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Aircraft Made From 3D Printing
countertrolling tips news of a project undertaken at the University of Southampton, where engineers designed and created a functioning UAV using unusual methods. Quoting:
"It was printed on an EOS EOSINT P730 nylon laser sintering machine, which fabricates plastic or metal objects, building up the item layer by layer. No fasteners were used and all equipment was attached using ‘snap fit’ techniques so that the entire aircraft can be put together without tools in minutes. The electric-powered aircraft, with a 2-meter wingspan, has a top speed of nearly 100 miles per hour, but when in cruise mode is almost silent. The aircraft is also equipped with a miniature autopilot developed by Dr. Matt Bennett, one of the members of the team."
Well I guess soon you will.
If it rhymes it must be true.
I've been following the following thread over at RC Groups for about a month:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/thumbgallery.php?do=threadgallery&t=1455808
It's 124 grams right now and almost ready to fly.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
You know those anti-piracy "ads" that say something like, "You wouldn't steal a car, would you?"
I always though the obvious response was, "No, but if I could download a car and print it out for free, I sure would!"
Looks like that day is getting pretty close.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
More details and video here:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20737-3d-printing-the-worlds-first-printed-plane.html?page=1
I come to /. to read stories. This is the first one in a long while where I can genuinely say "Wow .. I'm impressed", both with the topic itself, and TFA that was clear, concise and not someones link spam blog.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Looking at the post about the RC Group and checking out the article and following up on Geodetic Structure, it seems to me that the ability to use a geodetic structure approach, makes this plane a whole lot better, in a way that can't easily be done by any other method. It's lighter and stronger that the normal spars and ribs used normally! It even looks like the geodetic structure is integral with the skin! Though if the wings were made all in one piece, I bet they had a tough time hooking up the linkages for the control surfaces.
More details and video here
So how long before 3d printers are illegal? I'm sure stuff like the rap rep, or whatever it's called will continue to be OK. But the truly nifty stuff, the ones that can make a drone or other truly "interesting" things?
I'd expect the 3d printer technology to get "capped" at something below the level of TFA. It'll be in the name of "stopping terrorism", but behind the scenes there'll be some terrified parties in the commercial sector that don't want their profit models rendered obsolete.
For the Sci-Fi example, read Joe Haldeman's "The Forever Peace" and pay special attention to the "nano-forge" the the corrupt BS surrounding that.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Depends on what the market wants. Compared to the cost/unit of a high volume injection molding setup, the cost of a plastic laser sintered part is going to be downright sickening(the manufacturer doesn't list prices; but that typically means you don't want to know. 2x 50watt lasers, precision optics, control widgetry, etc. isn't going to be inexpensive, and such devices are not all that fast. Fast if you just count time from CAD to first part? Definitely. Fast per part? Not at all...) However, if the air force just has to have 15% more loiter time or whatever, they might be willing to put up with it.
Especially for something like UAVs, though, where small size and autonomous cheapness are usually the selling points, "20% better, 20x the price!" is going to have some trouble competing with "almost as good, and you can order spares by the container-load for barely more than the cost of plastics and just saturate the area!"
It's a SPITFIRE! The bird that will never die.
Absolutely the most elegant and tasteful extrusion in the entire history of industrial production. She lives on, yet.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Or maybe building the entire airframe out of it is a gimmick intended to demonstrate the capabilities of the technology, but laser sintering will make sense as just another manufacturing technique, used for those parts it applies best to. For example, the press release claims that eliptical wings are very difficult and expensive to manufacture, so perhaps it would be economical to attach printed wings to an otherwise conventionally-built aircraft.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Take 1 printed RC plane, add fuel.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is hardly new. I wrote about the P-175 Polecat UAV 5 years ago. Lockheed-Martin's famous Skunk Works used 3D printing to fabricate most of the airframe http://aerogo.xanga.com/510321696/polecats-flying-cars-and-skunk-workx/ and http://aerogo.xanga.com/511717517/the-downloadable-future-aircraft-kit/
What are the limits on this technology? Most 2-4 person planes are very low volume, making tooling very expensive. Could this reduce the cost and complexity of a kit aircraft, while making the design much more elegant aerodynamically? (yes... proud EAA member here, just back from Oshkosh!)
Clicky
Liberty.