Do your homework--I have sat in a couple of seminars about 3D printing and even the plastic parts are not as sturdy as "normal" as the printer puts it together one little grain at a time.
My understanding is that in metal, 3D produces stuff that is not as good as cast, although Hot Rod had an article this month about JPL (rocket people) with an advanced one that looked like (only skimmed the article) it could produce parts that would have some toughness to them. I believe the metal ones that are commercially available uses laser sintering to fuse powdered metal together.
Basically these things have years to fulfill many of the things you hear about them. Right now they are good for prototyping parts or producing trim pieces or jewelry or things that don't get stressed, but like Diseasel said, for most of the things we do, this technology is not better than the way we normally do things. In the future, things will be different...
Another thing the 3D printers do very well is print out forms to grow body parts on using stem cells. In this capacity, the technology is used and useful today. They grow ears and noses and such cosmetic things, but also more-useful things like bladders and they are working on complex organs like kidneys and such. Interesting stuff if you like technology.
Just my .02
Last edited by R-Bo; 11/26/2014 8:32 PM.
