Imagine being able to access official 3D plans to create accessories or spare parts for your electronic devices? This trend has just been fueled by many brands including Adafruit, Raspberry Pi, Framework, but also Noctua and Cooler Master.
If you’ve dived into 3D printing, you know printables. For others, know that Printables is an open and collaborative platform where you can share plans for 3D printing. It’s a place where you can find thousands of blueprints for crafting items.
Some creators even have a “verified badge”, like on Twitter, which is obviously a guarantee of authenticity. Precisely, several big names in the hardware sector have decided to offer free 3D plans. These are Adafruit, Raspberry Pi, Framework, but also Noctua and Cooler Master. There are boxes, brackets, clips and so on.
These blueprints can be used to create new products. This is the case of the Framework box to give a second life to your laptop. As a reminder, you can upgrade your Framework Laptop laptop by changing the motherboard and the associated CPU.
Some 3D plans are simple decorative objects, others are really very functional. We can also highlight the repairability side of this trend, by offering 3D plans to repair broken products or improve certain features.
Other platforms exist like Thingiversewhere marks like honey also offers spare parts.
The 3D printer and repairability
Let’s hope that the trend continues to grow, it meets part of the objectives of the European Union. Indeed, the European Commission aims to harmonize the entire life cycle of electronic devices.
This trend could even lead to changes in the repairability index, and thus to encourage, and even force, brands to offer 3D plans to users.
The European Union’s new action plan seems ambitious for our smartphones, tablets and PCs. Sustainable development, resale, repairability, software support… unfortunately many questions remain and the official EU announcement does not address them…
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