3D printing is, generally speaking, a cool concept.
When the term first entered mainstream usage around 2011, people imagined printing computers, cars and even houses.
What’s amazing is that a lot of this has actually come true-and then some.
The bad news is that while industrial-level 3D printing continues to reach new heights of sophistication, consumer-grade printers generally remain overpriced toys condemned to spending hours fabricating simple trinkets. Which leads us to the horrors below.
#1: The hipster’s cable tidy.
Conceptually, this is not a terrible idea.
It’s reasonably stylish, and could even be fairly useful-if you don’t mind having to pick the thing up in search of an iphone charging cable and unravelling several feet of wire. Then realising you’ve pulled out your mate’s micro USB cord instead.
But anyone who’s ever worked at a desk might find themselves struggling to justify one more piece of bright blue hexagonal clutter accompanying their laptop, coffee cup, paperwork, family photos and 5 year old Sammy’s terrible art project.
Do you really need every single cable you’ve ever owned right in front of you?
#2: A hammer with ‘THWACK’ written on it.
This one looks useful, and the designer certainly claims so. The problem here is not the finished product, because it is likely to do a reasonable job.
Rather, it’s the time it'll take to print.
As of 2017, printing anything sturdy enough to drive nails into plaster takes hours. You'd be better off crawlling on all fours to a remote hardware store, buying a real-steel Black and Decker equivalent and limping home again.
Still, reasonable concept.
#3: A pencil holder that apparently started life as a radioactive oak tree.
Oh dear.
Once again, I do not debate the (partial) usefulness of this, er, lump.
But unless you have a lust for stationery accessories that resemble a trimmed nuclear explosion, it’s hard to promote its visual appeal. And while it’s clearly supporting several pens, they’re all over the place. Finding your beloved 2B pencil will be a family-engaging, all-day affair.
Attention 3D printer pundits: You spent good money on your machine. Are its capabilities really best demonstrated with an elaborate substitute for an empty baked bean can?
#4 USB combination lock.
At first glance, this may require a brief explanation: the big lump on the left is intended to be a lock that fits over the USB drive.
The first issue with this is a technical one. You’ll need a pretty darn accurate (read: expensive) printer to make this work, or the moving parts won’t fit together properly.
Secondly, you’re probably wondering why you wouldn’t just put a password on the drive. To illustrate this point, consider that most PCs stopped featuring keylocks after 1994.
Passwords are far quicker to set, cost nothing and are less likely to be hacked by the average cybercriminal with a spare four and a half minutes.
#5: A tube with some money in it.
Is your wallet storing banknotes in a way that’s just too darned convenient? No problem.
With the Round-O-Matic money tube (or whatever this thing is called) you won’t ever have to worry about flicking through your greenbacks. Why? Because the design requires you to take every single note out and check ’em individually.
And by the time you finish, the ten mile long queue behind you will be itching to tell you how keen they are on the whole 3D printing idea.
#6: A cute little house on a ring.
If you’re the sort of person who thinks ‘B1G M4N’ is a cool numberplate, you’ve probably got something like this in mind for one of your fourteen wives.
Alternatively, you may feel your knuckleduster lacks something in the way of novelty and family values.
Either way, this monstrosity is condemned to clipping innocent passers-by and/or impaling the wearer’s palm. Ultimately, even the most overblinged pimp will be forced to admit that this is a hollow victory for form over function.
#7: A mechanical jack.
Oh, I really wanted this to be useful.
It’s printed so well, you can barely distinguish the 3D CGI render from the finished article.
You don’t even have to put the parts together, as it’s printed as a complete assembly. And it really works.
Just one utterly fatal flaw: take a moment to think of some things around your house that take a good deal of effort to lift.
The washing machine, maybe. Or the fridge. Maybe even your car. All of which would cause anything beneath them made of current 3D-printed materials to fail catastrophically.
Which, in the most tear-jerkingly painful way, renders this mechanical masterpiece utterly useless.
#8 Whatever the hell this is.
And now for a bit of weird.
Whilst it’s really cool that these undies were organically woven into a printed form, you can rest assured that they’re a right bugger to sit down in. And can you imagine the bulge they would make under your apple bottoms?
The sirens of the fashion police have never wailed louder.
#9 Phone case on a really horrible looking shoe.
Brash novelty aside, where shall we begin?
This one received a lot of excitement from the tech and fashion blogosphere for, in the words of its creator, “fusing art, fashion and product design with 3d printing”.
But let's do a quick reality check.
The phone case is positioned perfectly for the bottom corner to get bashed. Nobody wants a phone on their shoe anyway. And you’d be more intelligent to write “I’M A FOOL, MUG ME” on a $20 bill and tape it to your forehead.
Let’s also not forget that the plastic printing material will sear your heels to the bone before you’ve reached the end of the catwalk. By which point even the most avant-garde Milan Fashion Week journalist will be forced to admit that it looks utterly hideous.
#10 Guns, guns and more guns.
Here’s a political hot potato.
Ever since the ‘Liberator’ was first built from (mostly) 3D printed parts in 2013, the gun control debate found a new platform in the 3D printing blogosphere.
Whether or not you think that everyone owning guns is a good idea, take a minute to consider the current technical limitations of consumer-grade 3D prints.
Any gunsmith will tell you that firearms have to be strong enough to contain powerful explosions, and a homebrew plastic pistol is therefore likely to leave you either blinded or dead.
But the main reason guns are at the top of this list is very simple. If the tech evolves, then anyone with the right equipment could get hold of an untraceable murder weapon at the touch of a button.
It’ll be interesting to see what the future holds. Hopefully, most of the above examples are just symptoms of their creator's enthusiasm to push what the current technology can do. Like printing more than just plastics.
I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on 3D printing. Any interesting designs you’ve seen? Where do you see the industry going in the next few years? Or further? Leave a comment below.