Ccecil
Sad news. First, Openbuilds now this.Not a surprise to me
though since I am operating in the CNC industry I have
seen the same struggles and changes, albeit, from a
slightly different perspective.I work with the
Smoothieware/Smoothieboard project. It seems, from my
observation, that most people are not working with
hardware like they were a few years ago. The "homebrew"
machines and shadetree makers are becoming few and far
between.The lie has been heavily sold to the maker
community that you are "wasting your time if you make
something yourself" since it is cheaper to offshore even
small 3d prints and machining projects. Not only that but
people have been convinced that they don't have the
ability to make a machine.Instead of spending time
learning something new/valuable (i.e. Reprap) it is now
popular to just have someone else do it...be it AI or a
factory in another country with subsidies that create
massive differences in bottom line.The ability to make
things at home is disappearing. People cannot/will not
learn to make their own machines. Companies that make
machines that care about their community and customers are
disappearing.Maybe it's by design? I don't know.
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> Aurornis
> The lie has been heavily sold to the maker community
that you are "wasting your time if you make something
yourself" since it is cheaper to offshore even small
3d prints and machining projects.> The ability to make
things at home is disappearingI do not know what you
are talking about.3D printing at home is more popular
than ever. Even families I know who don't have a
computer at home, only their phones, now have 3D
printers and use them.> People cannot/will not learn
to make their own machinesI think this is an appeal to
3D printing purity that drove me away from many of the
communities. In the early days we all swapped tips and
shared reviews of parts (like the Smoothieboard I
still have) with other people who liked to build
machines because that was the only way to do 3D
printing at hobby level prices. When asked what we
used the 3D printers for, the joke was that they were
used to print parts for our 3D printer. It wasn't
really a joke, though. We spent more time keeping the
printers working and trying to tune them than we did
printing other things we needed.That has flipped. Now
it's easy to get a cheap 3D printer and start getting
parts out of it without thinking about the printer
much. This is great if you're a person who wants to
use the output of the printer. This is boring if you
think the value is the process of building and
changing the printer hardware all the time.I'm tired
of hearing takes about how this is wrong or bad. Most
"makers" want to make other things, not spend their
precious free time trying to debug failing prints.
There are more opportunities and knowledge available
now for people who do want to build their own machines
and it's very cheap. People who want to do that can,
but don't look down upon the people who don't want to
do that.
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> > jfengel
We had a similar discussion about computers the
other day. A lot of us miss the days of tiny
memory and optimizing for that.It takes all kinds
and I see no reason to gate keep either way. It's
too bad that we do t often segregate around those
opinions and don't share as much
|
> > Teever
> There are more opportunities and knowledge
available now for people who do want to build
their own machines and it's very cheap.And what
happens if China decides that it is no longer in
their interest to allow Americans access to cheap
aluminum extrusions, hotends, motors, and
controllers?Between the American tariffs and
Chinese prioritization of 3d printing in a past
five year plan American hobbyists and small scale
producers are in a potential bind.
|
> JoshTriplett
> The lie has been heavily sold to the maker community
that you are "wasting your time if you make something
yourself" since it is cheaper to offshore even small
3d prints and machining projects.I've seen what people
go through when they operate 3D printers. The
impression I have is that they still make 2D inkjet
printers look like paragons of reliability.
|
> > Ccecil
I wouldn't trade that time spent on my printers
for anything. I wrote a post about this recently
[1]There was way more valuable things learned in
the process than just making Benchy.For years I
have been trying to tell people this. The value of
Reprap was not just "to have a printer".[1]
https://www.robosprout.com/thank-you-reprap-for-al
l-of-it/
|
> > > JoshTriplett
Some people want to have an experience with
their printer. Some people want it to be an
appliance. If you wanted an appliance, and got
an experience, you're going to be
disappointed.For people who genuinely wanted
the experience of exploring 3D printers, like
yourself, I'm very happy that those people got
that experience.For myself, just as I want to
print documents and not have adventures with
inkjet printers, I want to make things and not
have adventures with 3D printers. Which is why
I have no plans to own a 3D printer.
|
> > fourside
I recently bought a Bambu Lab A1 printer. I went
specifically with Bambu Lab because everything I
read said that was the better choice if you want
something low maintenance and easy to set up even
if it's not as open as some of the
alternatives.It's stuck in the auto calibration
stage. It gets halfway through then it stops with
a generic error message. The UI around this is
really clunky. I've tried searching online, asking
Claude and nothing. I emailed customer support and
they came back with cryptic instructions that
assume familiarity with the internals of the
machine.I decided to leave this for a day when I
wasn't too mentally drained from work to debug
issues in my free time and instead the machine has
been collecting dust ever since.Maybe it was a
mistake to get a Bambi Lab? I thought it was the
more turn key option but it hasn't been my
experience.
|
> > Aurornis
I've had several printers over more than a decade.
Even the most reliable new units can still be
difficult to debug little things. My cousin's
family got a Bambu printer with no technical or
mechanical experience and gets it working well
most of the time, but there are still things that
can bite you like prints not sticking to the bed
because it has oils on it or filament breaking in
the feed path because PLA absorbs moisture from
the air and becomes brittle. A modicum of
attention can keep these problems in check but the
operator has to do some reading and learning.There
is another set of people who are in 3D printing
because they like the experience of debugging and
improving the printer as much or more than the
final prints they get from it. The most hardcore
3D printing people I know don't actually print
much other than 3D benchies and test towers
because their fun comes from playing with the
machine and trying new parts. Those people build a
different set of printer types than the plug and
play units used by most casual makers.
|
> > alecst
Crazy as it sounds, that's the opposite of my
personal experience.
|
> > > nearlyepic
Yeah in the four years I've had my Prusa it's
had basically no problems.They're a pain in
the ass if you buy bottom of the barrel crap
with sloppy tolerances for $100 I guess, but
the same is true of regular printers.
|
> > > > giantg2
I had a cheap Ender 3 Pro for years. It
had occasional issues, but they were
fairly easy to solve due to the large user
base. It was great to learn on since you
had to learn the concepts and do some
stuff like leveling manually. So even the
cheap stuff can work fine.
|
> steve-atx-7600
Re: factory in another country:
I use and recommend craftcloud (Germany company that
facilitates having your uploaded model be printed
wherever and however you choose (and see prices of
course). I am always able to find companies in the USA
to print my designs. I had repeated good results with
https://hudsoncreativegroup.com/ in AR. The only
reason I haven't done it myself is because I don't
have time to do it often enough and each time I get
back into it I have to relearn about the material
choice tradeoffs. If I had a better grasp of these
things and get a less demanding tech job/replaced by
AI :), I would research buying one.
|
> hingler36
I feel like this has been a talking point for as long
as off-the-shelf printers aimed at hobbyists have
existed. Calling them AI factories is a bit off the
mark imo, there are plenty of hobbyists that learn CAD
and want to make their own stuff, but don't want to
build their own printer. The kind of people who are
interested in reprap are absolutely still around, and
I really don't see that community going dissolving
because of the rise of capable commercial printers.
|
> > Ccecil
That wasn't exactly what was said..."it is now
popular to just have someone else do it...be it AI
or a factory in another country"And sure there are
some people interested in reprap but they have
been scattered to the wind. #reprap IRC has become
an advertising/support channel for commercial
printers. If you go to most of the channels/forums
where the development used to happen and mention
you want to build a printer you will be flooded
with responses about how stupid that is and
provided with names/links of the printers you
should be buying. Making things is a fool's
errand.Maybe my observations were
different...maybe not...but from what I saw at
about 2016 the whole DIY machine thing switched.
|
> > > necovek
I believe part of it is the cost. It used to
be too expensive to get something like a
decent commercial 3D printer (though at the
same time). Now you can get one for less than
the cost of RepRap components back in the day,
so it is stupid to do it if you just want to
print stuff out (it might even be more
expensive, and will likely produce worse
prints).If, however, you want to learn how to
build one, or just have an experience of
building your own tool you'll use to create
stuff, it is most definitely not stupid to do
it.With 3D printing becoming mainstream,
you'll have fewer people in those communities
who support and live that approach though, and
you'll need to look harder to find
documentation and like-minded people.
|
> in_absentia
I'm not sure if it's that simple. Many space-intensive
DIY hobbies are on the retreat simply because more
people are moving into cities or very dense suburbs
where you have no practical opportunity to, say, build
a woodworking shop. Metalworking was even more
severely impacted, for obvious reasons.Also, long
before mail-order offshore manufacturing, people have
been lured away from most of this by the promise of 3D
printing. Every other techie I know owns a 3D printer.
Most have not made anything interesting with it
because they soon learn that the real difficulty is
materials science and 3D design. But as a nerd, it's
the thing you're supposed to own. In contrast, I know
maybe four people in the SF Bay Area who are into
woodworking, metalsmithing, CNC, or stuff like that.I
don't see mail-order prototyping as a conspiracy...
it's more of a culmination of the DIY community
chasing the mirage they were sold on in the early
2010s. I still remember the HN claims: home
manufacturing revolution! It's the beginning of a
brand new economy, why would anyone buy anything
anymore when you can just click "print"... with some
amusing parallels to how some folks now talk about
building your own software with AI.The mail-order
stuff isn't evil insofar that it may allow some people
to make things they couldn't make before. On the flip
side, it's a very inefficient way to learn, so I think
it will reduce hardware literacy among those who could
afford a garage workshop.FWIW, I think the same goes
for AI-assisted hardware design. On one hand, I see
people who otherwise wouldn't be DIYing getting into
DIY: "I asked Claude and it one-shotted this
rectangular enclosure for me, it's amazing!", "Claude
made this RP2350 breakout board for me, how cool is
that". But I also see established DIYers getting a
degree of brain rot.
|
> > Palomides
we have had a home manufacturing revolution,
though, and making every kind of hardware is crazy
accessible, look at the explosion of niche
products in every single hobby space over the past
ten yearsI miss absolutely nothing about etching
my own single layer PCBs at home
|
> > > in_absentia
First, PCBs: neither do I, I'm not sure why
you're assuming that's the position I want to
take. This has nothing to do with 3D printing
or mail-order metal parts.Second, I don't
think there's a revolution for the general
population. Your archetypal middle-aged dad /
curious teenager are DIYing less than 20 years
ago, which in turn was less than 40 years ago.
The stats here are clear, most of "garage"
occupations are on the decline. Less space,
higher costs, more emphasis on safety. Some
hobbies, such as backyard chemistry, are
effectively gone. Shop classes in most schools
are gone. Making your own bookshelf or
building a radio from a kit is no longer a
rite of passage.Third, the "explosion of niche
products" - maybe, but I think some of it is
just visibility. Kickstarter, HN, Hack-a-Day,
and so on. Before that, we had hobby journals
for woodworking, electronics, etc, and they
were always full of ads for niche gear. You
just weren't seeing the totality of it in a
doom-scroll loop. Visibility has benefits, but
my point is that the qualitative change isn't
as profound.
|
> > > > necovek
I actually believe it's mostly about cost.
Things you'd DIY in the past are now
crazily accessible: DIY is usually more
expensive than getting a commodity
product.
|
> fotbr
Do you expect the homeowner that needs to mow their
lawn to build their own lawnmower? How about the "tech
savvy" homeowner that wants an automated lawnmower?
Should they be derided for buying one of the robot
mowers instead of building their own? Should the
person that needs a hammer and nails to build a raised
bed for their gardening hobby be required to make the
hammer or the nails, in the name of "learning
something new/valuable"?It comes down to the fact that
these things are tools. Now that reasonably affordable
"turnkey" or "off the shelf" options are available,
what you're really seeing is the divide between those
wanting building the tool itself as their hobby, and
those that just want a tool to use on their other
hobbies. There was less of a divide previously because
for most people, the "just buy one" option simply
didn't exist. Now it does.I spent a lot of time over
the years wire-wrapping circuits, then manually laying
out and etching/making circuit boards, then using
software to do the layouts while still
etching/drilling boards myself, then learning and
switching the bulk of my projects to surface-mount. It
was a necessary part of making electronic bits for
stuff I wanted, but I didn't enjoy that part. Now that
I can draw something up, send it off and for a few
bucks have professionally manufactured multi-layer
boards in days/weeks, with many/most components
already placed and soldered, why wouldn't I cut out
the part I don't enjoy?I played with 3d printers off
and on from about 2006 onwards, though I never kept
one around for any real length of time. I found that
while I really wanted the capabilities, I didn't want
"building and keeping a 3d printer running" to be my
hobby. 20 years later, there are options that don't
require printer maintenance to be it's own hobby, and
I'm much more willing to keep one around.I've had a
couple Chinese-made mini-mills since 2002 -- Sieg X2s,
if I remember the old naming scheme correctly, though
they were sold by various importers with their own
names/model numbers. I converted one to CNC operation
in 2004. While I appreciate the work done by others
that I could learn from, I did not enjoy the process
or the project. If there had been a reasonably
affordable "turnkey" option with the capabilities I
wanted, I would have 100% taken it. If I needed
another one now, with the options available, there's
no way I'd bother to build my own. Even then, I would
have gone with sherline's early cnc offerings -- they
fit my budget, but were just too small for what I
wanted to do.My first CNC router was scratch-built in
the early 2000s. My current one came in a crate 4
years ago, and cost about half of what building a new
one with the same capabilities from scratch would
have. Instead of spending a several months' worth of
weekends building it, I spent one weekend unpacking it
and setting it up, another fine-tuning it and the
software settings, and then was able to start using it
for projects I enjoyed.The ability for people to make
things at home is expanding, just not in the way you'd
like to see. That isn't a bad thing.At the end of the
day, time is what is ultimately valuable, and I don't
have nearly as much of it as I did when I was younger.
At this point, I'd much rather spend what time I do
have enjoying my hobbies and creating the things I
want to create, not building tools or suffering
through tasks I hate simply because someone else
thinks that is the important part. It seems I'm not
the only one.As for companies that "care"
disappearing, well, that's just the current business
environment. When the only measure of success that's
deemed important is the stock value -- or potential
stock value, in the case of startups -- customer
service is an expense that can be cut to inflate next
months' quarterly report. In exchange, the concept of
customer loyalty is dying as well.
|
kqr2
What is the best replacement for hobbyists?
|
jordanb
Real bummer I have their manual lathe and mill and have
made a lot of things it would have been impossible to make
without the ability to machine (even at small scale their
machines could do).One reason why I bought sherline is the
company was still in business and creating so many
accessories.I guess I'll be trying to buy stuff off of
eBay or something like I would have been doing had I
bought Chinese stuff.Speaking of which does anyone know
the details of their small 60 degree carbide inserts? I
assume that don't make those themselves.
|
obscurette
My wife is in manufacturing and although not in US,
working for a company having production in US, EU, Asia
etc. Her 1-minute comments why it's increasingly difficult
to produce something in EU and US.Bureaucracy - the levels
of it are insane especially in EU, but US is not far
behind. The loss of local partners and environment - every
little thing you can do locally makes production easier
and cheaper. Failure to attract young people - although
production is cool, it's not Youtube influencer level cool
and industry relies increasingly on older generations.
Education - the quality of it is sinking almost all over
the world. Insecurity - partly just part of times, but
mostly coming from regulation, taxes etc.
|
> ponector
>> it's not Youtube influencer level cool and industry
relies increasingly on older generationsUsually it
means the pay is crap, the schedule is bad and nobody
is willing to invest into training. Why should young
people select such career?
|
johnohara
Tip of the hat to Australian Harold Clisby.
https://www.lathes.co.uk/clisby/index.htmlWell done sir.
|
probably_wrong
I'd like to throw an idea to those who know better than I
do.Ever since I started living on my own I've lived in
apartments, none of which had a backyard (one of them had
a parking lot). None of my friends owns a house either.
I'm the perfect customer for this and I'd love to do my
own projects (two of which require a lathe!) but I simply
don't have the space.Is this just me? Or is the
disappearance of the hobby garage a real phenomenon? A 3D
printer is fairly limited in what it allows, but it also
doesn't throw sawdust in the center of my living room.
|
> jakintosh
This is generally what a makerspace is for. I don't
know what the (inter)national landscape is like for
them, but I have a small 8'x8' studio space at the
makerspace in my city, which also has a full wood
shop, metal shop, and tons of rapid prototyping tools
(3d printers, vinyl cutter, etc). I live in a 1BR
apartment downtown and the makerspace is in an
industrial district that is a 5-minute bike ride away,
and it's basically my "garage", just shared with 30
other studios and probably 200 non-studio members who
come and go.
|
> > CharlieDigital
The US is kind of "collapsing" in third spaces
both public and private, but especially public due
to funding cuts.
|
softwaredoug
> Unfortunately, the manufacturing environment has changed
dramatically. The effects of COVID, increasing
manufacturing and operating costs, and significant changes
in consumer purchasing habits have made it increasingly
difficult for a small American manufacturer such as
Sherline to maintain the workforce and production levels
necessary to remain competitive.Can't help but wonder if
"operating costs" include tariffs and other policy
decisions by the current administration that have driven
up costs for everyone.
|
> Ccecil
Speaking from my personal observations...It is not
just tariffs. The cost of living in the US, especially
housing, has approximately doubled in my area since
2019. There is a massive overinvestment in real
estate. When housing costs go up it forces companies
to pay their employees more to adjust which then
drives up the COGS. This becomes a feedback loop
because the real estate investors see the prices go up
and say "well we have to raise rents because COGS are
going up."Competing with any offshore becomes
impossible (especially when compared to countries
which subsidize their production). Companies close
instead of attempting to compete. Why would you when
simply investing in real estate, crypto or AI would
net more money? The parts needed to produce in the US
are typically not made in the US.Tariffs hurt...a
lot...the companies I work with directly (including
mine) have been struggling with them for a decade now.
But it is a lot more than that...there is a general
lack of interest in making things that are real. Plus,
the cost if you attempt to do so puts you in a
position where you cannot be competitive.
|
> > K0balt
+1 on the tarrifs and the cost of living. We
actually left the USA and moved to the Caribbean
because our R&D was being burned up in tarrifs;
actually cheaper to move the operation. It's
stupid to raise tarrifs overnight when there are
no comparable domestic alternatives. A 5 year,
stable plan to ramp tariffs? Sure. That builds a
runway for local supply and transition. Random
tariff adjustment between 0-200% changing every
month? Absolute poison for innovation, and local
suppliers can't ramp on chaos.The cost of living,
also, needs a reframe. The real truth there is
that most people, who live paycheck to paycheck,
are half as prosperous as they were a couple of
years ago. Think about that. The Majority of an
entire country became twice as poor practically
overnight. It's not cost of living rising , it's
standard of living being halved for most
Americans. It's not a small thing, and it will
have reprocussions for decades. A population on
strong retrograde prosperity does not innovate,
does not invent, does not plan for the future.
It's basically terminal cancer.No doubt innovation
will rise once the ashes cool, but that's more
like what we are seeing in Eastern Europe,
admirable and significant, but no equivalence
whatsoever to the economic juggernaut that the USA
once was. (And still is, for now)Maybe automation
will turn that around, but who then is the
beneficiary of a fleet of millions (billions?) of
corporate owned general purpose humanoid robots?
That's a big part of what my startup is working on
; making that phase generally useful to regular
people, not just corporate giants.
|
technothrasher
This is too bad. I've got both their mill and their lathe,
and they've been great for making replacement parts for
antique clocks.
|
mlhpdx
Wow, what a disappointment. I've found it funny over the
years when people are shocked to hear me talking about
machining, when they themselves have woodworking tools.
Cutting metal, cutting wood, even cutting paper - all
useful for making and fixing.I earned an MSME without ever
learning to actually make things, so once I could afford
it I bought a Sherline CNC mill and taught myself to use
it. I made many mistakes but got there. I used it just
last week to make a wind gauge mounting bracket for a 70
year old sailboat.I liked that it was made in the USA and
(at the time, pre mainstream internet) had a great
community to learn from.I know there are other options
still, but Sherline has a fond place in my heart for how
easy they made it to get started.
|
> Reddit_MLP2
I also think Sherline machines have good value. Were
they the cheapest, no, but they actually worked really
well in my experience for their size. I only have
their manual lathe, but it was a MUCH higher quality
machine than my larger 7x14 from china. It just feels
like everything is either a race to the bottom,
enshittification and/or both right now.
|
giantg2
I want a small lathe and mill. The prices are just too
high to justify with my limited use. Instead, I use a 3D
printer and I'm making a CNC router.
|
> SoftTalker
You may have already ruled it out, but many
communities have maker spaces where expensive
equipment that might normally be out of reach is
available on a shared basis. Some universities may
also have ways to use their maker spaces on weekends
or when classes are not in session.
|
firesteelrain
How much is because of Chinese clones/stealing of IP thus
making manufacturing in the US cost prohibitive?
|
> applfanboysbgon
Sad to see racist yellow scare bogeyman stuff going on
at every little thing. You really think Sherline had
some amazing hobby lathe IP that was just so far
intellectually beyond what an educational powerhouse
of a country with 1.6 billion people could ever come
up with?
|
> > firesteelrain
Yes, I agree that China can copy Sherline's IP and
it's a form of theft. An estimated 70-80% of the
parts can probably be made in China. If you would
like a breakdown I can provide it.Sherline, for
example, specifies spindle nose runout of 0.0005
inch or less and spindle end play around 0.0002
inch or less, using two 20-mm ball bearings with
adjustable preload. That's only about 13 µm
runout. A Chinese factory can absolutely
manufacture that.Manufacturers such as SIEG took
conventional lathe architecture and mass-produced
it.There is nothing original going on there lots
of copying
|
carterschonwald
the current white house really fucked over all the smaller
domestic manufacturers. and scientists. and um america
basically
|
> esseph
Everything.If you are a builder, there is no sane way
to bid on contracts with such hugely variable COGS.And
how the HELL do you even attempt to fix the US housing
supply if you are tariffing Canadian lumber? You
can't.
|
> > pixl97
Guess this is what happens when you elect a group
that prioritizes enriching themselves over
ensuring you don't starve in the street like a
filthy animal.
|
> > mschuster91
As for the housing... stop using lumber maybe? Us
Europeans build houses out of bricks and mortar or
outright concrete.Lumber framing only makes sense
if you want something dirt cheap (and yet, US
matchsticks and cardboard houses go for millions
of dollars?!) or something that needs to be
earthquake resilient and affordable.
|
> > > esseph
I have a video for this.It's because of our
earthquakes and the severity of our storms.
The lumber frame and design of construction
flexes and sways when stone and brick would
break (tornados are different story). Bigger
buildings of stone and brick here are built
very different, sometimes on giant metal
plates with actual springs.Here you
go:https://youtube.com/shorts/jFph1d2WR3sBtw:>
or something that needs to be earthquake
resilient and
affordablehttps://earthquake.alaska.edu/earthq
uakes
|
jszymborski
All these tariffs haven't saved US manufacturing? Colour
me shocked ? /s
|
dpmartinez
Sad.Is there a free alternative to this ideally community
owned and open source?
|
> krisoft
I'm not sure what you are hoping from "free",
"community owned", and "open source".They make mills
and lathes. They are really nice little machines,
great for hobby use. We have one lathe from them in
our hackspace for example, and it is a delight. Of
course you have to understand the limitations of the
tool, but that is true for every machine.That being
said, it is just a lathe. There is nothing
particularly complicated about it. At least not at
their complexity level. If you can manufacture machine
tools you can make one very easily. If you don't have
the manufacturing capability you won't.The reason i'm
saying this is because "free as in freedom" and "open
source" are properties of plans / source code. If you
happen to have a lathe factory, the lack of a lathe
plan is not going to stop you. You are just going to
design one for yourself. And if you don't have a
factory which can make a lathe, then why do you care
about plans for a lathe being open source?I guess the
factory itself could be "community owned". If you have
a business plan, or a large pile of cash, now is the
time to approach them that you want to buy everything
from them. But I'm not sure how "community owned"
would even work for this use case.Basically what I'm
saying this is hardware, not software. The terms you
use don't make much sense in this case.
|
> convolvatron
the sherline designs aren't particularly notable, and
they're pretty easy to replicate if you have working
machine tools that are larger. any machinist could
make a sherline mill or lathe, but without that
floorspace and capex and skill, one really can't.I
spent overly long trying to learn on sherline tools
and once I gave up and bought a Bridgeport and an old
Logan, I realized that I was just banging my head
against the limitations of the tools.the value they
had was that they were cheaper than the smaller
version of the standard toolroom machines, and they
were a way to bootstrap yourself without having the
heavy power and the floorspace. so pretty much the
storefront, not the IP. I still have their 4" rotary,
and its actually not bad. the mill had a huge amount
of flex in the column that made it pretty unusable for
me unless you took really really tiny passes.I had an
old Unimat for a couple years, and while that was even
_more_ dodgy than the sherline the fact that it was
all steel and a combined mill/lathe made it a lot more
interesting. would rather see some community standards
for tooling on a platform like that. maybe a 50%
larger so setup isn't so fiddly.
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