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Geek Tool: Slashdot Video of Award Winning 3D Printer From CES
The Makerbot Replicator is a personal 3D printer, which can create three-dimensional objects through connecting and layering successive cross sections of material. The new version is bigger, better, and easier to set up than earlier MakerBots. In this video Tim made at CES, MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis shows us how wonderful a device it is, and tells us why every child (and most adults) should have a MakerBot.
But it's meant precisely for disposable, non-durable crap that currently only comes in non-biodegradable, chinese-slave made form.
Read TFL. It's available now, it costs $1,749.00, and the feedstock costs about fifty dollars a spool.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
In the makerbot store there are ABS, PLA, and water soluble PVA filament spools.
I assume ABS is the plastic we are used to seeing everywhere that is fairly durable and water proof and that the water soluble PVA is the corn product he talked about in the video.
It's a replicator, not a self-replicator.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The original V1 Thing-o-Matic costs around $1,100, but I'm guessing V2 will be more expensive than that, among other reasons, because of the dual-extruder.
Actually, forget the guess, here are some links: http://store.makerbot.com/thing-o-matic-kit-mk7.html
http://store.makerbot.com/makerbot-pva-1kg-spool.html
http://store.makerbot.com/replicator-404.html
If that is just too much, I would recomend finding a local area maker space (as many of them have these, and cost of joining is similar to that of a gym. Here is the one in Michigan I belong to:
Maker-Works
I have enough trouble keeping track of the two-dimensional stuff I print. This is something best left cloud-based.
Gently reply
The is no issue of PLA spontaneously biodegrading, you have to compost it fairly carefully. (No idea if this is as green as it sounds, it gives off a lot of CO2, recycling should be preferable but the infrastructure isn't yet in place).
PLA is corn based.
PVA(polyvinyl alcohol) is made from polyvinyl acetate, which is made from ethylene, which is made from steam cracking petroleum. Not very renewable, but good as a wash-away support material.
Yes, but how many Stephen Colbert heads do you get per spool?
My problem with these 3d techs online is that there's no good way to know exactly how much you can DO with a given amount of raw material. At some point, i'm going to have to break down and purchase things, just to get a baseline on cost.
He claims in the video that the material is so cheap you can just give things to friends and print more, but... Somehow, I doubt it's that cheap.
Learn to calculate volume - the material is consumed based on how much volume goes into your part.
Imagine what damage this will do to the industry. Everybody making their own things, nobody buying toys, nobody buying anything. Heavy copyright lawsuits must kick in to prevent this horrible scenario. Every model copyrighted, every 3D printer with online DRM.
I have enough trouble keeping track of the two-dimensional stuff I print. This is something best left cloud-based.
You could use it to print your own 3D clouds.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Seems kinda limiting. When I look at these machines I see the potential to make all sorts of stuff that normally I would have to contract out to a machine shop (which for 1 or 2 of an item is not very cost effective)... but if the thing is going to start breaking down after a few months or years that kinda limits applications.
The two standard printing materials for the RepRap family of printers (and their descendants, like the MakerBot) are the biodegradable PLA, and standard petroleum-based ABS. PLA will degrade over time, but only under certain environmental conditions; it's unlikely to fall apart in normal use (most industrial thermophilic composting processes run at pretty high temperatures (60C and up). I guess you probably shouldn't use it to print an industrial composter.
ABS is ABS, and whatever you make with it will be around forever, so print your PLA composter with this instead.
The makerbot website is misbehaving currently, but IIRC it's something like .25mm
There are other devices that use ceramics, metals, or plastics. There are about 30 companies that make some form of additive manufacturing device using different processes like Selective Laser Sintering, Fused Deposition Modeling, and 3D Printing. This is a new industrial revolution that's just getting started. With these devices you can make small production runs cost effective and efficient. Also, these processes produce far less waste, so they use less material and energy.
As for consumer goods, I haven't seen clothing, but there are a lot of interesting items being designed for everyday use on Shapeways.
I've been following Additive Manufacturing since I read the article "Print me a Stradivarius" in the Economist. I expect this to be as significant as the Internet.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
My problem with these 3d techs online is that there's no good way to know exactly how much you can DO with a given amount of raw material.
You don't worry about how many bowls of cereal you can get out of a carton of milk, or how many sandwiches you can make from a jar of marmalade, or how many sheets of paper you can print with a toner cartridge. It all depends on how much product you apply per item. Having said that, a 1kilo spool of ABS filament costs about $40, and a good CAD program will tell you the volume of an object. So, how many Lego pieces (ABS plastic) are there in a kilo?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Managed to not tell me anything I'd like to know, availability, how big is it, how much does it cost, what materials and so on. Just hype.
This newly fangled Interweb thing has curious devices called 'links'. These are often represented by words distinctively coloured or otherwise marked. Your computational engine is most likely provided with a small carriage vulgarly known as a 'mouse'. If you trundle this carriage across the surface of your writing desk, a representation of a hand or arrow or similar pointing device is automatically and synchronously moved across your information display. If you manoeuvre your 'mouse' until this pointer appears to hover over the distinctively marked text, and then press down on the depressable are on the front left of the carriage until a light click is heard, a page of information will appear elucidating the point being made.
Just sayin'
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Here you go:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11560
And while I'm thinking about it... The hardware store would probably have to post the "no dildos" rule pretty quick. But I think it is still a valid business strategy.
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
While I don't know about this particular machine, some of the repraps have been doing some very fine detail models down to 0.01m layer height [1] This combined with I believe about 0.3mm horizontal resolution should let you get some decent detail at 28mm sizes. You might still need to do a little additional clean up (the hot plastic like to make thin strings on some models, and some other minor things like that), to get a finished product but it could easily end up cheaper than some of the prices I've heard of other people paying for things like Warhammer ($4k investment for an army to play with... just go to the dollar store and buy 100 little green army men!). Along with units it'd also work well for doing buildings and other structures, possibly better than for units.
[1] http://blog.reprap.org/2011/12/001-layer-height-on-prusa-mendel.html
It's available (several different models/companies, in kit or prebuilt), they are all on the order of 1 - 1.5 ft^3, cost about $1100, print from corn based PLA, or oil based ABS, and a guy on kick starter just successfully raised close to a million bucks to build a comparable (possibly superior) model for $~500.
These machines are laying the ground work of distributed manufacturing. Get everyone building trinkets in their home will 1) get people used to the idea 2) build lots of expertise leading to better software, a universe of parts, exponential improvement and 3) prepare us for the real magic when we're laser sintering aluminum, steel parts, ceramics, etc. in our homes on a similar device. There's nothing to it except for a $1000 CO2 laser, powered metal, and other parts shared with these plastic machines including the know-how of a few 100k tinkerers mastering the workflow of distributed manufacturing using additive processes while building cheap plastic trinkets.
It's been done.
When a MakerBot can start making things out of engineering materials capable of handing meaningful loads and temperatures (metal and ceramic, perhaps some high-performance plastics) then we have something.
I have to say, to be able to quickly prototype a model and get a hands-on form fit and function before going to the machine shop with these is golden, this technology has already saved my company buckets of money.
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
Actually, the filament is colored. That's how it 'prints in color' and why it takes 2 heads to print in 2 colors.
I was asking for more details because the last time I looked into 3D printing, the ABS filament seemed to cost enough that printing things for fun, but screwing up, seemed to be a very costly mistake. The video, however, says it's cheap enough that you won't care.
Obviously, some of my data is wrong, but I don't know which yet.
And you're right, I do care how many bowls of cereal I get from a milk carton. I may not know the exact amount in my head, but I have an estimate since I've been eating cereal since I was young. I have never printed anything in 3D, though, so I have no idea what kind of volume something would have, or how much that would cost.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
i know a couple of people who use 3d printers. when they want to make parts that need to be stronger than the PLA/ABS raw material, they "simply" print the model, use it to make a mold and cast the mold with bronze or copper or what have you.
it stops being an all-in-one solution but still allows detailed custom shapes with good strength and appearance.
such as shoes, clothing
Seems like overkill for these when you can already create an infinite variety of shoes and clothing with nothing but a bunch of plastic garbage bags and a roll of duct tape.
So, how many Lego pieces (ABS plastic) are there in a kilo?
About 400
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
Similar technology, much better materials: www.stratasys.com
of course, the 'good machines' cost as much as my house. the high precision ABS ones are ~50k or less, though. Build temperature is a big part of it. most of them, the build area is a furnace to keep environmental temperature right for layer-to-layer adhesion. there's only so much you can do with only a heated nozzle. and they have to very carefully control material quality to get the build resolution and accuracy they give, so there are humidity controls, etc. high precision motors and controllers are a big deal, too.
Yes, exactly. Even the ancient s/w I am running on my Makerbot Cupcake calculates the cc's of material that will be consumed by a print.
This looks pretty cool, but I see the build envelope is 225mm x 150mm x 150mm ..... I really want 300mm x 150mm..... oh well......
These are outstandingly good humor -- my daughter draws up toys and doll house furniture and stuff in SolidWorks and prints them. I do robot parts. Great fun.
Ladle broke? Make a new one.
Holy crap I hope no-one reads your post and tries this. Do you have any idea how much effort goes into material creation that is safe for you to put in a hot pot of soup without leeching all sorts of things into the broth?
Same goes for a spatula, I would be really hesitant to put a generic extrusion material on a hot griddle at all much less near a pancake...
Also a spatula needs to be flexible and have really different elasticity than a ladle.
Now I'm sure over time some of these issues will be addressed, but honestly the whole material aspect for something as simple as utensils that can be used for food is really complex and I am not sure a home 3D printer would ever have that degree of complexity in materials it could generate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The big story at CES is the debut of Cubify, a $1299 MSRP 3D printer that uses technology similar to the Makerbot, but it is a bit more professionally assembled. It will launch with accepting a USB drive with STL files on it, and may later have WiFi with an open API.
I already *have* three-dimensional, biodegradeable genitalia,
sustainable living