Looks like the powers that be are desperate to identify 3D printers. Or they want you to think they can.
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11 Comments
SiG · May 29, 2025 at 6:46 am
I had a really hard time swallowing that. My BS filter kept getting clogged.
Let’s see: 21 they tested 21 printers and there are how many thousands of brands and models on the market? Not to mention the effects of the plastic flowing however briefly because it has to be semi-fluid to print, and all the parts on the printer that might affect it: nozzle diameter and metal finish, the metal parts moving the printing head, and so on.
I know, let’s get 21 different CNC systems to make a part out of metal and see if they leave a fingerprint that their miracle system can identify.
Divemedic · May 29, 2025 at 8:34 am
It doesn’t matter if it isn’t accurate. Look at rifling marks on bullets- it’s been shown to be inaccurate, but the public believes it, so juries believe it.
redacted · May 29, 2025 at 9:46 am
public also goes with polygraph, pcr tests, certain “medicines”, politicians, preachers, etc
seems like an awful lot of useless…
Redacted
Steve · May 29, 2025 at 8:04 am
Maybe. The report says it can be used to isolate the printer of “bad”, out-of-spec parts. From the description, I think it’s the Anna Karenina principle* applied to manufacturing.
*All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Gasman1075 · May 29, 2025 at 12:45 pm
I suppose next will be registration of metal working tools, machines, etc
Phil B · May 29, 2025 at 5:30 pm
The USSR registered typewriters by having the factory produce a typewritten page for every typewriter and as the typewriter had a serial number and was registered to a particular user, then any Samizdat written on a specific machine.
It looks like the US government has adopted the same attitude.
bunky archer · May 29, 2025 at 8:46 pm
A CL seller had one and it was YUGE as it took up a good portion of the garage.
They are probably smaller by now.
I’ll have to ask Artificial Idiot about metadeta, it says STL files don’t while AMF and 3MF do.
JB · May 30, 2025 at 8:47 am
The variability of mechanical parts fits and clearances in an assembled printing machine introduces a fingerprint on each printed item. I get it. But once the surface of the part has been machined or wiped with acetone to remove the surface rippling its doubtful such photographic tracing methods work.
@HomeInSC · May 30, 2025 at 4:04 pm
I have decades of multidisciplinary engineering and problem solving. Mechanics, electronics digital and analog, communications, software, firmware, control systems, operating systems, digital imaging…
This article seems far-fetched. If it is even partially accurate there are many ways to disrupt it.
The most obvious way to tie a machine(owner) to a printed object would be to put a taggant in their plastic filaments. That would be a targeted investigation.
If you are going to print something that you prefer not be traced there are measures to take.
Steve · May 31, 2025 at 10:12 am
The more I’ve read on it, the more I’m sure this only applies (at present) to printers that are failing. The more wear a given component has, the greater slop in the precision, and predictably so. When the stepper is moving CW, a slide bearing with slop will ride on one side of the bearing, but when going CCW, rides on the opposite side. This is a characteristic of that particular piece of equipment, at that point in time.
Very similar to what happens if you use a cleaning rod wrong in a rifle. You introduce a characteristic flaw in the product.
Aesop · June 3, 2025 at 2:16 am
3D printers can easily be identified.
You stand in front of one, and say “That’s a 3D printer.”
QED
Tip your waitress. Try the veal.
As far as tracking any given 3D-printed product back to any one specific printer, that’s pure wishcasting bong-fueled Leftard fantasy.
So crooks: Print all the ghost receivers and Glock switches you like. Just don’t get caught.
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