our "free" markets are a shining example to the rest of the world- at least the part that the mortgage banks didn't steal from just prior to the housing collapse, our "free and democratic" elections are a shining example- offices are sold to the highest bidder and then election boundaries are jiggered by the party in power, our system of taxation is fair to all, but especially fair to people and corporations with the resources to hide money offshore, the same people who were claiming Saddam Hussein had WMDs are at it again, trying to get us into a war in Syria, our government sends people off to war to fight for the oil companies - oops, I mean freedom- and when they come back injured can't be bothered to take care of them, and like the idiots we are, we keep volunteering for military service, our healthcare "system" is a joke, and now our "free and open" internet turns out to be a means of massive government surveillance- but it's OK- it's for our own good.
And dopes in the US wonder why the rest of the world doesn't just follow our examples...
1) This is much too small to grow enough bugs to make anything but a light snack once every few weeks/months. 2) Bugs stink. Any kind of bug- try raising them in any quantity and you'll quickly be turned off by the smell.
than any other commodity, except maybe audio equipment. Anything that cuts through some of the bullshit is welcome.
Of course, those of you with sophisticated palates who enjoy fine wines will have no use for such a mechanistic means of judgment and will disregard it. However, this development should please you as it provides yet another reason to turn your noses up at the unwashed masses who would be so ignorant as to select a wine based on chemical composition.
from Craig's list or your local goodwill/SVdP store and then go here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Hacking-Your-iRobot/ and many other sites on the web that deal with modifying Roombas. Most of the mechanical stuff is taken care of for you so you can concentrate on programming and adding/reading/using sensors and actuators.
OK, I see you're a literalist. Let me put it this way: if you're trying to sell a product or service that costs $10, how much effort will it take to get $10 from a poor person who has to work for a couple hours to earn $10 (in the US anyway) vs getting $10 from someone who makes $10 in a couple minutes? It is harder to get a poor person to part with their money than a relatively rich person.
Slick Willie Sutton summed it up nicely when someone asked why he robbed banks: "that's where the money is". (yes, I know, you take things literally and there is some disagreement about the origin of that quote...)
the less fortunate is that you can't make any money off of them. Guys like Bill Gates, with all the money in the world, can afford to focus on that portion of the human population because they don't have to make money off of them. The rest of us have to eat and feed our families and send our kids to school.
powering our cell phones is that in order to get the super high capacitance the "plates" of the capacitor must be microscopically close together which limits the voltage at which they can operate to typically 2.5V. The next problem is that you can't use all the energy stored because you need a DC input converter circuit to regulate (and step up) the ever falling voltage as the capacitor discharges and those circuits require some minimal level of input, maybe a few hundred millivolts, below which they cease to function. While the total energy storage capacity of the capacitor is great, you can't use all of it, so if you compare the usable energy storage of a supercapacitor to a similar sized Li-Ion battery, the battery wins.
Batteries, on the other hand, provide adequate current via a chemical reaction that maintains a more or less constant, higher voltage output until the battery is almost completely discharged, at which point the voltage drops precipitously. This works well with the circuits in a cell phone.
If this student managed to make a supercapacitor that operates at 5V or higher in the same physical volume as current technolofy 2.5V parts, or solved some other problem related to the technology- maybe a voltage converter circuit that efficiently delivers a usable current from the capacitor at 20 mV input, then she made quite a breakthrough.
I think fuel cells are a more promising technology for cell phone battery replacement than supercapacitors. You can have your "instant" charge by squirting in some butane or whatever fuel it uses, but then I'm not sure if they can pack the same energy density as li-ion cells. The other potential game changer for phones, computers, and cars is lithium-air batteries which have much higher energy densities that li-ion cells.
that's how the auto industry wants them. The classes/descriptions of vehicles don't make any sense either (SUV's are classed as trucks, not cars) except that it allows the manufacturers to continue to produce gas-hog, mega-polluting vehicles without investing in technology to improve either fuel economy or emissions.
I've got everything working except the extruder, which I am working on right now. I got a dual extruder setup from qubd.com via their kickstarter project last year, but the design doesn't work well (as evidenced by my own experience and that of hundreds of other who have posted to internet forums). A few people made modifications and posted designs on thingiverse. I copied the general idea and made the modification parts out of aluminum instead of plastic. I'll be trying out the modified extruder later today, if something else doesn't come up. My printer can be seen in an early stage of construction here: http://wiki.milwaukeemakerspace.org/projects/megamax_3d_printer?s%5B%5D=megamax
need a password allow the user to select their own, usually insecure password. If each web site generated a secure password/phrase for you this problem would go away. The problem is that people would complain about having to store/remember complex passwords. What is needed is ubiquitous and automatic password management software/hardware that works on any computer, phone, or tablet.
Programs/services like LastPass can make storing/using passwords easy, though their mobile phone app isn't very good compared to the browser app. 2nd credential devices like Yubikey and Google Authenticator are OK too, but there's still too much messing around to do to use them, though I suppose there is some minimal amount of messing around that will always be necessary to prove that you are who you claim to be.
What's holding back 3D printing is that the companies making the machines are either rinky-dink startups who make machines for hobbyists or they are 3D printing specialty companies that make very expensive industrial machines. When a consumer products company like HP (remember what they did with laser and ink-jet printers), or one of the Japanese camera companies gets into the business and mass produces machines that are easy to use, reliable, and cheap, they will start showing up everywhere.
With regards to manufacturing, 3D printers are slow. If you want a plastic doo-dad you wait for anywhere from several minutes to several hours for it to finish printing. So if you need a million plastic doo-dads, a 3D printer doesn't look like the way to make them. But just imagine there are a million identical, reliable, easy to operate HP or Canon 3D printers out there, all networked together. Now if someone needed a million plastic doo-dads they could be produced overnight by putting all those machines to work on them (we'll look at the distribution problem later) at the same time.
So how do you get people/companies to buy 3D printers and put it in their homes/workplaces? By offering a way for the machine to pay for itself by allowing it to be used by other for mass production purposes. You buy a printer for $1K, and allow it to print other people's stuff for $ when you're not using it. Maybe the company that makes the machines leases time on the machine to you and puts the machine in your home for free.
How do those 1 million doo-dads get where they need to go? The data that is sent to your machine for 3D print is also sent with a 2D printable shipping label to affix to the envelope/box, and a pickup is automatically scheduled. Yeah, I know it doesn't sound very "green"- thousands of guys in brown pants picking up parts at a million locations. It's not. But neither is any other way of making a million plastic doo-dads in short order, yet they get made all the time.
My point was the lack of documentation on the Marlin firmware, the development of that firmware on an old, incompatible with the new version of the Arduino IDE, and the screwing around required to get the correct IDE to work the way it should (never had any problems with the PIC IDE, or programmers).
I don't mind doing DIY stuff - I do a LOT of it - but this project has been the biggest PITA I've encountered. I chose to use the Arduino/RAMPS because all this stuff has been around for a while so I incorrectly assumed that the bugs would be fixed or at least documented- like maybe the IDE would be packaged in a zip file with install instructions that tell you to comment out the "round" definition, or maybe it would even come precommented so the thing would just work when you install it, but noooooo, you have to spend a couple hours hunting it down.
All this leaves a bad taste of Arduino in my mouth.
almost a year now, on and off. Here are my comments...
Trying to use Arduino Mega2560 controller board with RAMPS 1.4 and LCD/encoder/SD card reader and Marlin firmware has been a nightmare of surfing through thousands of posts on dozens of internet forums to try to get info on how to get the compiler to run, what needs to be modified in the firmware for my machine- no documentation but the often cryptic comments in the source code.
The latest, greatest firmware, Marlin, was developed using an old version of the Arduino-0023 IDE and cannot be compiled on the latest Arduino IDE. The old IDE attempts to define the "round" math function that is already defined in the AVR-GCC compiler, so it will not run unless you comment out the "round" function definition in the old Arduino-0023 IDE.
Next, you have to modify the firmware to fit your machine- it needs to know things like steps/mm in each axis, how big is the print bed, etc. How do you know what needs to be changed? Read through the poor comments in the source code because there is no other documentation, or start hunting through forums. Just figuring out the logic for the endstops is a game of trial and error even though proper comments or better yet, a manual of some sort telling what the defaults are/mean and how to change them, would be a huge help.
Once you get he machine running, there are about 50 variables in the firmware that can be used to tune its performance, if you can figure out what they are and how they affect the print results.
Open source is a nice idea, but I'll take thoroughly documented, reliable PIC hardware and IDE over an Arduino any day of the week, but I'm getting off topic...
Using a printer is a whole different set of problems. Unless you just want to print other people's designs, you need to create a 3D model, requiring knowledge of CAD software. Once you have the model, you have to slice it up using yet another piece of software and requiring knowledge of intimate details of the printer's mechanical, electrical, and thermal characteristics to get maximum quality results.
I used to use PCB milling machines in the 90s and processing the files for cutting a board was a major PITA back then. Here we are 15 years later and the software situation hasn't improved. Until someone integrates the model creation, slicing, and printer control software into a single package and makes it easy for almost anyone to use without a lot of special knowledge or training, 3D printing will remain a hobby for hard-core geeks.
Slashdot Mirror
complete with all the limitation thereof.
our "free" markets are a shining example to the rest of the world- at least the part that the mortgage banks didn't steal from just prior to the housing collapse, our "free and democratic" elections are a shining example- offices are sold to the highest bidder and then election boundaries are jiggered by the party in power, our system of taxation is fair to all, but especially fair to people and corporations with the resources to hide money offshore, the same people who were claiming Saddam Hussein had WMDs are at it again, trying to get us into a war in Syria, our government sends people off to war to fight for the oil companies - oops, I mean freedom- and when they come back injured can't be bothered to take care of them, and like the idiots we are, we keep volunteering for military service, our healthcare "system" is a joke, and now our "free and open" internet turns out to be a means of massive government surveillance- but it's OK- it's for our own good.
And dopes in the US wonder why the rest of the world doesn't just follow our examples...
1) This is much too small to grow enough bugs to make anything but a light snack once every few weeks/months.
2) Bugs stink. Any kind of bug- try raising them in any quantity and you'll quickly be turned off by the smell.
than any other commodity, except maybe audio equipment. Anything that cuts through some of the bullshit is welcome.
Of course, those of you with sophisticated palates who enjoy fine wines will have no use for such a mechanistic means of judgment and will disregard it. However, this development should please you as it provides yet another reason to turn your noses up at the unwashed masses who would be so ignorant as to select a wine based on chemical composition.
What could go wrong?
Let's hope not!
Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!
from Craig's list or your local goodwill/SVdP store and then go here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Hacking-Your-iRobot/ and many other sites on the web that deal with modifying Roombas. Most of the mechanical stuff is taken care of for you so you can concentrate on programming and adding/reading/using sensors and actuators.
OK, I see you're a literalist. Let me put it this way: if you're trying to sell a product or service that costs $10, how much effort will it take to get $10 from a poor person who has to work for a couple hours to earn $10 (in the US anyway) vs getting $10 from someone who makes $10 in a couple minutes? It is harder to get a poor person to part with their money than a relatively rich person.
Slick Willie Sutton summed it up nicely when someone asked why he robbed banks: "that's where the money is".
(yes, I know, you take things literally and there is some disagreement about the origin of that quote...)
the less fortunate is that you can't make any money off of them. Guys like Bill Gates, with all the money in the world, can afford to focus on that portion of the human population because they don't have to make money off of them. The rest of us have to eat and feed our families and send our kids to school.
were obese? When my wife was in med school about half the class was obese, a few morbidly so.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:52538
Ghee?
powering our cell phones is that in order to get the super high capacitance the "plates" of the capacitor must be microscopically close together which limits the voltage at which they can operate to typically 2.5V. The next problem is that you can't use all the energy stored because you need a DC input converter circuit to regulate (and step up) the ever falling voltage as the capacitor discharges and those circuits require some minimal level of input, maybe a few hundred millivolts, below which they cease to function. While the total energy storage capacity of the capacitor is great, you can't use all of it, so if you compare the usable energy storage of a supercapacitor to a similar sized Li-Ion battery, the battery wins.
Batteries, on the other hand, provide adequate current via a chemical reaction that maintains a more or less constant, higher voltage output until the battery is almost completely discharged, at which point the voltage drops precipitously. This works well with the circuits in a cell phone.
If this student managed to make a supercapacitor that operates at 5V or higher in the same physical volume as current technolofy 2.5V parts, or solved some other problem related to the technology- maybe a voltage converter circuit that efficiently delivers a usable current from the capacitor at 20 mV input, then she made quite a breakthrough.
I think fuel cells are a more promising technology for cell phone battery replacement than supercapacitors. You can have your "instant" charge by squirting in some butane or whatever fuel it uses, but then I'm not sure if they can pack the same energy density as li-ion cells. The other potential game changer for phones, computers, and cars is lithium-air batteries which have much higher energy densities that li-ion cells.
violently against regulating firearms in any way are the most vocal about regulating 3D printers because they can print guns.
double meh.
If corporations are people, so are robots.
series on Netflix, then demonstrate that you know what the letters "IT" stand for.
that's how the auto industry wants them. The classes/descriptions of vehicles don't make any sense either (SUV's are classed as trucks, not cars) except that it allows the manufacturers to continue to produce gas-hog, mega-polluting vehicles without investing in technology to improve either fuel economy or emissions.
Now we have another, faster way to deliver death to people we don't like.
I've got everything working except the extruder, which I am working on right now. I got a dual extruder setup from qubd.com via their kickstarter project last year, but the design doesn't work well (as evidenced by my own experience and that of hundreds of other who have posted to internet forums). A few people made modifications and posted designs on thingiverse. I copied the general idea and made the modification parts out of aluminum instead of plastic. I'll be trying out the modified extruder later today, if something else doesn't come up. My printer can be seen in an early stage of construction here: http://wiki.milwaukeemakerspace.org/projects/megamax_3d_printer?s%5B%5D=megamax
Arduino-0023, as the developer says to use on the Github page.
Previous attempts to use Arduino 1.0.0 failed miserably.
need a password allow the user to select their own, usually insecure password. If each web site generated a secure password/phrase for you this problem would go away. The problem is that people would complain about having to store/remember complex passwords. What is needed is ubiquitous and automatic password management software/hardware that works on any computer, phone, or tablet.
Programs/services like LastPass can make storing/using passwords easy, though their mobile phone app isn't very good compared to the browser app. 2nd credential devices like Yubikey and Google Authenticator are OK too, but there's still too much messing around to do to use them, though I suppose there is some minimal amount of messing around that will always be necessary to prove that you are who you claim to be.
What's holding back 3D printing is that the companies making the machines are either rinky-dink startups who make machines for hobbyists or they are 3D printing specialty companies that make very expensive industrial machines. When a consumer products company like HP (remember what they did with laser and ink-jet printers), or one of the Japanese camera companies gets into the business and mass produces machines that are easy to use, reliable, and cheap, they will start showing up everywhere.
With regards to manufacturing, 3D printers are slow. If you want a plastic doo-dad you wait for anywhere from several minutes to several hours for it to finish printing. So if you need a million plastic doo-dads, a 3D printer doesn't look like the way to make them. But just imagine there are a million identical, reliable, easy to operate HP or Canon 3D printers out there, all networked together. Now if someone needed a million plastic doo-dads they could be produced overnight by putting all those machines to work on them (we'll look at the distribution problem later) at the same time.
So how do you get people/companies to buy 3D printers and put it in their homes/workplaces? By offering a way for the machine to pay for itself by allowing it to be used by other for mass production purposes. You buy a printer for $1K, and allow it to print other people's stuff for $ when you're not using it. Maybe the company that makes the machines leases time on the machine to you and puts the machine in your home for free.
How do those 1 million doo-dads get where they need to go? The data that is sent to your machine for 3D print is also sent with a 2D printable shipping label to affix to the envelope/box, and a pickup is automatically scheduled. Yeah, I know it doesn't sound very "green"- thousands of guys in brown pants picking up parts at a million locations. It's not. But neither is any other way of making a million plastic doo-dads in short order, yet they get made all the time.
My point was the lack of documentation on the Marlin firmware, the development of that firmware on an old, incompatible with the new version of the Arduino IDE, and the screwing around required to get the correct IDE to work the way it should (never had any problems with the PIC IDE, or programmers).
I don't mind doing DIY stuff - I do a LOT of it - but this project has been the biggest PITA I've encountered. I chose to use the Arduino/RAMPS because all this stuff has been around for a while so I incorrectly assumed that the bugs would be fixed or at least documented- like maybe the IDE would be packaged in a zip file with install instructions that tell you to comment out the "round" definition, or maybe it would even come precommented so the thing would just work when you install it, but noooooo, you have to spend a couple hours hunting it down.
All this leaves a bad taste of Arduino in my mouth.
almost a year now, on and off. Here are my comments...
Trying to use Arduino Mega2560 controller board with RAMPS 1.4 and LCD/encoder/SD card reader and Marlin firmware has been a nightmare of surfing through thousands of posts on dozens of internet forums to try to get info on how to get the compiler to run, what needs to be modified in the firmware for my machine- no documentation but the often cryptic comments in the source code.
The latest, greatest firmware, Marlin, was developed using an old version of the Arduino-0023 IDE and cannot be compiled on the latest Arduino IDE. The old IDE attempts to define the "round" math function that is already defined in the AVR-GCC compiler, so it will not run unless you comment out the "round" function definition in the old Arduino-0023 IDE.
Next, you have to modify the firmware to fit your machine- it needs to know things like steps/mm in each axis, how big is the print bed, etc. How do you know what needs to be changed? Read through the poor comments in the source code because there is no other documentation, or start hunting through forums. Just figuring out the logic for the endstops is a game of trial and error even though proper comments or better yet, a manual of some sort telling what the defaults are/mean and how to change them, would be a huge help.
Once you get he machine running, there are about 50 variables in the firmware that can be used to tune its performance, if you can figure out what they are and how they affect the print results.
Open source is a nice idea, but I'll take thoroughly documented, reliable PIC hardware and IDE over an Arduino any day of the week, but I'm getting off topic...
Using a printer is a whole different set of problems. Unless you just want to print other people's designs, you need to create a 3D model, requiring knowledge of CAD software. Once you have the model, you have to slice it up using yet another piece of software and requiring knowledge of intimate details of the printer's mechanical, electrical, and thermal characteristics to get maximum quality results.
I used to use PCB milling machines in the 90s and processing the files for cutting a board was a major PITA back then. Here we are 15 years later and the software situation hasn't improved. Until someone integrates the model creation, slicing, and printer control software into a single package and makes it easy for almost anyone to use without a lot of special knowledge or training, 3D printing will remain a hobby for hard-core geeks.