we will print our own kits.
Volume of support structure:
Maybe this one is supported waaayyyyyy more than necessary
The technology will probably evolve but I don’t think we will get around the basic problem of transporting mass (either a kit with sprues in a carton or a bottle of 3D-printer material).
As I don’t see that new thread yet it may interest you to know there’s already a campaign for him and other influential modelers from back in the day.
My view is 3D printing will eventually become a mainstream method of modelling, but not until printers become truly “plug & play”, without messy cleaning, washing of newly-printed models, or UV curing. If all these steps happen inside the printer, and it dings a bell once it’s all ready for the owner to open the door and remove a ready-to-use model, then it may be ready for mass adoption. But for now it remains a niche activity…
i have to agree, once they become idiot proof then i would be tempted to buy one.
You mean, once they are proof against me? 
They do say that if you make it idiot-proof they’ll just make a better idiot…
Well, I think that it’s just like saying that sculptors and artistic painters will disappear in the near future due to 3D printing and AI growth.
I don’t agree with it, there will always be people preferring to keep going more ‘traditional’ ways, and people who hate ‘technology’.
What I do believe is that at some point almost every modeler will be able to make his/her/its own conversion or hyper detailing parts for a specific model. This is almost around the corner…
Food for thought:
When the music cassette entered the lives of ordinary people the music industry had an anxiety attack. In Sweden this resulted in a cassette-tax. Every sold empty cassette had a fee added to the price. The fee goes to an organisation protecting the rights of musician. This was doen since there is obviously no other purpose what so ever with a cassette. They will “obviously” be used to “steal” music by taping it from the radio (copying the records you have honestly bought to be able to listen to the music in your car was too far fetched to even register on their radar).
If a backyard musician, who has not become a member of the illustrious society of acknowledged musicians, records his own horrible music on a cassette he will be paying copyright fees to some established musician (Ponzi scheme?). Same principle if someone records his old parents memories before they pass away, an established musician cashes in.
Didn’t many record off the radio? Yep, we sure did. The radio corporation already paid a copyright fee for the music they were playing. Getting played on the radio was also free effing advertising which made listeners go to the record shop to buy the record (which they then might want to have a backup for and also be able to listen in situations when lugging a record player around wasn’t an option).
Once this law was passed it became a civic duty to copy as much as possible, I already paid for it so I’m “entitled” (ugly word and concept) to value for money.
Enter the VHS cassette, also taxed, and now some chain smoking unshaved hairy hippie who plays bad music can cash in from families videorecording their vacation.
Computer storage media. Oh wow! A veritable goldmine, taxing all those gigabytes which will obviously not be used for anything else than ripping off musicians by copying their music. Memory cards in your digital cameras? Ka-Sching!
Now we get to the goal of this long rant:
3D-scanner + 3D-printer = the obvious tool for ripping off producers/designers.
I fear they will be taxed as well.
How many copies can I print from one .stl-file?
Could I scan purchased parts and then print my own? Sometime in the future when the technology is foolproof?
Will we be presumed guilty of piracy until we can prove ourselves innocent?
Maybe I should avoid owning a 3D-printer, don’t want to get caught with a tool for committing a crime.
Like good old scratch building?
The demise of the glorious art of scratch building has been discussed to death and back in another thread
Exactly
You paid a special royalty tax on blank cassettes? That’s harsh. How was a love-struck poor teenager supposed to create that special mix-tape to win the heart of his/her crush?..
Overhere on every device that can contain data (like a cell phone, hard disk of Sd card) you pay a kind of home copy tax too… Just in case…
Yep. The “cassette law” is still in operation.
The tax was10 pence for a sound only cassette anda whole £ for a videocassette.
Things have been changing, right now I think there is a “voluntary” agreement between the electronics business association and the CopySwede organisation. The whole idea is totally outdated but that is what you get when a “special interest” group with a loud voice takes over politics.
The culture crew also demands that their activities be supported with tax money,
the more elitist they are the more money they want (this comment sounds really sour …). use the taxes to pay for grass root culture for kids and teenagers.
If they can’t make a living out of their brand of cultutre (music, art, sculpture, whatever) when they turn 20 they’ll just have to get a job like all the rest of us.
I want tax money to support hobbies like model building
Love-struck teenager: Drink one less beer.
I think when someone says this, it is understood they have a home in which to do this. The unfortunate people with no home likely do not build models at all.
Not sure what homeless folks have to do with the question at hand? It is understood that folks without houses or without interest in models are not now a consumer of injection molded models nor will they be consumers of 3D-printed models either home-printed or factory-printed.