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3D Self-Replicating Printer to be Released Under GNU License
Rob O'Neill writes "A Kiwi open source developer is working on a self-replicating 3D printer, RepRap, to be made available under the GNU license. 'The 3D printer works by building components up in layers of plastic, mainly polylactic acid (PLA), which is a bio-degradable polymer made from lactic acid. The technology already exists, but commercial machines are very expensive. They also can't copy themselves, and they can't be manipulated by users, says Vik Olliver. RepRap has a different idea. The team, which is spread over New Zealand, the UK and the US, develops and gives away the designs for its much cheaper machine, which also has self-copying capabilities. It wants to make the machine available to anybody — including small communities in the developing world, as well as people in the developed world, says Olliver. Accordingly, the RepRap machine is distributed, at no cost, under the GNU (General Public License).'"
How does it copy its circuit boards and metallic components? Does it have a little semi-conductor factory?
I think they're web server was built out of plastic parts made by a reprap...its already failing hard. Here is the text from the article:
Based in the Waitakeres, in West Auckland, software developer and artist Vik Olliver is part of a team developing an open-source, self-copying 3D printer. The RepRap (Replicating Rapid-prototyper) printer can replicate and update itself. It can print its own parts, including updates, says Olliver, who is one of the core members of the RepRap team.
The 3D printer works by building components up in layers of plastic, mainly polylactic acid (PLA), which is a bio-degradable polymer made from lactic acid. The technology already exists, but commercial machines are very expensive. They also can't copy themselves, and they can't be manipulated by users, says Olliver.
RepRap has a different idea. The team, which is spread over New Zealand, the UK and the US, develops and gives away the designs for its much cheaper machine, which also has self-copying capabilities. It wants to make the machine available to anybody -- including small communities in the developing world, as well as people in the developed world, says Olliver.
Accordingly, the RepRap machine is distributed, at no cost, under the GNU (General Public Licence).
RepRap's open-source project aims to keep on improving the machine. "So it can do what people want it to do", says Olliver. Improvements will go back to users and, in this way, the machine as a whole evolves, he says. The idea of evolution is important, he adds. The device Olliver is creating now will probably bear very little resemblance to the device that will appear on everybody's desks in the future, he says.
"We want to make sure that everything is open, not just the design and the software you control it with, but the entire tool-chain, from the ground up," he says.
Olliver works for Catalyst IT, a Wellington-based open-source business system provider. He is fortunate enough to get "Google-time" from the company, which means he is allowed to work on his own research projects one day a week -- just like employees at Google. This has led to considerable developments in the RepRap project in the last six months, his says.
New features include, for example, heads that can be changed for different kinds of plastic. A head that deposits low melting-point metal is in development, he says. The metal melts at a lower temperature than that at which plastic melts, which means the metal can be put inside plastic, says Olliver. "That means, in theory, we could build structures like motors."
RepRap also allows people to build circuits in 3D, as well as various shapes, with the result that objects, such as a cell phone, don't have to be flat, he says.
There are at least seven copies of the RepRap machine in the world that Olliver knows about. The 3D printer also allows for a new and fascinating way of communicating: Olliver can design something at home in New Zealand, which then appears on another researcher's desk, in Bath, in the UK, or the other way around.
At the moment, the RepRap uses two different kinds of plastic -- PLA, a relatively rigid plastic, which is ideal for making objects such as corner brackets; and a more flexible plastic for making, for example, iPod cases, he says.
But having the machine copy itself is the most useful thing the team can make it do, and that is the primary goal of the project, says Olliver. However, it can also be used to make other things, such as wine glasses -- definitely water-tight, he adds -- and plastic parts for machines. When Computerworld talked to him, Olliver had just printed out a small part to fix his blender.
"We know that people are going to use the printer to try to make weapons [and] sex toys and drug paraphernalia," he says. "This is obviously not what we're hoping they are going to build. We are hoping they are going to build more and better RepRaps."
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Self replicating machines... need a Skynet tag.
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/01/2048205
preview button, my computer does't have any preview button
It's too bad that the GNU license doesn't cover a machine. It's for copyright. Copyright would cover the RepRap diagrams and schematics, however, the functional elements of the RepRap aren't covered by copyright. I suppose they could have patented aspects of RepRap, and licensed the patents under the GNU license, but I haven't seen anything like that. Anyone seen any patents or patent applications on this? (Zach over at NYC Resistor has a working model, it something to see in person)
Can this printer print a printer so large it, in fact, can't print it?
-Peter
Well, it is free as in thought. They give you plans for it. There is a 'not-for-profit' store for kits, setup by reprap.org - http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/PartsSupplies
So I'm going to double click an email attachment and wake up the next morning to find my house infested with little insect like robots wandering around my house looking for credit cards.
"We know that people are going to use the printer to try to make weapons [and] sex toys and drug paraphernalia," he says. "This is obviously not what we're hoping they are going to build. We are hoping they are going to build more and better RepRaps."
ôó
Since this is (presumably) doing analogue-based copying, I imagine it's inevitable it would suffer from degradation between copies, similar to copies of old-school video/audio tape.
And would interesting mutations get in, like in DNA replication, I wonder?
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Particularly since the news article seems to be down, here's the official site, which has some neat photos of RepRap:
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome
Here's their main blog, where you can keep track of progress on RepRap:
http://blog.reprap.org/
But the liquid plastic cartridges are $250 each...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprap
If this can be pulled, off, it could be world-changing. Imagine being able to download plans and create anything out of varieties of plastic! It would be the key to untold riches, with the only limitation the supply of cheap and plentiful... petroleum products.
Oh, never mind.
this is going to be the ultimate answer to lego. Which of course means as soon as it comes out, it will destroy the social lives of millions of tinkering adults.
At least the cat can't pee in it XD
Small orders of custom injected molded plastic never cost only $10.
And $650 $45000.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I guess you could build some sort of scanner-type machine that would scan an object and create a digital description of it. Then maybe you could get generation-based degradation, if you really want to. ;)
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Here's the real site. Look at the picture. The machine can make the white plastic parts. Not the motors, not the leadscrews, not the frame rods, not the belts, not the wiring, and not the control electronics. The parts it is making look like about $10 worth of injection molded plastic - the cheap parts.
Wrong; that's not $10 worth of injected-molded plastic, that's thousands of dollars worth at least.
Injection-molded plastic, as the name implies, requires a mold, and a machine to inject plastic with. Molds are expensive, as are these machines. Do you have the facilities at home to make injection-molded plastic parts? No? Then it's going to cost you a fair bit of money to send your CAD drawings to a place for them to make a mold and produce parts for you in large quantities. You say you only need one? Too bad. The cost isn't much different whether you want one or 1000.
That "$10 worth" of parts is only $10 when someone has gone to the trouble of making molds and doing a production run in the thousands or more.
With a machine like this, those parts can be made for next to nothing. You'll still have to add motors, leadscrews, belts, wiring, etc., but all that stuff is easily bought off-the-shelf, since it's all standardized. Special plastic parts for your particular application aren't available off-the-shelf, and that's the problem solved here.
Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I've been following the RepRap project for quite a while now. They have some really interesting ideas and a wonderful vision of the future.
/. will cover the announcement because there will be consumer machines on the shelves that don't cost that much more, are more dependable and can do useful work. And it's a real shame.
However, in my opinion (such a rare thing on the internet) they are so enthralled with their grand ideas that it prevents them from actually getting anywhere. From their point of view, any design that can not replicate itself (except the metal) is an inherent failure. The other properties of the machine only start to matter once that is achieved.
While there is nothing wrong with the goal, it means that there is almost no drive at all to produce a machine that is practical for anything BUT duplicating its own plastic parts. Their design calls for basic, lumpy plastic bits and so there is no emphasis on better precision. They are only willing to use materials that can be made yourself, and so there is no chance of it working with better quality plastics. They have designed a machine that needs no small parts or detail work and so there is no emphasis on getting a print head design or motors that supports a better resolution, not that the current plastic could support a better resolution.
Five years from now they are going to announce they they have been able to successfully create a machine that can cheaply and easily replicate itself and that now they will work on making it better. And not even
What happens when these things run out of control replicating themselves, and the planet becomes a crawling oooze of 3D printers? Have they thought of that? No, I'll bet not. Smash any 3D printers you can see NOW!
The design is meant to evolve. It won't do that until it replicates. Therefore, the most critical thing to do is make it replicate. If we spent our time making cool gadgets with it, this would delay the onset of replication and keep the thing out of your hands. It is only when large numbers of people can get hold of the thing that the design will evolve.
:v)
Besides, making it capable of producing its own parts automatically makes it capable of creating a whole heap of other stuff. People are subverting bits of the design already.
Vik
Almost forgot, help RepRap, join the discussion board here: http://forums.reprap.org/
"We know that people are going to use the printer to try to make weapons [and] sex toys and drug paraphernalia," he says.
All you have to do is, when some tells the machine to print a copy of itself - have it print a weapon instead. Then it points it at the user and says, "Go buy another copy of me and tell everyone I printed it. And if you think you can come back here with the police instead - keep in mind that I can also print sex toys and drug paraphernalia. So... do we understand each other?"
Granted, it'd make for some pretty awkward moments at trade shows - but it would still technically be a self-replicating printer.
If they actually start making the hard parts, they'll run into some of the tough problems of machine shop work. A classic problem: how to make a leadscrew more precise than the one you've got. If you just make a new one using an existing one for positioning, each generation of copy will be worse than the previous one.
Maudsley solved this problem between 1800 and 1810, with his "screw-originating machine". This makes a very accurate screw, slowly and in a soft metal. This screw is then used in a thread-cutting lathe to make second generation leadscrews that aren't quite as good. So most screws are "descended" from a reference screw, and are only a few generations removed from it.
There are other ways to approach the problem today, typically using some form of position feedback separate from the drive mechanism. For a self-replicating machine that doesn't get precision parts from an external source, position measurement via absolute means, like interferometery, as in a ruling engine, might be necessary.
Right now, the RepRap people are punting on the generation loss problem, because they're only making the easy parts. If they're serious, they'll need to solve it.
I tried using one of these fancy 3D printers to print my assignments, but all it did was make my mistakes stick out.
I am anarch of all I survey.
With the first link, the chain is forged.