Put my "pool" guess out at about 10 years. That's a very interesting article, but due to the size of some required parts, it will still require 3D printers larger than the home shop could afford. I could see some enterprising person (like the one in the article) doing all the design and development, and then the homebuilder taking his/her pickup to a local 3D print shop and picking up all the pieces made under license from the designer. In that case, my pool guess changes to about 7 years out.

Cheers,

I'll be 3D printing and fiberglassing over my panels that I'll be making for my donkervoort-ish build... does that count?

I'm thinking of doing the same thing. I have not decided if I should use the 3d printed parts with fiberglass as body panels or use 3d printed parts with fiberglass to make a plug. Please keep us updated on your progress.

Since that article was dated almost 5 years ago, I guess we have only 2 years to go.

I thought about messing around with a 3D printer.

The problems begin when you take thermoplastics out in the sun.

3D printing is great for rapid development and design prototyping.

Beyond that they are not good for anything but unstressed parts that will never see more than 80°f (trinkets and baubles).


A CNC plasma cutter is tickling my fancy now, with some 3D design software to create the patterns.

I used some HDPE for a kart wing and that stuff is far from thermally stable.
10 min in the sun and the material expanded so much it looked like a preschooler made it.

I hope that PETG is more stable, or did you just use it for a mold?