“This
new innovative technology is a great fit for our progressive new cordless
cleaners. Offering exclusive print-on-demand tools and accessories allows
Hoover to address narrower consumer needs that might not justify whole-scale
manufacturing. 3D printing allows us to be more nimble and respond to consumer
accessory and customization needs quicker than typical manufacturing processes
might allow.”
Hoover's Vice President
of Product Development, Paul Bagwell on the partnership with Makerbot to allow
3D Printer owners to print accessories
With
2014 coming to a close, Statistics analysts are making it plain that with the
wealth of information gained thus far, their Crystal Balls are seeing a bright
futue on the horizon for Technology.
More
importantly one such analyst is already predicting great things, particularly
for the field of 3D Printing is analyst Gartner, which fits with my prediction
back in 2013 about 3D Printing as declared in my blog article
entitled “Tech Predictions of 2013 - 3D Printing
and smaller smartphones”.
They’ve
recently published a stats report that projects phenomenal and almost
exponential growth for the 3D Printer business, something unheard of in the
Printing Game as noted in the article “Gartner Forecasts The 3D
Printer Market Will Be $13.4B By 2018”, published
12/18/2014 by Louis Columbus, Forbes.
According
to the report that was at Gartner’s webinar entitled “Why You
Must Invest in 3D Printing Now”,
Pete Basiliere, Research Vice President and the presenter at
the Webinar made the following point about the future of 3D Printing
from 2012 to 2018:
1. 106.6%
CAGR (compound annual growth rate) in worldwide unit shipments of 3D printers
2. 2.3
million shipments per annum by 2018
3. 87.7%
revenue growth for the forecast period.
4. US$13.4
billion dollar market by 2018
This
growth is expected to be driven by companies doing R&D (Research and Development)
and would thus be in need of rapid prototyping to make 3D models of components even
working products for their clients.
DIY Replacements Parts
– From Handguns to Printable foods, Personal 3D Printing is booming
But
Gartner appears to have overlooked the consumer DIY Market, which albeit small
and insignificant when compared to these tech titans, is already being tapped
to deal with a problem experienced by many manufacturers; Replacement parts
sourcing.
Already
it’s possible to make an entire handgun from Plastic using a 3D printer, the
best example of which is Cody Williams, founder of Defense Distributed and
maker of the First 3D Printable Plastic Gun that had a successful test firing
on Sunday May 5th 2013 as explained in my blog article
entitled “Defense
Distributed's Cody Wilson's 3D Plastic Gun, the Liberator - 3D Printer Arms
Race heralds the coming of IKEA DIY Design for Consumer Electronics”.
However,
a good example of the making of replacement parts for firearms can be seen from
the work of Austin, Texas based Solid Concepts, a professional 3D-printing
services company and licensed firearms holder.
They
currently have a permit to make replacement parts for the Browning 1911 handgun
using a DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering) 3D Printer as reported in my blog article
entitled “Solid
Concepts in Austin, Texas prints the World's first 3D Printed Metal Handgun,
the Browning 1911 - Metal 3D Printing is Thor The Dark Worlds for making of
Replacements Parts for any appliance”.
There
are even printers that can print food as well, such as the kickstarter-funded Discov3ry
3D Printer Extruder as explained in my blog article
entitled “Structur3D
Printing debuts Kickstarter for Discov3ry 3D Printer – Expand Imaginations
Horizons with a Printer that Prints with any material”.
Truly,
3D printing is set to become popular with small business. But what of the
regular consumer? Can it be said that 3D Printing will eventually reach the
home and become a new must-have printing gadget?
This
looks very possible, especially as the traditional Printer is now basically
dead as Tablets have made them an endangered species as pointed out in my Geezam blog article entitled “How
the Apple iPad killed Ultrabooks, Printing and the Mouse as the World
Rediscovers Tablets”?
Hoover and Makerbot
team up on Replacement Vacuum Parts – DIY Replacement Parts
Hoover
and Makerbot have teamed up to make it possible for user of their vacuum
cleaners to 3D Print their own accessories for Makerbot's ThingVerse file library as stated in the
article “Hoover
and MakerBot offer 3D-printed vacuum upgrades”, published December 22, 2014
2:32 PM PST by Ry Crist, CNET News.
The
first such accessories are for the new Hoover Air Cordless.
Albeit not a concept unfamiliar to Makerbot, makers of the very pricey US$1,375 Makerbot Replicator that has the largest online library of 3D Printable files. The first printable file is for a clip-on attachment to hold the spare Lithium-ion battery on the vacuum cleaner and the next is a flashlight holder to clip on to the hose extension for their Hoover Air Cordless extension that'll make cleaning behind the whatnot that much easier.
Albeit not a concept unfamiliar to Makerbot, makers of the very pricey US$1,375 Makerbot Replicator that has the largest online library of 3D Printable files. The first printable file is for a clip-on attachment to hold the spare Lithium-ion battery on the vacuum cleaner and the next is a flashlight holder to clip on to the hose extension for their Hoover Air Cordless extension that'll make cleaning behind the whatnot that much easier.
Good
to note these aren't replacement parts but accessories made freely available on
the ThingVerse website. Far from
losing sales, this partnership allows Hoover to quickly supply demand for rare
and exotic demand or accessories that they can't allocate resources to economically
produce on a large scale as the demand isn't that great.
More
accessories may be in the pipeline as Hoover plans to launch an upgrade to the
new Hoover Air Cordless called the Hoover Air Cordless Lift in the Spring of
2015 as reported in the article “3D-PRINTABLE
VACUUM ACCESSORIES LET YOU UPGRADE YOUR HOOVER WITH A DOWNLOAD”,
December 22, 2014 By Drew Prindle, Digitaltrends.
So
you can start getting used to the idea of being able to print replacement parts
for Hoover Air Cordless line of Vacuum cleaners.
With
cheaper 3D printers coming unto the market such as the kickstarter-funded
US$300 M3D Micro 3D Printer, it's not hard to see why printer companies like HP
(Hewlett Packard) might want to jump back into the Printing game with a cheaper
3D Printer as predicted in my blog article
entitled “US$300
M3D Micro 3D Printer for the Masses coming in March 2015 – HP may rise to
challenge this Kickstarter to the Iron 3D Printing Throne”.
This
already looks to be happening, making my prediction and those of analyst
Gartner for 2018 look like a long shot that you can really invest in. Best of
all, I'll be doing a follow-up article this trend of 3D printing for the rest
of 2015, the Year of the Sheep and 3D Printing!
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