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ESA 'Amaze' Project Aims To Take 3D Printing 'Into the Metal Age'
dryriver sends this BBC report:
"The European Space Agency has unveiled plans to 'take 3D printing into the metal age' by building parts for jets, spacecraft and fusion projects. The Amaze project brings together 28 institutions to develop new metal components which are lighter, stronger and cheaper than conventional parts. Additive manufacturing (or '3D printing') has already revolutionized the design of plastic products. Printing metal parts for rockets and planes would cut waste and save money. The layered method of assembly also allows intricate designs — geometries which are impossible to achieve with conventional metal casting. Parts for cars and satellites can be optimized to be lighter and — simultaneously — incredibly robust. Tungsten alloy components that can withstand temperatures of 3,000C were unveiled at Amaze's launch on Tuesday at London Science Museum. At such extreme temperatures they can survive inside nuclear fusion reactors and on the nozzles of rockets. 'We want to build the best quality metal products ever made. Objects you can't possibly manufacture any other way,' said David Jarvis, ESA's head of new materials and energy research."
Sadly, they've made a better idiot, like yourself.
Amaze is a loose acronym for Additive Manufacturing Aiming Towards Zero Waste and Efficient Production of High-Tech Metal Products
I got AMATZWAEPOHTMP ... not even close. Sounds like someone just really wanted to spell a word from all that
Laser sintering is an awesome field but it has been around awhile.
Here's a "How it's Made" about the process from almost 3 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Px6RSL9Ac
The ESA project involves 3D printing on Earth, not in space. Of course, one cannot expect a Slashdot poster to actually read the article before commenting.
Um....people have already been doing this for some time now. News that would be interesting to me would be to make 3d metal printing semi-affordable for the common hacker since most of these machines cost around $1,000,000. Right now 3d printing molds for metal casting is the only practical solution.
Yes. For the low investment cost of, say, $250,000, you can own a machine that laser-sinters metal into something that will allow you to make most parts of a gun with the possible exception of the springs. Or, you could ya know, buy a gun on the black market for a couple hundred.
And yet everyday we are using alloys, materials, and medicines that 40 years ago were all but a dream.
Hybrid synthetic fibers, hell the metal alloy's used in your cell phone, and laptop didn't have mass production status 40 years ago. 40 years ago building things at sub 100nm processing was considered all but impossible.
The real trick isn't when it is first possible to do something or even when it is available to a select few, but when any idiot can do it. The microwave oven took 15 years to go from proof of concept to an affordable counter appliance. and another 10 years for decent ideas on how to use it practically.
Metal 3D printing is a good 20+ years from everyday use. but it starts today.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
There seems to be a contradiction between this illustration and the following quote, both which appeared in the article;
"One common problem is porosity - small air bubbles in the product. Rough surface finishing is an issue too," he said.
It would seem that a rough porous ball bearing would not be that effective.
There simply isn't anything that can be improved by that much anymore. Fusion? What kind of metric is that? We don't HAVE any fusion reactors or rockets!
So, about this "actually read before commenting" philosophy you espouse, it sounds like a good idea, eh?
couple hundred?? What country are you in? In the USA, average selling price for an illegal revolver (gun most likely to be used in crime) is something like $40...
You know, if you want to just automatically churn out metal gun parts, you could do it with a CNC mill for a fraction of the cost. It's not like automated metalworking is a new thing. The plastic gun was mostly a stunt -- a dangerous one at that.
Or if you were willing to put in the time and elbow grease yourself, you could mill your own parts by hand for a fraction of that with power tools bought from Home Depot. It's not like there isn't a wealth of material at your fingertips on the internet from a devoted community of paranoid "gotta be able to make this myself once the gubbermint takes mah gun away" people to get you started. As a bonus, many of these people are smart and meticulous (despite my teasing), and it's all legal with the right licenses, so the material's more trustworthy than your average Anarchists's Cookbook nonsense.
And if you really don't care about having a polished, reusable model to show off, zip guns can be made with entirely off the shelf parts found in your local tool store too.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Metal 3D printing is a good 20+ years from everyday use. but it starts today.
Technically, it started like 30 years ago, and we've been using manual additive welding for much longer than that, but who's counting...
I've been waiting for car vending machines for a year now.
Only if you think that the ability to defend yourself from statist oppression is scary. There is a reason that the first popular model for a 3D printed gun is called the Liberator.
Right, but after that $250,000 investment, you can print as many as you want with no risk of getting caught every time you want another gun.
Alloys.
For the low investment cost of, say, $250,000, you can own a machine that laser-sinters metal into something that will allow you to make most parts of a gun with the possible exception of the springs. Or, you could ya know, buy a gun on the black market
Today, $250,000. Ten years down the road, $2,500 and then you can churn out each gun for a marginal cost of $10 with absolutely no worries that the guy who sold you the materials is actually an undercover cop working an illegal weapons sting.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Have you ever tried to hand-fit a 1911 from individual parts, and blend the contours of the grip safety, mainspring housing and the frame into each other using only a dremel tool? Man, 3D printing will make it gloriously easy!
Parts destined for aerospace are subject to rigorous testing and the first dozen or more prototype parts usually are sacrificed for testing. Exact dimensions, strength, creep and fatigue resistance must all be determined and the statistical lower bounds must be established before any part can be certified as airworthy. For wrought alloys this stuff is old hat. Things like welding are more of a problem and fabricated parts have fallen out of favor due to the rigorous QA needed. Look also at the use of as-HIP powder parts for turbine disks, etc. (They aren't.) Additive manufactured parts will have to be tested and qualified. I think those issues have been underestimated so far.
I heard the same nonsense about manufacturing in space 40 years ago.
manufacturing in space
in space
I think the poster was being kind, and giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were actually trying to be on-topic. You've only pointed out that his assumption was wrong, that you were purposely being off-topic.
Most readers looked at the headline and thought "Cool, 3D printed Metallica logos!"
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
> The microwave oven took 15 years to go from
> proof of concept to an affordable counter
> appliance. and another 10 years for decent
> ideas on how to use it practically.
It didn't take that long. My parents were using our microwave to reheat coffee since the day they brought it home. (30 years later, that's still its #1 use.)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Whenever they talk about strength they talk about using strong materials like tungsten. But most strong parts in the real world are made by forging weak (and cheap) materials like iron, to fix the crystal structure for the desired properties. I don't see how 3D printing will address this. If strength is only available via strong materials then applications will be severely limited.
I don't know, 3d printing obviously shows a lot of promise, but I find it hard to countenance it's even in the Stone Age as of yet ..
Why exactly is that scary? Are guns particularly hard to get a hold of, or manufacture? /NewsToMe
If "statist oppression" really decides to go after you, they will shoot you from a drone. Your guns will protect you about as well as a tinfoil hat. But perhaps you have both.
Yes, I said I hear today the same kind of promises about 3D printing as I heard about "manufacturing in space" in the 1960s. I never said this 3D printing in this article, today, now, on this website, is in space. Jesus Christ. You fucking lackwits can't even parse two sentences but you think you understand materials science and engineering.
Right. That's all we need.
If the price of lasers capable of rapidly smelting highly durable metals drops to 1/100th of their price in 10 years, I'm going to become a lot less worried about the people worried about shitty printed guns, and a lot more worried about asshats with lasers capable of rapidly smelting highly durable metals
Hmm... isn't this already being employed by SpaceX? Just look at the 3D design video and at the 3 minute mark Elon describes how they send the design straight to laser-metal printer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNqs_S-zEBY
So ... what else is new?
Reheated coffee is suitable only when there are no more fresh beans available.
well. there is a difference.
that there's already processes that have been already used to create objects impossible to create by forging and machining. so they're more or less just jumping aboard the bus...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
geometries which are impossible to achieve
Now they just need to work out the Transformations that were too hard to find.
Just beware of poisons in your bloodstream.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
> The microwave oven took 15 years to go from
> proof of concept to an affordable counter
> appliance. and another 10 years for decent
> ideas on how to use it practically.
It didn't take that long. My parents were using our microwave to reheat coffee since the day they brought it home. (30 years later, that's still its #1 use.)
Since the first commercial microwave oven was built by Raytheon in 1947, the numbers seem pretty close on the mark (Of course, it was huge and completely unaffordable to Joe Blow, but so is everything at first).
Er, please look up "grocer's apostrophe".
I wouldn't be that worried unless that price drop applied to portable lasers and power sources too.
10 years for decent ideas on how to use it practically
http://www.amazon.com/Microwave-Cooking-One-Marie-Smith/dp/1565546660
contrary to reviews, it is not "the saddest book ever written" it is actually useful, although I find the layout annoying.
the really sad thing is the decorated "Happy Birthday" single serving cake on the cover.
I heard the same nonsense about manufacturing in space 40 years ago. Impossible alloys! Precious pure medicines! Yeah, right. Grow up you loons, you're being had.
40 years ago cell phones were sci-fi fantasies. Flat screens were sci-fi fantasies. Recording TV shows in your living room was a fantasy. Playing a record album (not a cassette) in you car was my schizophrenic friend's fantasy (I told him he was nuts. He was, but we have CDs in cars now). There were no treatments for schizophrenia, now many schizophrenics lead normal, productive lives from new medicines. You car had no air bag, ABS, fuel injection, electronic ignition. If you took a photo you couldn't see it for a week unless you had a Polaroid or your own darkroom. There was no internet.
You not only have no imagination, you've not been paying attention.
Free Martian Whores!
Wrong. The microwave oven was invented in 1945, thirty five years before they were affordable. Citation
Free Martian Whores!
Fuel injection has been around for a lot longer than 40 years. Other than that I tend to agree with you.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
holy copyright infringement Batman!
There's people out there that'd do that just to piss off Lars.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Yes, it was invented and in limited use (racing), but it wasn't widespread in passenger cars until the eighties.
Free Martian Whores!
... but I don't know when numerical control was first done for it? My father worked on a system to put metal on the bottom of ceramic cookware to improve heat conductivity at METCO in the 1980s, although even then that was done by hand for tests. Flame spray was commonly used then to build up worn metal shafts for repairs. From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_spraying
"In classical (developed between 1910 and 1920) but still widely used processes such as flame spraying and wire arc spraying, the particle velocities are generally low ( [less than] 150 m/s), and raw materials must be molten to be deposited. Plasma spraying, developed in the 1970s, uses a high-temperature plasma jet generated by arc discharge with typical temperatures >15000 K, which makes it possible to spray refractory materials such as oxides, molybdenum, etc."
Thanks for everything, Dad!
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.