The future of pinball

[Bonzo]

I have zero doubt they'll be able to produce materials with nearly ANY desired characteristic in just another few years.

Very much jean-lucing forward to printing myself some Earl Grey. Make it so!

 

[ER777]

Who said anything about 1000 units?

That was my mistake. I was thinking that 3D printing could be more efficient for mass-producing unique playfield pieces than creating a bunch of new molds for each table, but if it takes hours per piece then it wouldn't be.

 

[Worf]

3D printing is great for prototyping and one-offs. It's not a replacement for mass-production. You'd use it to print off a hard to get piece off a table that you can't find anywhere for example. But a manufacturer isn't likely to do it because it is slow, and the price is actually quite a bit higher per unit.

As for doubts you express about material quality, I can only point you to similar doubts once expressed by photographers about digital imaging versus emulsion based photography. Progress is geometric. I have zero doubt they'll be able to produce materials with nearly ANY desired characteristic in just another few years.

Not really. The best materials yet use resins and such, but you're also talking about 3D printers that cost in the hundreds of thousands and require lots of work to actually finish it (it's also quite a bit hazardous, so it's unlikely to come to home use). The 3D printers that are cheap and available now for home use use extruded ABS filament, and while ABS is a great material (it's tough) it tends to be strong if molded together. It's why you need heated build platforms because ABS does not like sticking to itself cold, and extruders unfortunately do that. Unfortunately, technology can't improve on material sciences - short of coming up with a miracle material. With digital photography, it was obviously only a matter of time (and it still isn't as good as emulsion - digital still does not have the dynamic range of 35mm print film). But it's obvious to see that it will, eventually because the core of digital photography is technology. The core of 3D printing is material science.

If you really need one offs, your best bet is to just use a service like Shapeways. They have the good expensive equipment and the handlers who know how to do it properly and even tell you when you're doing something idiotic. I think they also have milling machines so you can actually do pieces that aren't possible with just a 3D printer alone (a milling machine is also a 3D printer - except it works by subtraction, while extruders and sinterers use addition). Of course, it's all fine and dandy for home users, but if you're a company, 3D printing is just the first step - you aren't going to replace injection molding with 3D printers anytime soon.

 

[pseudokings]

I think it would be great to see FS work with Dennis Nordman or Mark Ritchie (among others) on an original design... that said anything designed by one of the greats that didn't ever get anything more than a digital version would seem, on a level, like a waste, and a sad statement about the ability to get even a top-tier designer's ideas made into a real pin these days, even with a resurgence of interest/popularity.

...Which just makes me more stunned that Jersey Jack is perfectly happy to have Joe Balcer in charge of game design when there are several guys with much more impressive resumes around who might still be interested in designing pins (hell, they had Dennis Nordman listed as on their staff for awhile, but not anymore - and John Trudeau until very recently was available, though he just signed up with Stern, which should help them a lot).

 

[Samandor]

As long as we're dreaming, who wouldn't like to see a "Game of Thrones" table incorporating clockwork map elements from the CGI intro?