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A 3D Printer On Every Desktop?
holy_calamity writes "Two Cornell researchers have designed an open source 3D printer that costs just $2,400. The self-assembly kit is part of what they call the Fab@Home project — they hope it will spark development of rapid prototyping for the consumer market in the same way the Altair 8800 did for personal computing in seventies." Here is a video showing a completed machine constructing a silicone bulb (16-MB WMV).
Update: 01/10 04:02 GMT by KD : The developers of this kit are at Cornell, not Carnegie Mellon University as the original post erroneously stated.
Update: 01/10 04:02 GMT by KD : The developers of this kit are at Cornell, not Carnegie Mellon University as the original post erroneously stated.
A 3D Printer On Every Desktop?
I just circled my desk, and it looks like the HP Laserjet I already have exists in 3 Dimensions. Surely this means HP has beaten this other company to market.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I'd rather not download a video my computer can't even play. Can some nice person post it on youtube?
My Blog Sucks.
IP Issues to Hit Action Figure Market. Seems inevitable. Dad, can you print me a few dozen more Ninja Turtles? If it comes with a 3d scanner, kiss Barbie Good-Bye. Mattel becomes the next Sony.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
that is pretty fucking sweet. I really wouldn't have a use for it, but ~$2500 isn't a bad price.
Here is a video showing a completed machine constructing a silicone bulb (16M-MB WMV).
Given the ungodly expense of regular inkjet cartridges, I can only wonder how much the refills for this thing will run.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Or can you just print your own gold?
liqbase
Building and using one of these seems like a fun and even practical hobby. Ever get frustrated at the plastic parts that break and render something useless? Now you can make replacements. Ever wonder what to get for the person who has everything? Well, I'm pretty sure you could make them a lot of neat personalized things with one of these that they'll be stumped as to where you could have found them.
This project obviously has a long way to go, but I think the comparison to early personal computers could be fair, given the huge realm of possibilities creating objects in 3D space opens.
This would be really cool for lab guys. A 3-d silicon model is so much easier to look at than trying to visualize the 3-d from a 2-d image. How long 'til we see them using it on CSI? :)
mandelbr0t
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
I bet they are printing a new webserver right now.
Why,
Can't this 3D printer just duplicate itself by printing a clone of itself. Surely the price could drop from $2,400?
---- Go ahead, mod me down, I'll just post it again and you lose your mod points.
Neat to see open source applied to something outside of software. I've recently started a wiki for mechanical design, and I'm interested to see what collaboration on such a project is like. Anyone here done that before?
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Digital Rights Management for physical objects?
By the way... how much do the consumables for this thing cost?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"they hope it will spark development of rapid prototyping for the consumer market in the same way the Altair 8800 did for personal computing in seventies."
I see them being used this way.
I'm a robotics post grad student, and I often work on robotics hobby projects in my spare time (little of it that there is!). Something affordable like this would rock my world in so many ways. The biggest question I have is how accurate is a self-assembly kit in practice? If you're trying to build prototype mechanisms or moulds for metal with the parts, how tight are your tolerances going to be? That said, for me, if it came down to a new car or a desktop rapid prototyping machine, the rapid prototyping machine will win every single time.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
If the manufacturer's want one of these on every desktop, figure out how it will provide titillation (porn) to Joe User (and me too).
Worked for the internet, dvd players, VCR's, cable and satellite TV, etc, etc.
1. (immaterial)
2. add porn
3. profit!
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
...the "40K" in Warhammer 40K isn't US dollars.
Almost any product uses a variety of materials. The trick to using one of these machines is to reduce the number of materials needed. It is a fairly daunting challenge. Suppose that you need a toothbrush. The plastic body is easy but what about the bristles? How about a simple cooking pot? Better make that of metal. Even the simplest products are a beyond the capability of machines like this one. On the other hand, the rewards of coming up with a "Santa Claus Machine" are immense.
If someone finds a way to make these machines practical, it will completely change the world's economy. Countries like India and China will lose their cheap labor advantage. We won't have to import our consumer goods anymore. The mind boggles.
If it's possible to use these to "print" inexpensive lego pieces (within 0.005mm precision, iirc) then I am *SO* sold....
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
When I read fab I was so hoping it could print out a working circuitboard from a custom design. Don't get me wrong, this is cool too. But imagine if we could get a circuit one. Computing has already accepted open source for software, there's some effort of open source hardware designs going on. With the equivalent of this for circuits, we'd put the ability to make new electronics designs in the hands of thousands of hobbyists. Just look at all the cool stuff that hobbyists have made with software, imagine what we be invented if they had hardware as well!
Now that I think of it- the combination of that and this would be truely awesome. A talented hacker, or a small team, could design software, hardware, and test out of their own homes without expensive produciton costs. It'd be a huge breakthrough.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Buckminster Fuller wanted to give every other person a lathe, and have the first thing each of them made to be another lathe - so, buy a 3D printer and make another one for a friend :)
The fabathome wiki indicates Hod Lipson is at Cornell, and CMU's directory has no record of either researcher (which would usually be present for a year or so after leaving the university).
And I was beginning to think this would be something that would make me *proud* of my alma mater for once...
Memo to freshman Democrats in Congress: Please please tie research funding to doing useful research, and running an institution well for its students (that means a clean, consistent financial aid system and reasonable tuition), not defense and homeland stupidity pork. Your constituents will thank you.
Seems a little expensive. Could someone build one of these printers and then print the printer itself and mail it to me? I promise to duplicate it as well and give some to my friends. Seriously though, if I owned a manufacturing company of any any kind I would be scared of this thing. In 30 years you might witness the end of large scale production of small consumer goods. Throwing a party? Print up the plates and forks and chairs and tables you need. Need a gift? Print up some Barbie dolls. In 50 years the only thing that might actually be sold are the plans needed to fabricate something and the "ink" for this thing. If I was very cynical I would say this could end capitalism itself :)
The current models work with soft stuff. When they get better with metals and ceramics we can kiss any sort of gun control goodbye. Likewise proprietary parts and trademarked designs. Oh Brave New World that has no enforceable patents in it!
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
Reading that headline gave me a little tiny tingle. I hope before I die there is a true 3D printer (nano-constructor/replicator thingy, not a single material) headline on slashdot =)
Can this thing print a copy of itself?
In spring of 2004 I toured a UK university nanoscience/optics lab which was working on behalf of a major electronics manufacturer. They were, they said, printing transistors with a bubble/ink-jet type printer on to sheets of some material (they didn't specify what it was) for use in future displays. There was, we were told, no limit to the size of display they could print other than the carriage width.
The technology also allowed them to print extremely efficient light sources - 60% efficiency was the figure we were told, iirc. They were hoping it would replace normal lighting.
"The mind boggles."
The imagination always boggles reality.
Nuf said...
Can this thing assemble (a copy of) itself?
Also, back to the programming-languages famous problem — can it output its own design document(s) in some format?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Surely this is just plans for a CNC goo dispensing machine? I modded a £120 manual milling machine to laser acetate, surely it's only 1 more step to attach a syringe and screw thread dispenser. Total cost £200. Seems a hell of a lot cheaper than $2500 (estimated, it's plans remember)
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
I need a printer that uses inexpensive ink, and where the ink cartridges only need to be changed once every one or two years.
I just tried to repair the handle on a steam cleaner (it had broken in half). I don't think I could buy a replacement handle for ANY price (it's an older-model, non-industrial machine), but I could just scan and re-fab one with this machine.
/.ers, I'm continually fixing things and trying to create new tools and bins and toys in my workshop -- with a 3D printer, we can just think something up, model it, then print.
I'm also missing a foot for my laptop (it popped off at some point). Again, I could just print one in a couple of minutes...
Like most
Speaking of which, what's a good open-source CAD tool? I haven't found one yet, and I'd like to get familiar with one before these printers go mainstream.
coding is life
I just registered "3Dbabes.org"... a repository chocked full of blueprints for anatomically correct hot women. It's probably the closest that most /.'ers will ever get...
I don't care what else it can do, as long as it can produce a nice pair of silicone tits.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
What will the "Print Screen" key print then?
Whenever you get close to running out of material, print another cartridge.
This is the goal of the RepRap project. The idea is that the tool will eventually be able to print all of its parts from raw materials.
It's a lofty goal, but a good one.
Honestly, I'm thinking about making a fabathome machine just for the tinkering. How many times have you wished that you just had something to mess with that was custom?
"It's probably the cheapest machine of this kind out there," he adds.
Well, it's not cheaper than the CarveWright, which is retailing as the Craftsman CompuCarve for about $1700. No soldering iron required, and it can be outfitted as a 3D scanner as well (for duplicating objects).
Suffice it to say, I want this market to become very, very crowded so I have lots of devices to choose from.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Yeah, well, I guarantee that before you know it, HP is going to tap into Schick or Gillette's marketing teams to market a 4-Dimensional printer. and shortly after, a 5-dimensional printer. They won't let themselves be beaten.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
This really isn't different from open source software except that it needs materials. Many of the same things will happen. Free software won't cause the collapse of the computer industry and free manufacturing won't cause the collapse of capitalism.
What we need is a 4D printer, so I can print out today's track results and retrieve them yesterday.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
The Fab@Home machine can't produce itself. If you want one of those, got to http://reprap.org/
:v)
Vik
Patents are quite literally the DRM for physical objects.
$2400 is cheap for a 3D printer, but it's still a lot more than the projected cost ($400) for the open-source version They expect to have their printer replicate itself sometime in 2008.
Anyone who has kids knows how quickly modern toys break. Parents are also well aware of the fact that toys rarely last on the shelf for more than a season and trying to get a manufacturer to send spare parts is damn near impossible. The possibility of open source toys, or at the very least replacement parts for closed source toys, is enticing. If these things can come down to a reasonable price (they also need some advances as far as color output) I think they could become quite popular.
:)
PS A cookie to the first person who can tell me what movie the subject of my post is from.
Hod Lipson is a professor at Cornell University, not Carnegie Mellon, and the Cornell shield is completely visible in the photo, as are the words "Cornell University."
. . . welcome our new 3d dildo and sleeve printing overlords.
I am not a crackpot.
Not only can reprap not reproduce itself - it did successfully manage to reproduce one of its own plastic pieces, but that's about it - but it looks like this works much better than reprap actually works. The current model will never be able to truly reproduce itself, but it will print plastic gears that work and as I understand it will print metal traces. The pieces I've seen that are made with it are very crude in the pictures. The price, around USD 400, is attractive OTOH.
This could give a whole new meaning to you're childhood memories. Anatomically correct toys! Don't even get me started on how this could impact the porn industry.
Quack, quack.
Glock parts, that's what I'd make.
I just bought a 3D printer and now I'm printing more printers to sell for $100. I'll be rich!
Been using these in manufacturing for years now, and they are great. Such a simple concept, but never practical for the home user. Perhaps this will now change.
Just wait until you can 'print' with cells.. make your own steak n fries at home..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How does it print something like a mug where the handle doesn't loop completely back onto itself?
In the video it prints "up".. So do you simply have to print the mug and handle separately and then attach the two objects together?
Can it make a copy of itself? Or of all its components?
I LIKE IT!!!!
I have over a dozen projects that this would let me finish without going to a machine shop.
Only Three questions;
Where can I get one?,
how much for the cartridges and
can the cartriges be refilled by the end user?
Where are the signed 64-bit Vista drivers for this? Maybe slightly offtopic, but this made me think about how you can't run unsigned drivers on 64-bit Vista, probably for some DRM reason. Homebrew hardware projects are probably an area which would require the user to be able to run their own drivers. I see a problem.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
How many geeks will be printing out edible chess sets?
Minor point here. RepRap is designed from the ground up to be capable of reproducing itself in a practical manner, and to do so on the average desktop. The Fab@Home device is not, and the author of the comment was after a machine that would.
:v)
The "Zaphod" RepRap prototype that made its own part (and has since made others, as well as functioning gears) has not reproduced but in theory it could. In practice, that's not a necessary or desirable goal - the "Darwin" 1.0 release looms, and this will be a far more capable design. "Zaphod" was only a proof-of-principle device, and as such is a useful testbed.
Metal traces may be available as an add-on to "Darwin", or may well be made in other ways (heck, there's a lot going on in the RepRap project). Using the same conductive materials employed by Fab@Home in the filler extrusion head, for example, or depositing etch resist. Actual metal will be incorporated in the 2.0 "Mendel" release - see the timeline on the RepRap homepage.
Vik
All the obvious problems are in the way though, the worst of which is working with metal; I have trouble imagining the rebirth of the micro(pico?)forge(birth if you don't wanna count musket balls...). If you want to machine metal, everything gets bigger and harder to work with. From what I have seen, material quality and finish aren't all that great, or all that bad, but they are pretty much going up against injection molding, which is a very mature process.
...)
I have no trouble imagining it whatsoever.
The trick is to abandon forging and mechanical cutting, and substitute electrodynamic machining:
- Mount the workpiece on a 3-axis motion controller.
- Immerse it in a dilectric fluid. (water, oil,
- Bring an electrode, powered by a high-frequency pulsed-DC supply, near it.
- Draw an arc to it through the dilectric. A microscopic pit melts in the workpiece, then the arc vapor-cavity collapses, creating a shockwave that blasts the still-molten material into the dilectric fluid as dust. Repeat several thousand times a second.
- Measure the voltage to give feedback to control the spacing between the electrode and the workpiece.
- Pump the dilectric through a filter, or dither the electrode around to push it around, to get the dust out of the gap.
- Make your motion control able to back out as necessary when a chip shorts the electrode, until it's clear, then move back in.
Slow, but enormously accurate. Gives a mirror finish with no further processing (due to the arc's inherent tendency to selectively hit and abrade the high spots.) Able to cut or drill anything conductive. Steel. Tungsten. Diamonds... (For diamonds you flash a bit of aluminum onto them for an initial contact, then the arc leaves a thin surface layer of graphite which carries the current from the next arc. Acid-etch the aluminum away when you're done.)
Three basic types of tooling:
- Use the end of a (slowly fed) wire for a drill for tiny holes.
- Use the side of a (slowly moving) wire for a bandsaw.
- Use a carved graphite electrode, dithered in small circles to pump the fluid around, to drill big holes of odd shapes.
I did motion control software in Forth for a commercial EDM machine a couple decades ago. Pretty simple stuff. Sparker power supply needs some big resistors and transistors but is otherwise pretty straightforward. Computer is pretty basic (we used a cheap Z80 board), as is the pumping stuff.
Main "hard" part for electronics nerds is manufacturing the motorized mechanical mechanisms for accurate motion control - which is exactly what the gadgets referenced here are designed to be - and to make.
= = = =
Of course if you want to make a casting you can make an initial wax (or low-melting point plastic) model, coat it with plaster to form your negative mold, and use the lost-wax casting process (where the molten metal melts the initial model away and replaces it) to make your part.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
There is always the contrast between theory and practice. For instance, communism as practiced in North Korea might come as a bit of a shock to Karl Marx. Similarly, Adam Smith might find a lot lacking in the American version of capitalism.
Having said the above, a small scale versitile fabricating machine might make capitalism work better. It would remove barriers to entry that distort the economic system.
The advantage of the capitalist system is very similar to the advantage of open source software. Adam Smith envisioned the unseen hand of the market. In other words, the economic system would be largely self regulating because of the supply-demand feedback loop. Top down control of the economy (like top down control of the programming process) simply isn't as efficient as distributed control.
So, I see open source as re-vitalizing the computer industry and I see versitile fabrication re-vitalizing the economy. It will be good for capitalism, not necessarily for large corporations though.
PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean?
Still waiting for the open source desktop fab machine that can make a copy of itself. That is the system that will end up on everybody's desk.
Here's the problem with Theora, and in a similar vein, Vorbis: while they're by far the most convenient encoding to put your content in for Linux users, they create more work for mainstream Windows users, who won't have the codecs installed by default.
Now it's arguable on a site like Slashdot, that it would be a good choice, but for most other sites that don't have Linux or OSS as a focus, it wouldn't make sense to make more work for 95-99% of viewers in order to make it easy for the other 1-5%.
If the codecs for Ogg Theora and Vorbis came pre-installed on every Windows machine, then it would be a reasonable choice for use as a distribution format. At least for now, the choices for codecs are going to be more or less limited to the ones that either come with most people's computers, or can be downloaded through WMP's one-click install.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I met this artist in 93 or 94, he had built the world's first 3D printer. It used glue and sand, and printed out all sorts of shapes. I don't remember his name, but it was a really interesting presentation. He also had a chair that could shake at different frequencies (he was searching for the Brown Note).
i onID=@@@@0018833813.1168235300@@@@&BV_EngineID=cdc caddjkllkmklcefecemldffidfki.0&adCell=P3&pid=00921 754000&vertical=TOOL&ihtoken=1
Also, Sears has a 3d woodworking "CompuCarve" that takes 14x5xinfinite pieces. It's sold out because BoingBoing linked to it.
http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_Sess
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Printers like this are used in manufacturing prototyping aqll the time. Depending on the technology used, the solution to these sorts of problems usually involves changing the model to include thin supports for loose parts. You then break the supports off when the part is finished being built up.
it can print a copy of itself, but the new printer has half the size and twice the speed.
Architects won't have to shell out the $10,000...
Is anyone else impressed by the multi-materials?
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Finally a reason to actually print out my pr0n collection!!
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
If any of you have worked in a manufacturing plant where you have "old bessy"* or any other machine that's worked for years after the OEM went out of business, this could be a great thing to have. You would be able to fab up replacement parts quickly without the need for a full blown machine shop. The only thing that could make it better would be a 3-D scanner that would automatically image your part and create a design plan for it.
* As an example, I used to work at a plant that had a tube bander that was made in the 30s. It worked so well that the company would not let outside people look at it. There was literally no one left alive who knew the designs, but it worked better and faster that a lot of "modern" equipment. Obtaining replacement parts, however, was damn near impossible.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
Very neat, for the backend.
For the frontend, this technique for 3D laser scanning you can do at home using a cheap webcam would be a great match!:
http://www.cs.tu-bs.de/rob/david.html
As a plastic scale model kit builder I can think of a number of parts I could scan and replicate!
Print the mug upside down.
Also check out (if they're still in business) EMachineShop (too lazy to check the spelling, not sorry). The former make a large 3D printer suitable for bureau use built on web services, the latter allow you to draw on a downloadable client, get online quotes for, and have metal parts manufactured & shipped to you.
Honest, folks, there are engineers out there with some very nice web based tools. It shouldn't be too hard a stretch to build your own eCommerce web site to print and ship silicon or chocolate bits to recoup your investment.
Get on it, or the Chinese will.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Call me a cynic, but this thing hardly looks ready for primetime. In fact it looks to work far worse than 3D prototype printers I saw demonstrated 5-7 years ago did.
"Two Carnegie Mellon researchers..." translation: "Two graduate students' thesis project"
For those that didn't watch the video, it looks like a time-lapse speed up of a caterpillar building a cocoon. Seriously it has an almost creepy organic look. There is no time mark on the video so there is no indication of how long this thing took to build. The shape is brain-dead simple. Can it spin anything more complex than a circle as it builds? What good is a printer that can only make balls, cylinders, and bulbs? Presumably this item is flexible being made of silicone rubber, but that seems to be more a side effect of it being built on the cheap with off the shelf materials. It even had to be "refilled" half way through building this rather small bulb, which is mostly air to start with!
For all the people than mentioned using this device to repair things around the house, I hope the only thing that ever breaks around your house is your turkey baster (assuming this thing can print a bulb that large).
As has been mentioned by other posters, these machines will only become truly useful when they can extrude a variety of materials with a variety of material properties. I would imagine you could get a range of properties in stiffness and heat resistance by varying proportions of two or three basic plastic polymers with perhaps a few additional curing additives. Rather than demand a 100% build from scratch perhaps a few standard sized metal reinforcement parts could be thrown into the mix, though this would require a pause while the machine requested user assistance to add screws, rings, dowels, or thread a wire or two.
Really useful auto manufacturing will require serious breakthroughs in AI and robotics to assembling a variety of fabricated parts into something useful, only then will manufacturing prices plummet. Keep in mind we have had auto-milling machines for decades and they haven't obsoleted most manufacturing processes. They can also mill into custom shapes a much wider range of materials.
Letter To Iran
I'd love to print out my own, well, anything, but unless the printer uses some sort of magical mystery material that rapidly decomposes when not in use, it looks like serious enviromental issues could arise as people go to print out, say, a mug and say:
"Ah, geeze, the handles a bit wide"
*print*
"Nope, not wide enough."
*print*
"Maybe... a bit thicker?"
*print*
"Flatter, that's it!"
*print*
"No no no, molded to my hand!"
*print*
"That's not my hand!"
*print*
is the gap between theory and practice.
But I would expect to see some very interesting viruses should these things actually become widespread.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
the replacement part for many devices, and you can just print it out.
"I broke my wookie"
dont worry ralph I'll print a new one for you.
I've been on Slashdot too long. I just naturally assumed you were going to make a pr0n joke. I got to the end wondering what happened to the punchline, then I realized you were serious.
How can you talk about 3-d silicon models and mean it?
-Graham
The Modela MDX-15 is only $2995.
It's not only a mill, but a 3d scanner too.
For all of you drooling over the $2400 price tag, is $600 more really so much to ask?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Because thats all that matters now.... I want an iPhone now, for cheap!
Just think, with one of these on every desktop, what the pr0n industry will do with 'em...
Actually, I can see them getting excited over this.
why? in the near future, when these things will be cheaper than hell, and through proper marketing, they can have people simply buy a design layout for a doll and use their printer and make a doll. of course, using their "patented super doll gel". this would undercut so many costs that they have to pay workers to build dolls. have people at home do it.
Though that would probably happen after they start the production of dolls using this technology.
same for those action hero toys.
I dont hear the bells of litigation coming just yet. I hear greedy businessmen jerking off in glee.
less people to make dolls and toys, saving millions.
Broken battery covers.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
Zcorp http://www.zcorp.com/ and other companies have been making and selling these things for years including ones that print in color. I've watched the price of these things fall from $100k+ to (I think) about $40,000 these days. If $40k is too much for you then email your file to one of the dozens of small 3D printing shops that will let you print out your part for a couple bucks.
This is a bit off-topic, but I really am trying to find the answer since the posted video is a WMV: Why do people create WMV files if they aren't using DRM? I actually don't even know of any programs that write them. What is the advantage over AVI or MP4? AVI is an open standard container format. MP4 is the ISO standard for MPEG 4. Isn't WMV just a patent-encumbered version of AVI?
It shouldn't be too hard to design/print a fixture for scanning an item by taking pictures of it. E.g. put the item on a turntable in front of a camera with a "blue screen" behind it. Rotate the object in question, taking pictures as it turns, then back-calculate distances to generate a surface model. I believe that a company was doing this at the Millennium Dome a year or two ago with people to generate avatars for use with computer sims/games.
science is a religion
The materials it uses have to be semi-liquid. That's a pretty strict requirement.
Finding a material that can be as hard as legos but that can become liquid at low temperature and pressure is expensive (and it'll melt if you leave it out in a hot car). (BTW, I'm speaking from experience here; I've got a tub of the stuff and did at test to find this out).
On the other hand, a desktop CNC machine is around $1200 off ebay, and it looks like decent CAD-CAM software is around $500 (I could be wrong here, but it's not going to be hugely expensive).
It's cheaper, and you aren't actually limited to things that can be squeezed out of a tube - you're limited to anything that can be cut, which is significantly more materials. You can even handle metal.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In manufacturing prototyping is often done usng SLA systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography which often look rather precise at first glance, but when you actually need parts to fit together with any sort of precision, you realize that you're working with a rough prototyping tool. I suspect the Fab@home device is even rougher. If you plan to use a system like this, keep in mind that it's more like a rough 3D sketch transformed into reality using limited set of materials than a fine machine drawing fabricated with skill and accuracy. In short, don't even think about making Lego pieces. Expect to do lots of cleaning up, sanding, trimming. That being said, there will probably be a day when you will (if you need one) have a refined fabrication system on your desktop. It wasn't that long ago when desktop publishing was considered something of a joke to people in the printing industry, and digital photography used to be pathetic. So please, refine this machine and give us an amazing, inexpensive, precise, and fun to use fabrication machine.
That can duplicate itself, given a block of metal and, say some silicone ?
"So far it has been tested with ... and even chocolate and icing."
I can only imagine what pastry chefs will do with this. Seriously...you're going to see some pretty cool looking tasty stuff at high end restaurants
Firefox Power http://firefoxpower.blogspot.com/
Of posting a video of an open source item in an extremely closed source codec? Why not post it in a nearly 100% compatible format, like, say MPEG...
(just FYI, I'm an idiot, I figured that by getting an AMD64 chip I'd still be able to run 32 bit things with no problem, apparently not since flash won't work without a chroot and neither will mplayer's windows codec pack...)
...if we all build one at home, what happens when SkyNet becomes self-aware?
Well, duh, then you could just fab a car!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
People expect lots of stuff...
The video is somewhat sped-up. Based on the attention span of the public atlarge it would have to beable to pint that bulb in about a minute, 2 at most. Also it is still very expensive and the finished products don't look that good, let me know when the colour 3d Printer comes out.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Just wait until the DRM folks get a wiff at this! 'How dare you make a model of my wonderful patented/copyrighted creation! (paper clip)'
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
...the biggest hurdle to custom toys is sculpting the initial prototype. Once you have that prototype, though, it's a no brainer to cast molds off of it. So this may open alot of doors for those who can't sculpt very well but might be able to find our way around Blender/3DSMax/etc.
I'm going to put some dough in it and make Jesus or Mary appear in a tortilla... -rich
I have some time to waste and thought I could help waste everyone elses by spouting some poorly spelt, gramatically substandard, and ill conceived rant drawing many threads together in an intricate tapestry of sub contextual cross references half truths and infantile humour.
Every n days slashdot frontpages a standard story with (slight update/new article link/re ordering of previous best comments/droleness filter) where n is proportional to number of pageviews log t of comments posted.
Very little changes, and this article is far worse than the last one I read.
Noone has made anything useful as a 3d printer other than the big commercial vendors [references].
Stereolithograph and powder supported polymer deposition systems have been around for 20+ years, they cost a large sum of money, not because they are expensive to produce but because they are a niche product and they are sold to companys that can afford that price and the systems save the users money equivalent to the costs of prototyping using other methods (that is a long sentence!).
I have nothing to do with this subject so my observations are worth little probably not even the $0.04 that most slashdotters seem to charge, and obviously I would never give away any of the ideas that are going to make me rich.
Now as far a hobbyists go I believe most are approaching from the wrong direction, you don't build from scratch you use components that are already available cheaply or preferably for free. First stop the local dump or a quick call round your local computer stores looking for free broken inkjet printers or cheap used models. You need at least two printers and they must have good open source low level driver support. Next you need a degree in polymer chemistry tribology and viscous fluids now you must create a material that is fluid but adheres to surfaces and solidifys once ejected from the print head. It must be sufficiently viscous that the jet holds together on firing and produces a sufficiently spherical blob that it creates some vertical dimensional resolution. I would probably experiment with different solutions of parafin wax, cyanacrylate, or epoxy for filling my injet cartridges. Next you need a matrix or suspension media I would probably experiment with kaolin, aluminum silicate, fire clay, or go the steroelithography route and use some form of polymer bath (maybe the second part of the epoxy mix). If you go for the solid particulate its probably best to use something like kaolin and a parafin wax and then the system is perfect for lost wax casting moulds. Finally you have to put it all together in a receptacle I would use a microwave oven as they generally have nice stainless steel lining and can be used for microwave casting of many metals. Mount the modded printers on slide rails fixed inside the microwave oven (microwave is on edge so door is at top) you will need to implement a system to dispense your suspension/packing media as the print heads pass or allow the printed object to sink into the suspension bath. At the end of the print run remove the print head, add some alloy ingots, close the door, 6 minute at 650W and you have your instant casting.
All this is the sort of project that would keep a determined hobbyist occupied for 3 to 6 years and probably produce something that works to a 300dpi resolution (if the hobbyist was a total fucking genius with a brain the size of a cheese, and the perseverence of an Ox). Alternativly a printer manufacturer could churn this out in a 9month development cycle. But you have to ask what is the total world market for this product, what are the comercial implications, and why should a manufacturer sell a million units at $500 when he can sell 50,000 units at $100,000 and then sell a million at $500 in ten years time.
Oh the sense of freedom that posting AC gives me is wonderful; What you mean they track my IP address?
Those diagrams would make a great Ikea assembly kit! :)
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Is it accurate enough to print contact lenses? Is the material safe enough to be put in the eye? I wear RGP lenses and would really like to program the printer to print a fresh set of lenses every day.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
it's $2400!
When I saw this last week on Digg, I thought to myself :
Must be the crazy orange laser cut acrylic!
You could just buy the Craftsman CompuCarve: http://tinyurl.com/ykqkkt
For $1800, you get a 3D carbide-tipped carving machine that will work in word or plastic.
It can handle work pieces up to 14.5 inches wide, 5 inches high, and up to six feet or so in length. Its working depth is one inch.
BTW, though the new CompuCarve is getting all the press this week, it's really just a Sears branded version of the CarveWright, which has been out for over a year: http://www.carvewright.com/
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
Maybe you could excited about the RepRap project at the University of Bath in the UK which is pretty much what you asked for... http://www.reprap.org/
when they have a 3D printer that can print a working copy of itself, then they'll really have something!
The idea of RepRap is to reproduce MOST of itself, not ALL of itself. The RepRap project website makes this distinction very clear. What appears to be crudity in the output of the Zaphod RepRap prototype is, in fact, Vik debugging the PC/RepRap machine software/firmware ensemble, not an intrinsic problem with either Zaphod or the concept. Vik has produced some gears with Zaphod largely because I wrote some scripts for the open source Art of Illusion 3D modeling system which allow users to design more efficient involute profile gears than the ones Vik used in Zaphod. There are several RepRap prototypes being worked on. Whereas Vik produced the plastic pieces for Zaphod out of ABS on the University of Bath's Stratasys 3D printer, I took another route, being familiar with woodworking, and made my bootstrap RepRap out of milled poplar lumber (http://www.3DReplicators.com). Simon, with another skill set, made his out of braised copper tubing. Other RepRap builders are taking other approaches. The point is that none of those bootstrap machines are seen as an end product in itself. Rather, they are intended to get their builders the capability of producing 3D parts made of polymers and other materials as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Expect that the designs coming out of RepRap team members once they have a bootstrap machine to be very different that what you see now. The RepRap Darwin machine (http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2032/1030/16 00/962369/Dawrin%203a.jpg), for example, uses steel rod for most of it's structure. While that seems counterintuitive, in fact what it achieves is to greatly reduce the mass and machine time of the parts that have to be made to replicate a Darwin. Steel rod is readily available in most of the world.
What this means is that the evolutionary process is already underway for RepRap machines. Expect a lot of speciation as RepRaps evolve that flourish in very different technical environments and face very different fabrication challenges.
In other news,
Xerox Recalls its 3d Copier
(Yes, it's old)
With recyclability, the 3D printer could be great for open exchange and refinement of physical objects. Imagine printing off new tech devices, refining bio-interfaces, etc. It'll take a while, but we might get there. Many minds make great work.
I'm gonna print me some mod points!
I put together a team to do this a generation ago, using a BBS for collaboration and the first decent Mac schematic design package for software, though we were stuck with wirewrap for prototyping... but it makes a big difference even in wirewrap to have a machine-generated net list.
There are lots of companies that can take PCB artwork generated by various schematic design packages (usually Gerber format artwork) and will turn them into PCBs with an overnight turnaround if you're willing to pay for it. This is preferable because you can get them with solder masks. The price of schematic design packages have dropped quite a bit to... several in the sub-$100 range, and there are even free and/or Open Source Linux projects for this. (google is your friend)
It costs, but if your hourly rate is a positive number, one can consider them cheaper than wirewrap for any circuit of even moderate complexity.
I'd recommend for hobbyist-level projects that one accepts the size/weight penalties and use leaded through-hole components. . . otherwise, have fun and good luck dealing with soldering surface mount.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Finally we can make our own chocolate teapots. :)
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!