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Affordable 3D Metal Printer Developed Based on RepRap
hypnosec writes "Researchers have developed and open-sourced a low-cost 3D metal printer capable of printing metal tools and objects that can be build for under £1,000. A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Joshua Pearce at the Michigan Technological University developed the firmware and the plans for the printer and have made it available freely. The open source 3D printer is definitely a huge leap forward as the starting price of commercial counterparts is around £300,000. Pearce claimed that their technology will not only allow smaller companies and start-ups to build inexpensive prototypes, but it will allow other scientists and researchers to build tools and objects required for their research without having to shell out thousands, and could be used to print parts for machines such as windmills."
It's a modified RepRap; looks like we're getting closer to the RepRap being able to print all of its parts.
You wouldn't download a car........?
printrbot simple is 300 bucks too.
but really, it doesn't print metal. metal depositing printer by some means that works is a big deal even if you can get a crappy cnc that does metal somewhat for 1000-3000 bucks.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
More like the wingnuts who attempt to print their own guns will end up disarming, or at least dishanding themselves.
This will be the next thing demonised in the media, even though the technology has many positive benefits in terms of manufacturing. But after printing the object do you still need to trim it and sand it down? Maybe you print it slightly oversize and then trim it down to smooth it out. What is the exact finishing process with this tech?
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
Cue Trinity in a long leather coat sitting behind a desk starting a printer.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I first tried laser sintering 5 years ago - I got a few steel gun parts custom-made by a "printing" company, then mounted the parts in a real gun and got the proofhouse to shoot it until it died. I was working for a certain very well known luxury gunmaker at the time, and we were investigating new ways of producing parts in very small volume.
The laser sintered parts were as good as, or better than the original parts! And the prices are great too: we paid per cm3 of material "printed", which worked at at just under $900 for a receiver, as opposed to $7500 for the equivalent part machined with conventional tools.
I've known since then that this is the future of metalworking. As a result, I've been holding off upgrading the lathe and the milling machine in my workshop, because I've been waiting for a metal-building machine that doesn't cost a quarter million bucks.
This $1000 thing probably won't be it, but the next generation machines, or the generations after them, will. At last!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
http://makibox.com/
I've yet not tried it but not heard any major disasters.
Based on your very thorough review of this product, I'm seriously considering ordering one.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Its a MIG welder with a moving base plate. This means the resolution will be quite poor (like 4-5mm wide draw path) and you will need to print onto a metal plate/base and then cut it off after if required. Despite its limitations it is an interesting concept.
Either the US government rapidly steps in to quash or severely-restrict this technology in the US or their plans to disarm the US population will die stillborn.
If you knew anything about guns, you'd know it only takes a few basic tools and materials to make a functional gun that goes bang without killing its user. You don't need a 3D printer. There's no way to disarm anybody in any circumstances.
I love the smell of dying government tyranny in the morning.
Wishful thinking... It's not the lack of guns that keeps your tyrannical government in place, it's the lack of courage in a population that has turned bovine, uneducated, and more interested in shopping and watching reality shows on TV than in fighting for liberty and moral principles.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Either the US government rapidly steps in to quash or severely-restrict this technology in the US or their plans to disarm the US population will die stillborn.
If you knew anything about guns, you'd know it only takes a few basic tools and materials to make a functional gun that goes bang without killing its user. You don't need a 3D printer. There's no way to disarm anybody in any circumstances.
I love the smell of dying government tyranny in the morning.
Wishful thinking... It's not the lack of guns that keeps your tyrannical government in place, it's the lack of courage in a population that has turned bovine, uneducated, and more interested in shopping and watching reality shows on TV than in fighting for liberty and moral principles.
It's kind of funny that Americans with all their guns seems to have a more tyrannical government than countries with fewer guns but a lot more political engagement from the population.
dying government tyranny? did it die when full auto weapons were legal to buy in USA? no?
you really think it's just a matter of weapons? fuck no it isn't. not at all. most people just don't want to revolt, stopping government tyranny is first and foremost a political problem of mobilizing people to your cause, arming them is easy.
you think they're going to ban bicycle shops and hotrod shops full of 5 axis cnc's and cnc lathes? ban vocational colleges? ban drills and metal stock? but why the fuck would you bother even with those when you could go visit your neighborhood gang to buy the guns. does having guns help them from government interference? not really, no..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It's kind of funny that Americans with all their guns seems to have a more tyrannical government than countries with fewer guns but a lot more political engagement from the population.
That's because most Americans have added two boxes to the four boxes of liberty: the ice box and the idiot box. And they seem to have stopped using the four others.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I'll be more impressed when it's capable of printing a vaccuum tube...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If you knew anything about guns, you'd know it only takes a few basic tools and materials to make a functional gun that goes bang without killing its user. You don't need a 3D printer. There's no way to disarm anybody in any circumstances.
I do know something about guns and about metal machining and fabrication work. Making a Sten is dead-simple. Heck, I've got the plans.
You're correct that between the staggering number of guns that already exist in the US (and the majority of rifles & shotguns never having been registered) combined with the ease with which a gun that's at least good enough to get an enemy's gun is to make conventionally, it seems pretty impractical in the short term.
However, there's "simple" for some people and then there's "simple" for everybody else. It's dead-simple *IF* you have a lathe, drill press, sheet metal brake, and maybe a mill depending, along with multiple other ancillary tools and pieces of equipment like an arbor press.
*AND* you *also* have the requisite training, skills, & experience to operate that fabricating equipment well enough to produce more than a modern-art piece or a way to assure that you never need worry if you lose one of your mittens and/or your sunglasses. It's not a trivial skill set in the least.
The difference here is that you basically only need the printer instead of a pole-barn full of expensive machine tools, plus you don't need any advanced machining & metal fabrication skills or training to fabricate high-quality components.
The printer/software and the plan file supplies the majority of the training, experience, and skills otherwise necessary, while replacing multiple expensive pieces of metal working & fabrication equipment while also requiring less space. More like residential garage/shed/basement-size instead of pole-barn size.
A metal printer would also be a much more practical solution in the city. The printer is also far more portable than a bunch of machine shop equipment. It can be relatively quickly moved between locations and concealed compared to normal tooling.
Wishful thinking... It's not the lack of guns that keeps your tyrannical government in place, it's the lack of courage in a population that has turned bovine, uneducated, and more interested in shopping and watching reality shows on TV than in fighting for liberty and moral principles.
I agree. However, I'm hopeful that people are beginning to wake the hell up. I haven't seen the current levels and breadth of dissatisfaction and anger with government since the '60s/'70s, nor anywhere near the current numbers of people who seriously think the government needs to spend less and have fewer powers, and are actively getting involved and doing something about it.
When was the last time you remember *this* happening?
http://conventionofstates.com/
There may yet still be hope. Especially if you consider it was only about 10% of the colonists at the time who were actively for the US Revolutionary War and independence from England.
Can we scrape up 10% with a brain and a spine these days? Who knows. We'll find out, I guess.
Maybe the concept of free men governing themselves by common agreement dies here forever, technology guaranteeing the jackboot continues forever grinding the human face underfoot.
Maybe humans need another few 10, 20, or 100s of thousands...maybe even millions...of years of evolutionary advancement before mankind is ready to leave kings, dictators, tyranny, and authoritarianism behind us.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
This machine they are touting is a MIG welder on a 3-axis stage. Whatever it makes will be a large pile of weld bead. Just how good of a gun do you think you could make with that? (Or most any part, for that matter.) The number of finish operations required will be long and arduous - and require most of the machine tools and skills you've just mentioned. You may as well start with billet.
Maybe a low-cost metal 3D printer will come along that makes it "simple for everybody else," but this one sure ain't that.
http://hexus.net/tech/news/peripherals/62261-direct-metal-laser-sintering-used-3d-print-working-metal-pistol/
You were saying?
I hate printers.
It's kind of funny that Americans with all their guns seems to have a more tyrannical government than countries with fewer guns but a lot more political engagement from the population.
There are times when I think the whole 2nd Amendment thing may be doing us more harm than good. We don't take political action when we should because if things get too bad we can just haul out our guns.
Except that by the time guns are the best or only solution, we've already lost pretty much everything anyhow. And who (aside from fantasists) really want a life that's basically nothing but guerilla warfare against tanks and drones?
Right now I am imagining a bug that causes a self-printing printer to go out of control, so that the printers keeps printing printers that keep printing printers that keep ...
Cue up Paul Dukas. Bomp-de-bomp-de-bomp-de-bompitty...
Attach a small fan to it as an air-printing attachment, then turn the power plug 180 degrees so it runs backwards. Do I really have to think of everything around here?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
(But I can cite several events where voting ballots in the hands of little people made the U.S. government to either change policies or itself.)
It worked precisely once - when the US government was the British government.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why would you print bullets when lead casting is so cheap and easy? The real sticking point is the availability of primers. You can make your own, but it's labor-intensive and there are some substantial safety issues involved.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
The freedom of expression, used by people willing to suffer the consequences of standing up to tyrants, their ability to inspire millions of ordinary people to rise up against tyranny is what creates a thriving democracy with great standard of living. That is when warrior wannabes like you strut around claiming to be the cause. You are the effect, not the cause, of the first amendment.
Trying your "second amendment solutions" against a lawfully elected government of the USA is rebellion, and it is constitutional for the government to put such insurrection using any means necessary. If the government is restrained it is because of the first amendment rights of people who would speak up against heavy handed tactics by the government. Definitely not because of your puny little glocks, brownings or bushmasters. Our army had been battling AK-47s and IEDs for ages now buddy, you don't stand a chance against our army. You are able to trash talk, only because we restrain our government against taking overt and open actions against US Citizens.
Just look around you. People who used guns to overthrow tyrants became tyrants themselves. People who spoke out and inspired ordinary people to rise up against tyranny created enduring democracies. Only in such democracies crazy wingnuts are able to run around waving their guns thinking they somehow are the protection against tyranny.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I can't remember one event in the history of the U.S. where guns in the hand of little people made the U.S. government rethink their policies and withdraw some legislation, measures or orders. Care to elaborate?
Here you go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946)
"The Battle of Athens (sometimes called the McMinn County War) was a rebellion led by citizens in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee, United States, against the local government in August 1946. The citizens, including some World War II veterans, accused the local officials of political corruption and voter intimidation."
You're welcome.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
"...looks like we're getting closer to the RepRap being able to print all of its parts."
Sure, assuming it can print an Millermatic 140 arc welder and an Arduino.
Look, nature has already solved this problem, so we know something about the complexity and difficulty involved. We have cows that print milk and copies of themselves, chickens than print eggs and copies of themselves, grass that prints grain and copies of itself, etc. These things consists of millions of cells, each about as intelligent as an Arduino. Good luck creating something like that with a few hundred parts!
He's talking about the people who use a $300 printrbot to try to print a zip gun, which then proceeds to blow up in their hand like a cheap firework.
These are the same geniuses that kill/injure/maim themselves and others and destroy homes and property every single day doing things like putting a frozen turkey into a gas burner heated deep-fryer full of hot cooking oil, and uncountable numbers of other equally idiotic and extremely dangerous actions and worse.
You can't fix stupid by trying to idiot-proof the world. It's not possible, it cannot work, and it unfairly curtails everyone else's choices and freedoms.
Darwin gots' to get paid, yo.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
With this technology, guns will be a side show. Yes, people will make them and there will be much bloviation about that, but the real impact will be on local economies.
Open any phone book or Google for any city, "machine shop"; there will be hundreds. They are the foundation of any kind of manufacturing economy. My company deals with at least 20 different shops, parceling out work to meet shipping deadlines and lower costs. When this technology matures to the point where it is as ubiquitous as a CNC mill or lathe, you will see turn around times crash and labor shift from skilled machinists to skilled CAD engineers (good or bad...you decide). It's conceivable that the actual making of a part becomes almost a lights out operation.
Hang on to your hats, this will be a game changer in the world economy.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Interesting statistic that came out this thanksgiving was that deep frying a turkey is more likely to kill you than a shark attack...
The so-called "Battle of Athens" was not an armed insurrection against the US Government - it was an armed encounter vs. a, by all accounts, extremely corrupt local government whose activities seemed to mirror that of a small organized crime conglomerate.
There were no US government forces involved, nor was the national guard mobilized by the Governor of Tennessee.