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National Lab Working To Mix Metals and Polymers For 3D Printing
Lucas123 writes "Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab are trying to expand 3D printing to include mixed materials at the same time, such as polymers and metals. With those advances, a company could build, for example, body armor for soldiers that are stronger and lighter. If their work pans out, they'll create materials that have properties that simply don't exist today."
... I'm sure the soldiers of the First Army will personally come over and "discuss" the matter...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Why does every discussion of 3D printing seem to devolve into how it could make better weapons or armor? How about using metal and plastic to make elaborate layered circuit boards we can drop inexpensive chips into and make even cooler stuff? And I don't mean detonators.
The raw materials for mass-production have a static price as well. So obviously, all automation will fail. If only someone told them back in the 1800s, we'd not have wasted time with that worthless Industrial Revolution.
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Notice how they never build medical devices or something to help poor people in Africa. It's always something military? Yeah, that...
No sig today...
I think maybe you miss the point. The 3D printing vision is not that manufacturing will go away (at least not for now), it is that I can get the one off item even if I don't have access to the marketplace, or the item is no longer being made, or the price is higher than if I just made it myself or I want to customize it. For instance, I broke one of the clip-on shelves in my refrigerator. They make the part but they want $65.00 dollars for it. Now I have four more just like it, so if I 3d scan one of them and then print the replacement even if it takes a couple of hours and $10.00 or $20.00 worth of material I've saved both time and money. Even more so if the replacement weren't being sold anymore or if I wanted it to have dividers and added those after the scan.
A bit off topic to the article, I know. But, I don't think I understand some peoples instant negativity to this particular technology. I don't think it will end manufacturing as we know it, but I do think it can become a useful and normal technology. Can't you just hear it - "Hey honey, can you run off a couple more Monster-High dolls for Betty. She really liked the Frankie Stein you printed and wants Draculaura and Deuce Gorgon. I looked at the store, but couldn't find either of them."
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
Imagine a 3D printer that prints an armor in a week (ridiculously slow). Now imagine 1000 of thems. The army can afford it, they literally burn money all year.
Notice how they never build medical devices or something to help poor people in Africa. It's always something military? Yeah, that...
Hey now! Military tech very much can be used to help poor people in Africa!
Help them not be alive anymore, for instance.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Seems to me if you're building body armor, you'd want to target a technology that can pump out a bit more than one piece a week, no? And let me guess, "if" means "totally already exists and we're colonizing the universe now"?
Because body armor is meant to be worn by a human, and every human has a different body shape (sometimes significantly different) from everyone else. Since poorly-fitted body armor can severely impair maneuverability (which is often extremely important in situations where you'd want to wear body armor in the first place), being able to easily create a suit of armor that exactly matches a given body shape is incredibly useful.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
weapons in the hands of the right poor people is what will help the poor people in africa. everything else will just be broken/taken by the wrong people with guns in africa.
Actually the article was about finding ways to build weapons because we already use 3d printing to build medical devices cheaply.
http://3dprintingindustry.com/medical/
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/robohand-how-cheap-3d-printers-built-a-replacement-hand-for-a-five-year-old-boy/
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Next you'll be telling us that there's nothing to that microprocessor fad, because a Sinclair/Timex ZX80 can't really be used to control a nuclear power station.
Your comment just demonstrates you don't actually understand how economies of scale work. The reason things get cheaper the more you make and sell is because of all the costs that go into producing an item that aren't directly involved in the manufacturing process as well as costly aspects of the manufacturing process that 3D printing eliminates. First we have design. 3D printing doesn't affect this at all, however it is one of the costs that is reduced per item in an economy of scale. Which means 3D printing does scale and invalidates your argument right off the bat. Second we have the manufacturing process. This usually involves specialized equipment, like molds for plastic components or custom robotics for assembly. Producing that equipment is a cost that must be recouped with the sale of the item. The more items you produce and sell, the more the cost can be distributed. 3D printing eliminates this cost. Instead we just have one general piece of manufacturing equipment which can be distributed among the entire manufacturing community. Third, there's the cost of human labor which is significantly reduced by 3D printing. Finally, there's the costs of defects. If there's a 10% chance of an item being defective, producing 10 means one will be defective on average and the cost of that one item can be distributed in the sale price of the other 9. But if you only produce one and that one is defective you must produce a second one that now costs twice as much in order to recoup the cost of the defective one instead of 10/9ths the price. So, 3D printing does scale, but not as much as ordinary manufacturing, but that's OK because it is cheaper than ordinary manufacturing even at scale.
poorly-fitted body armor can severely impair maneuverability ...
That is one problem, but there are two bigger problems: weight, and heat.
Body armor fitted to an individual can be no bigger than necessary, thus reducing weight. It can also be fitted to provide air circulation to help keep the wearer cool. Big guys already have a hard time shedding heat, and an overly tight flack jacket makes it even worse.
3D Printing doesn't scale. It will never be a viable manufacturing technology. It doesn't matter if you make one or one million pieces, the per-unit cost never goes down because the raw materials for 3D printing have a static price.
That's right, we have perfected the first manufacturing process since the pyramids that has no economies of scale.
Oh, come now. It's not the only such manufacturing process. For example, xerographic and ink-jet printing are both the same way, and that's why neither of them have ever become viable for "manufacturing".
That's why all the large-format photographic film suppliers are still thriving -- if inkjet or xerographic printing weren't so slow and expensive, print shops would probably have moved over to that technology long since. In fact, in an alternate reality I like to call "ours", that's exactly what happened.
What Africa needs is less violence, and adding more firearms to the mix is not going to lead to peace.
" body armor for soldiers that are stronger and lighter"
But where do we get the soldiers that are stronger and lighter?
I was just thinking, you know what would be sweet?
A version of the Iron Dome system, scaled down for small arms fire.
Granted, it would be a lot harder to implement without barbequing the innards of every living thing within range, but it sure would do a lot to end petty conflicts. We really don't put enough effort into finding new and novel ways to keep people from being killed.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
To me, it seemed fairly obvious to try mixing such things!
Then why didn't you produce it if it was so obvious to you?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
3D Printing doesn't scale.
Neither does knitting or sewing. Too bad garments which are anything but blankets will always be priced out of reach.
It will never be a viable manufacturing technology.
Right, just like knitting or sewing.
Actually printing production can also be done with ink jet printers. Have you ever looked at any of the grand format printers from companies like Gandi or vutek? 5 meter platens and 4 to 8 color printing. http://w3.efi.com/Vutek/Products
says the hypocrite who already has a firearm to protect himself and his family.
i'd post AC as well if i were such a judgmental, holier then thou, racist prick. africans have the right to protect themselves whether you like guns or not.
people like you are the reason they continue to wallow in death. rich 1st worlders telling them what they can and can't do with this weapon or this chemical, or this technology.
Didn't we just have an article about people fabricating arms for poor people in Africa?
Oh wait... that was legs. Nevermind.
I'm sorry. I had hoped my last sentence would serve as a "sarcasm" flag.
Inkjet and xerographic technology have massively changed the face of printing, even though presses are still used for large-scale runs (and probably will be for the foreseeable future). Arguing that "3D Printing doesn't scale" is probably exactly as silly as arguing that inkjet or xerographic printing doesn't scale. If the manufacturing and operating costs of the printers drop by orders of magnitude, and the quality of output rises by orders of magnitude, who cares that large-scale mass-production will still be cheaper with conventional technologies? There's plenty of room for the world to change below that threshold.
My wife, who is an exec in company which produces very high end precision components from both milling and molding has told me that the owner of the firm is very afraid for the future of the business because of 3D metal printing.
I, however have told her I do not agree at all. Rather, I see 3D printing as a great opportunity for her firm to make even more complex components which today cannot be made. Her point is that anyone will be able to do it though.
Sure, maybe they could, but I think they won't. Of course, there will be some folks who want their own 3D metal printer, but it will be decades before they are so cheap that a person can just buy it without thinking about it, like an ink jet.
Much of my work is in the automotive sector, as is much of my wife's customer base. One thing that I have learned about auto manufactures. They do not make their own parts and they do not want to make their own parts. They never will either. They spec out the new model and source the bits and pieces from various suppliers. Then, they put them all together.
This is true for most industries I think.
In fact, I would say that 3D printers will actually let you expand into other market segments.
What does slashdot think? Will everyone really print at home and more importantly, will business just print their own bits?
Different model for scaling production. You start by 3D printing a whole mess of 3D printers...
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Current materials have properties like their melting point, resistivity and density.
Will these future ones have a quognon modulus, voctitude and pluness?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
A 3D printer that can make a nut and bolt?