Low-tech hi-tech and how to bring manufacturing back

I am writing this while on the plane to OpenSauce (17th of June) and going through a list of videos I downloaded for the flight. I do not get as much time for videos as I used to, so I always appreciate the time on board a plane. This time on a tip from Mikolas I downloaded Destin's video where he documents his journey of manufacturing his product completely in USA. And oh boy it hits hard. We've been trying to manufacture as much locally as possible for the better part of a decade. We are already actually very far in our EU operations, and now trying to do the same again in USA with a new factory.

Here's Destin's video about manufacturing:

I have two quick thoughts I can manage to write down before I land and join everyone at the event, but I definitely want to get back to this topic more in the future - how to actually make stuff locally.

3D printing can drastically improve the dire situation we have in EU and USA with self sufficiency in manufacturing. We are completely dependent on external manufacturing and the world would grind to a halt if supplies stopped for any reason. I do not have such a hands-on experience with other parts of the world, but I suspect it will be similar in majority of cases.

How can 3D printing help? With the technologies I am working on, I predict that filament extrusion 3D printing will soon become favourable alternative to injection moulding. And projects like Destin's are exactly at the sweet spot with plenty of headroom to grow. I've been printing production parts for the last 16 years and it was very rarely the limiting factor. At the same time we also run an injection moulding shop at Prusa Research. When we consider injection moulding a part? If we know that we will not improve it for a looong time, and it usually starts to make sense over 60000 pieces. Why that number? The mold tooling costs tens of thousands of €/$ upfront. So you need enough volume to spread that tooling cost and beat the per-unit cost of 3D printing. And it still makes sense with a human operated farm...

And my second thought - the manufacturability itself. To be able to make our machines locally everywhere around the world we needed to adapt to the lowest common manufacturing denominator. When I talk about this mindset I call it low-tech high-tech. What does that mean? It's using simple, widely-available manufacturing methods - like bent sheet metal and standard fasteners - to create advanced machine. This was our philosophy for the new Core One and it's getting very close.

The lesson here is that the added value is not in manufacturing complexity even though it may look more impressive on the first sight - and it turns out a solid piece of metal can replace a lot of injection moulded parts, which happen to last much longer and are repairable. Your added value as a manufacturer is in the core technology. I often joke with my team that the printer should always be fixable with a hammer and a screwdriver - but it is just manifestation of our goal to make a repairable machine. With Core One we introduced our new design technique of exoskeleton (exoskeleton is a term from biology, where the outer shell is the bearing structure of an animal's body like insects or crustaceans) from simple bent sheet metal segments. You can make these absolutely everywhere and are also the reason we will be able to manufacture a large chunk of the Core One locally in the states once we establish a supply chain. And it doesn't even mean you have to sacrifice the looks, Core One just got a Red Dot Design Award together with her bigger sister HT90!

Maybe the low-tech high-tech is a better approach to bring back some industries after decades of off-shoring. Most are now too far gone to bring them back 1:1.

I've been on this mission for quite some time, 3D printing is absolutely critical for creation of new IP and as such a strategic industry must be represented locally.