3d printers
3d printers
(OP)
How will 3D printers change how we do our designs. And now with conductive plastics, there are fewer parts to assemble.
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RE: 3d printers
Not to hijack, but Merry Christams and Happy New Year to all the Eng Tippers.
Regards,
Mike
RE: 3d printers
The metal additive printers are really cool.
There is a commercial level 3D printer about 20 feet away from where I'm sitting. I get to play with it, it's really cool.
RE: 3d printers
One of the smarter uses of the technology is to print forms in wax, which can then be used for an investment casting, with a bit of effort.
RE: 3d printers
Regards
Pat
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RE: 3d printers
I think this will apply to lots of other small work.
**Notice that I wrote "maker," not "creator." My wife and sister are the designers and sketchers. I wish I had that talent, but for now I'm happy being the one who gets to make the castings.
Best to you,
Goober Dave
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RE: 3d printers
As has been mentioned it is becoming more common in producing max parts for the jewellery business and a big advantage is parts can be made in different parts of the world rather than relying on the skill and interpretation of the sculptor.
If and when it becomes a main stream way of making “budget” products I don’t know but it is hard to see that it won’t become more widely used as the technology develops and parts will be designed specifically to be 3D printed.
RE: 3d printers
When I was younger, very young, there was a plastic molding machine at a dinsour exibit. One would put in your money, and the machine would mold and despence a plasitc dinsour. They looked simular to the dinsours that were roaming wild.
RE: 3d printers
Exactly HOW OLD are you?
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RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
Here's one of my recent parts (party favor for my son's 6th b-day, which will be go-kart racing at a local track):
Mass of the printed portion is about 66g, so they run me about $2.80/ea for the unibody not counting scrap.
RE: 3d printers
Another possible application might be plastic gears for power tools, copiers, and other power, and office machines.
If some one could do larger parts like air dams for cars, then it could reduce car parts inventorys.
RE: 3d printers
Also of some interest to this forum:
http://www.wikihouse.cc/
Same concept, for small houses. Grab your free plans, send them the 3d printer or c&c shop, pick them up later.
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RE: 3d printers
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RE: 3d printers
Regards
Pat
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RE: 3d printers
Does your morning egg taste funny?
RE: 3d printers
There are also wood/polymer composite materials on the market, if you want to make a "wooden" part. I haven't figured out why I'd want to do that yet.
RE: 3d printers
Regards
Pat
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RE: 3d printers
One thing about using wood is it might be easer to drill and cut after it is made. For something like a simulated wood handle for travel bags. All you would need is a grain look.
One application maybe wood dowls for between pieces of wood. The polymer would make it better for hammering into the drilled hole. And with them being printed, you don't need to keep so many sizes in stock. You could use the same printer to print drawer pulls, and polymer screws (for the pulls), as well as drawer slides, casters, etc.
There you go, furnish your home from a stack of lumber, wood saws, etc., a 3d printer, and wood glue.
RE: 3d printers
I wouldn't think that printed dowel pins would ever be cost-competitive with mass-produced ones.
Woodgrain can be simulated with these plastic composites by varying the extruder temperature, and there are some software tools to help. It looks great in the marketing literature - the "real life" example I've seen looked more like a burnt crouton than a piece of wood.
RE: 3d printers
While the original company has gone out-of-business, there are apparently some people still working on this technology as discussed at:
http://www.rapidtoday.com/mcor.html
John R. Baker, P.E.
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RE: 3d printers
We had one of this type of machine at General Dynamics in the 19 90's. It got the job done, but it took for ever to cut and paste all of those layers of paper to produce a solid object. I recall it cut the paper contours, then indexed and glued them using breakout tabs .
B.E.
RE: 3d printers
http://www.wired.com/design/2012/11/staples-goes-3...
I'll just leave this here then.
RE: 3d printers
3D printing of course has greatly reduced costs of rapid prototyping and I think increased the number of viable materials.
The same resin laid down by 3D printing falls somewhat short of injection moulding re mechanical properties due to the lack of packing pressure during the moulding process.
Re the plastic wood thing.
Recycling wood as a filler in plastics or using plastic resin as a binder for wood are two different things and simulating wood with plastic is another entirely different thing.
Just adding volatiles before the moulding process along with a grain surface texture on the mould can give somewhat of a natural wood surface.
At this stage I don't see 3D printing as having the resolution to produce a sufficiently sharp edge to a thread on a screw for the screw to cut its own thread into anything but the softest wood.
Regards
Pat
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RE: 3d printers
http://www.retrevo.com/content/blog/2013/01/3d-pri...
And for those of you who mentioned the possibility of creating confectionary or baked goods, please check out the video at the end of this item:
http://www.retrevo.com/content/blog/2013/01/comple...
John R. Baker, P.E.
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RE: 3d printers
I would love and I mean love to be able to show certain clients their projects in 3D with the new topography. Anyone know how much something like this would cost to do? The more tools at our disposal the better,
And yes I am all for the idea of designing a lego and having some big machine spit that lego out. Imagine if that machine was actually making each part. I could imagine a machine that would make an edible wedding cake to my custom design. Or make a custom aero part for my car out of the material of my choosing.
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RE: 3d printers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedd...
http://bcove.me/uk95vvps
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RE: 3d printers
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
Some advanced 3D printers use 2 kinds of material though, after which you put your piece in an oven and melt away the softer plastic.
RE: 3d printers
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11817299/1/dark-sid...
John R. Baker, P.E.
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RE: 3d printers
Another fact is that when something is outlawed, the demand and cost will increase. This really has little to do with 3D printers, as much as it has to do with technology making such laws outdated.
This also shows how inventive people can be.
RE: 3d printers
There are a bunch of different flavors of '3D printing' beyond basic stereolithography and FDM.
For what you're doing I'm guessing you don't need the best resolution or any real structural strength.
Take a look at the website of https://www.solidconcepts.com/3d-printing/ or a similar vendor that has multiple capabilities.
One thing I will say from my experience procuring rapid prototype parts, size is a big cost driver. If you're thinking of models the size of an E/A0 drawing or similar then it might get pretty expensive.
There are also techniques that use layers of paper or similar - Staples is looking to introduce one apparently http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/13/3d-printing-g.... While the size may not be what you're after I'd think the resolution may work for you http://www.mcortechnologies.com/.
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RE: 3d printers
I was thinking that if I was going to print a landscape elevation model to cover a desktop that I'd slice the model into 7x7 inch sections (my printer can do up to 8x8x8 inches) and print them separately. Then I'd number them as they printed, and assembly the lot of 'em on top of a suitable board, perhaps with a dab of glue at each seam.
The way I'm picturing these things, I bet I could make a pretty big landscape (lets say 3 feet by 5 feet) for less than $50 in plastic, but it'd probably take a week for me to print 'em all given only evenings and weekends to work on it.
RE: 3d printers
John R. Baker, P.E.
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RE: 3d printers
I still have my doubts on the buildings, and realistic textures.
RE: 3d printers
If you've bought a machined and so that's already a sunk cost though then why not.
Out of interest Ivy what's the routine maintenance like on your 3D printer, do heads need to be cleaned etc. or is it pretty low fuss?
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RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
http://www.engineering.com/DesignerEdge/DesignerEd...
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RE: 3d printers
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2013-01-26/comment...
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RE: 3d printers
Interesting article, I notice that the writer mentioned several Cad programs, but did not mention the one 3D systems bought a couple of years ago, Alibre inc.
B.E.
RE: 3d printers
Go to the parts store needing a new air dam, and they print you one in an hour. Then they can change the plastic, and print you a new brake light cover.
Although I have been racking my brain to think of other industries, out side of cars, boats, etc, that use so much plastic parts.
RE: 3d printers
adult "entertainment" (use your imagination)
telecom (think phone covers etc)
cooking (moulds, cookie cutters, etc)
anything using castings
RE: 3d printers
Its just another process that is available. Price is determined by durability as well as accuracy.
Tim
RE: 3d printers
Interesting question
RE: 3d printers
I would think differently if I had a use. I could set it on the beer fridge my wife won't let me purchase.
I'm rather interested in where this technology might be going, however. Or if it will die like so many other ideas.
RE: 3d printers
Also can you imagine someday small "home use" cartridges of steel, that at the correct temperature (controlled in the 3D printer itself) will flow through your home use 3D printer to make a new cooking pan for your stove? Or a custom wrench for your tool kit?
Back to the Star Trek replicators of the future, extrudable food already exists too.
RE: 3d printers
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/29/3d-printer-guid...
Mechatronics Engineer from South Africa.
RE: 3d printers
Since then my employer has brought this technology in house and every tom dick and harry engineer has some part from one of the various processes (machines) we have scattered around the office. Bad thing is that these machines let them do things that we cannot then tool up for actual production runs without all sorts of complexity to tooling that was never budgeted for. The other bad part is a lot of the S&M management types see "plastic prototypes" and think we are on the verge of a launch and not 20+wks out because we have to cut steel.
And the point about durability and accuracy is very true -- the little I have seen from the "maker" printers leaves a lot to be desired.
RE: 3d printers
http://www.infowars.com/ar-30-round-magazines-now-...
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RE: 3d printers
Without going into the gun issue, is it also possible that other illegal things can be printed?
What about plastic knifes?
RE: 3d printers
How about a metal one using 3D lazer sintering.
B.E.
RE: 3d printers
Regards,
Mike
RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/3d-printe...
John R. Baker, P.E.
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RE: 3d printers
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/03/07/dita-von-te...
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RE: 3d printers
One modification they can make to the printer for this application is to have it print on to a 3D figure of the person it is being printed for (sort of like those dress things my mother had).
This would reduce the number of seems needed, and the manual assimbly.
I also did not see any comparson between printing the gown and having it made in a sweat shop.
Thought: this could make sweat shop workers unemployed. Replaced by technology, just like trafic camaras are replacing police.
RE: 3d printers
Fe (IronX32)
RE: 3d printers
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f487/
RE: 3d printers
John R. Baker, P.E.
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RE: 3d printers
As for the printing guns and knives, it's my opinion that this is just some prepostrous notion that some self-appointed media miscreant dreamed up on a slow news day. I can go to the local hardware and put together a pretty decent 12 gauge zip gun in the time it takes me to render the model preparing it for printing. Not to mention the blatantly obvious strength issues. ABS and fused epoxy is generally not considered ordnance grade material. Not to mention that if one has the wherewithal to purchase a 3D printer, the funds are probably there to acquire some pretty decent, well made firearms.
As a previous poster mentioned, printing patterns for investment casting, now there is a useful application. Burnout of shells can be accomplished with ABS patterns, as well.
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: 3d printers
And yes, after printing a couple of cat statues, I downloaded the file and printed an AR-15 pistol grip.
Caveat: This is not a 'plug and play' thing by any stretch of the imagination. Instructions for assembly are nebulous in places. The software is usable but subject to much tinkering and there are myriad parameters and adjustments to work with.
old field guy
RE: 3d printers
Not to put too much of a damper on things, but I believe we are seeing the start of a new technology, that should grow, and improve with time. However there will be limits on some things that can not be made that way. That maybe where the CNC machine can fill in to make a complete build. I still think plastic handles, and knobs is just the start. Give the kids time to play with them, and they will become useful tools in the future.
I'm still looking for an ap to print a new brake light.
RE: 3d printers
- a good bed leveling mechanism
- an automotive relay to switch the heated bed (taking load off the printrboard) and a diode to prevent the relay coil from damaging the driving circuit on the printrboard. The pins on the printrboard are undersized and will eventually char/melt if you don't offload the current (one reported instance of a near-miss w/fire in an online forum).
- An aluminum (not glass) printing bed (heated bed goes underneath, then insulation..separately arrange your leveling mechanism for the bed. I got sick of breaking pieces of glass when parts stick too well. $45 for a very flat aluminum plate, 0.25" thick, from Amazon.com
- GT2 pulleys & belts, 2mm pitch (I haven't printed with mine yet, but received them and installed them last night. $30 upgrade, reportedly the single-most-important hardware upgrade for print accuracy.
- Cooling fans and thermal switches for your X, Y, and extrude motors (they get very hot during long prints)
Not an upgrade, but probably worth considering
- a 100 ft roll of 8" wide kapton tape (because those little 8"x8" squares get consumed regularly)
RE: 3d printers
Dutch Architect Plans to 3D Print a Building
This will be affecting contruction workers, not just us!
Best to you,
Goober Dave
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RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
So it appears not everyone is embracing the technology.
So why can't we print out replacment auto parts?
RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
Best to you,
Goober Dave
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RE: 3d printers
Steering knuckle for power wheels quad
Crank arm for exercise bike
Patch and mounting bracket for toy disco ball
My brother hs asked me to print a replacement mirror mount for one od his trucks...but he hasnt yet sent the broken part for me to work on.
RE: 3d printers
Welcome to the New Economy.
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RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
If I can print postage from home without a worry of piracy, why can't I print a tail light cover without the same concern?
If things can be printed, at home, or the local print shop, why do I need to pay someone to manufacturer, ship, store, and ship again the item to get to me. Unless there is something special about it that I can't print it at home.
RE: 3d printers
Now if you're taking about the 'new economy' perhaps in the future we may see somehting like an 'iTunes' store where OEM's have licensed someone to make available, for a fee, downloadable files of 'virtual' replacement parts which can then be 'manufactured' by the end user.
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RE: 3d printers
My guess is that if a part is commercially available, you may be better off to buy it.
Regards,
Mike
RE: 3d printers
Their 'product' in the end is nothing more than bits in a computer. Stream of 1s and 0s. Yet they were charging $15 to $20 to buy a CD with those bits on it, despite very little of that money going to the musicians. Most of that money went to the label and the distribution network. When Napster came out, it was a complete end-around of everything the music industry was doing - an automated distribution network of 1s and 0s, and the entire industry was gutted. Most musicians weren't really impacted, in fact the revolution led to a lot easier ways for new and upcoming artists to get distributed without having to bow to the labels to get picked up, but a few big name artists took it on the chin, and all the rich record execs took it on the chin. So they passed RIAA, had the government start arresting teenagers, etc etc. And in the end, they still didn't ever get their profit stream back, because the 'new economy' gutted their old way of doing business.
So what artists do now, is distribute their music for cheap through iTunes, or cheaper through Spotify on a subscription service, and Apple farms a little off the top, or Spotify pays the artist by the play, and the big labels are less and less important, because the artist is only one step away from the listener.
Well it turns out, engineering design is also a bunch of 1s and 0s. Some kinds of engineering design will also go the way of the music industry. Yes, somebody somewhere designed a tail light cover, and that tail light cover is IP, that's owned by some big company, with corporate executives, and offices, and overhead, and all these sorts of things that have been interposed between the design engineer in his cubicle and the end-user buying the tail light cover at NAPA. But an independent engineer in a 1 man shop could also design a tail light cover in his pajamas on a saturday morning in his home office, and he could put his design up on iDesigns, or on Engineerify, and get a dollar for every time someone downloads his design. And Tail Light Cover Inc. will go the same way as Tower Records.
That's what I mean when I say "welcome to the new economy."
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RE: 3d printers
And all togather the printing of small objects I believe will reduce the need for so much wearhouse space, and the waiting two weeks for a tail light cover.
Another aspect is that if the plastic is recyleable, there could be a much faster return for damaged cars, in that salvage yards can remove those as soon as the cars are delivered to them.
RE: 3d printers
3d scanning technology is also getting up to speed very quickly; this will make regulation impossible, and just create another direct parallel to the music industry.
I already own the CD, I bought it from the intellectual property owner, so why can't I make a copy of it for "personal use" in case the original is lost or damaged? What if I want to keep a copy in my car, and in my home?
Replace "CD" with any part that can be 3D printed, and let the games begin. Prices for parts will increase to make up the loss in market share (have to cover that overhead) and that will drive more consumers away. Then maybe Billy Bob down the street will print you a $100 part for $20.
If the value is in the labor/materials, then I will just make it myself, no harm no foul. But once the argument is made to assign the value of a physical object to the intellectual property it contains, quantity of the object becomes insignificant (from one side of the argument at least.) As long as I paid for that intellectual property once, I can make as many physical objects with it as I see fit (for personal use only, of course.)
I'm afraid the next big career boom may be in the legal profession... Why make something new when there are plenty of things out there to argue over?
RE: 3d printers
A recent newspaper article (I read on line, and did not buy the actual paper)about the man behind the 99 cent store, who died a billionare. He wasen't charging $20 for CD's, but items of closer value to the cost of production. Why don't people feel bad for copying CD's, because people feel the actual price is too high.
The value should be in the orignal production of an item, not the gouging of people who happen to break one.
RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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Siemens PLM:
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RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
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RE: 3d printers
Here's the problem, 3D printable guns and knives (or any other weapons)without limits will increase the level of crimes commited world wide, so the repercussions of what Washington does will happen world wide. So while this will expand the interest in this technology, it will also form a negitive side effect.
Just vision a million Chinese, of Indian people with printed guns.
Just so I get off this topic, there was an article about printable buildings, using concreate, and the benifit was the unique shapes. The problem is how many people want a totaly unique building? After all how many years ago people thought you were crazy if you wanted an outlet on the cealing of your grauge?
RE: 3d printers
Just saying.
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RE: 3d printers
Anyway...
John R. Baker, P.E.
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: 3d printers
The fact that underground guns just fill in the XXX in the technology advancment still means the growth of XXX will push the growth of the technology. The same thing would likely happen if the price on tail light covers increased 1000%, except I don't see as much demand in tail light covers.
I still believe there is a need for custom plastic items, that if the price to print them were reasonable could be added to an existing print business. But with the increase in size of the printers, so goes the increase in the number of custom items that become printable. And the same goes with the increase in printing materials.
I think the real advancment will be when printing with different materials on the same build becomes possible. Granted some of this exists now.
RE: 3d printers
I remember in the UK for a while in the late 90's people were modifying starter pistols to fire BB's.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: 3d printers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_firearm
http://www.google.com/search?q=zip+guns&rls=co...
John R. Baker, P.E.
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Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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RE: 3d printers
B.E.
RE: 3d printers
JohnRBaker, I clicked both of your links. Very informative, but Homeland Security showed up within the hour...
Best to you,
Goober Dave
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RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
Saw some kids laser cutting "brass knuckles" the other day out of acrylic. Laser cut corners are sharp, those things could slice you open.
RE: 3d printers
On the topic of 3D printed guns (what is it with some people's obsession with things that kill? I got over that when I was around 16...), it wouldn't surprise me if the Darwin Awards people are preparing a completely separate category for people who decided to give it a go.
RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
A gun is just a tube (barrel) that fits closely to the bullet.
So the simplest gun is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOYI3mecowc
So all you "3D print" is just a tube, a handle, and a trigger. All of which you can just make with a saw/drill/whatever normal tools you have in your garage. If it was an assault rifle it would be newsworthy as I guess feeding the bullets and avoid overheating and whatnot is the difficult part.
But this just a guy who glued a tube to a handle and let a nail strike the bullet?
RE: 3d printers
If a random thin walled piece of tube is picked up,for a zip gun, you end up with a grenade instead of a firearm.
B.E.
RE: 3d printers
Do you know what they call a bad hunter? Vegetarian.
And yes they can be used by dumb people to kill themselves, just like cars. Both have a ligit purpose and both can be used wrongly. That's why education is important. Too bad we don't have public places where they teach children between right and wrong as well as reading, writing, and math.
Are they really "brass knuckles" if they are not made of brass?
So what is G-code? Another computer language, or more of an instruction list like was used with CNC machines?
RE: 3d printers
most CNC machines today will happily accept the same commands you would have found on a paper tape decades ago.
The 'language' is surprisingly powerful.
A line starting with 'G' gives a coordinate location to 'go to', and do whatever command is active.
A typical file will contain a lot of lines starting with 'G', hence 'G-code'.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: 3d printers
At least with respect to gun safety, when I was in high school (back in the early 60's in Northern Michigan) we had an option (at least the boys did) to take a gun safety class sponsored by the NRA (when they were still primarily serving actual gun owners and not acting as lobbyists for gun manufactures). And while this was ostensibly NOT a class in morality, it did stress the mechanics behind the safe handling and use of at least shotguns and rifles.
John R. Baker, P.E.
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RE: 3d printers
I'll get excited about 3D printing when they can print a 3D Printer that can print another 3D Printer.
RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
Your idea about a 3-D printer printing copies of itself has some very real basis. You might want to Google "Reprap", for example. You can get a file that allows another 3-D printer to print all the plastic parts. You, of course, have to add hardware and electronics.
My own printer has a chassis of laser-cut plywood, but I have printed several parts to replace some of the laser-cut parts, including gears for the extruder drive train.
As I've said before, though, these are not 'plug and play' machines.
old field guy
RE: 3d printers
Of course, that's my exact point.
RE: 3d printers
My dad has a 12 gauge shotgun pistol manufactured out of steel tube by a guy in a shack in Nigeria. Don't think he's ever fired it. I think I'd probably rather fire that than fire a 3d printed gun, by current 3d printing standards. But the lid's not on that technology, it's only really just begun to innovate. Hell, Wake Forest is printing human kidneys. (great Ted Talk on it) I'm sure someone will be able to print a quality gun fairly soon.
The printing of organs really opens the doors wide for all sorts of William Gibson level stuff. Like, I don't know, organs that are also guns.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: 3d printers
And when you look at viruses, any replication mechanism looks viable, so long as its hosts survive and thrive long enough to support the viruses. If the hosts die, so do the viruses (for those who have missed the analogy, computer operating systems).
- Steve
RE: 3d printers
Tell that to the people who started 'Napster'.
And speaking of what is and what is not illegal 'content', the Supreme Court has just ruled that it's unlawful for a farmer to set aside a portion of his harvest each year for use as seed stock for the following planting season if the original seed stock contained patented genetic material. Considering that 93% of the soybeans and 86% of the corn now being harvested in the US each year originally came from seed stock containing genes that have been patented by Monsanto, this creates a defacto monopoly on where farmers have to now go to get seed stock and what they could be forced to pay for said seed stock in the future. And this applies even if the farmer never actually purchased any seed stock from Monsanto but was unlucky enough to have planted where the guy next door did purchase Monsanto seed stock and his crops were pollenated from his neighbor's fields. As long as a genetic test shows the presence of Monsanto genes in even a single sample, then he could be at risk of losing his entire crop or be forced to pay a royalty to Monsanto.
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
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Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: 3d printers
Your own genes are being patented right now.
RE: 3d printers
The other aspect might happen if a specific bug is created (manmade or natural) that attacks only genes in these seeds. Mass food shortages would soon ruin there good name.
The only ways I know of to protect intelectual property are, make the price cheep so it is not worth black marketing, or keep making the old one obsolete to change ahead of the black market.
Humm, a printer that prints it's own parts, combined with an arm to assemble it's duplicates.
RE: 3d printers
There are seed banks charged with storing samples of everything that can be gathered so as to maintain the potential of genetic diversity, but if the monoculture Armageddon hits, it will take a while to propagate those reserve seeds into crops of usable quantity, during which time, er, we will all eat cake.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: 3d printers
B.E.
RE: 3d printers
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: 3d printers
Apparently you aren't aware of The Pirate Bay. Peer to peer file sharing didn't end with Napster, it just evolved past the ability for legal entities to track it, through decentralized magnet links and distributed hash tables. The only thing that really keeps it in check, honestly, is the chance of picking up very nasty viruses.
Actually, no, they didn't rule that. I'm no Montsanto fan, but the ruling on this case wasn't at all about farmers saving seed, it was about a farmer who intentionally saved Montsanto Roundup Ready seed, in violation of his contractual agreement with Montsanto. The guy had a bunch of seed from different sources all mixed up, some small portion of which was Montsanto Roundup Ready, and he planted it, and ROUNDUPED IT, to kill off all the non-Montsanto plants. Then he stockpiled the resultant seed in a grain elevator, and planted off that. It was intentional, willful, manipulation of his own crop to distill out the Montsanto RR seed so he could plant it without paying Montsanto.
That case, in fact, has quite a lot of bearing to the thread. It could in fact be used as a legal test case for future 3d printing suits. If someone buys a tail light cover that has a US Patent, and copies it exactly, and replicates it with a 3d printer, then he'd be infringing on patent law. That's basically what this particular farmer did.
Now, I have heard of other cases where Montsanto went after farmers who were accidentally replanting Montsanto seed, but I can't seem to find any reference to them recently. Does anyone have a link? Montsanto's website says they only sue ten farmers a year, and only take one a year to court.
Again, no Montsanto fan, but I'd like a better case to ground my dislike of them than the one from a few days ago. That guy was just being an ass.
You are aware that they are also the company that invented Agent Orange and DDT, right? I don't think they really care about their name.
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: 3d printers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/14/monsanto-...
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: 3d printers
And of course they've made a new variation (RR Mark 2) that comes with a fresh patent.
But the original will be public domain shortly.
RE: 3d printers
And the point of trying to ban any product, is to see that less of it is produced. In many cases the higher cost of the product (money, time, energy, etc.)will not be enough to completly reduce the number produced to zero. In the case of tail light covers, there are alternitives, although they may not look as nice. Which is the point of paying such high cost for one. But that dosen't stop people from using an alternitive. At one point there were more than a million of any one type of tail light cover made (except for the tail light of the volt), so I would assume the initial cost of designing them would have been paid for.
If the initial design has been paid for, and sales should be declining on each model, so why is the price so high? The cost to manufacture fewer and fewer should start to become prohibitive, and will cease at some point, where if the design could be sold to 3D printer shops, the number of sales could continue to the designer (company), at a lower payback, and lower cost to the consumer.
The whole point is older, and smaller sales items could still be available to consumers, with little fear of mass produced copies because of limited number of consumers desireing them. Sort of like limited coping of 1930's music, but still making it available to consumers.
RE: 3d printers
http://now.msn.com/nasa-funded-3-d-food-printing-r...
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: 3d printers
I hope it works better than the old coffe machines, you know coffie, sugar, cream, then comes the empty cup.
RE: 3d printers
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: 3d printers
http://electronicdesign.com/embedded/matterform-in...
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: 3d printers
I recently saw a coworker trying to fill his water bottle with ice, but the ice machine could not see that the IR beam was broken so it would not deliver ice.
Do the 3D copyiers make everything just a little bit smaller than the origonal to keep you from copying coins?
RE: 3d printers
Best to you,
Goober Dave
Haven't see the forum policies? Do so now: Forum Policies
RE: 3d printers
http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/05/17/human-dol...
Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com
RE: 3d printers
RE: 3d printers
http://machinedesign.com/blog/dont-try-home-indust...
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: 3d printers
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=13...
John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
RE: 3d printers
I still see this as a way to reduce parts inventory of plastic, and maybe metal, parts.
RE: 3d printers