Holy Crap, an actual replicator

[Meredith]

I mean I have seen prototype rapid replicator type rigs with wires showing and all that in universities, but these look slick and refined, they look kinda like laser printers or copy machines.

Granted, they will probably only be used by businesses and specialty shops for the near future. But as they get more widespread and people see how cool they are they will probably start showing up more and more in regualr people's lives.

Kinda like how in the 80's laser printers were only to be found in offices, but now these days you see laser printers in a lot of homes as more people get computers.

How cool would it be to buy something from an internet store and physically print it out at home and not have to wait for the UPS guy to show up.


http://www.objet.com/

 

[Ward Fowler]

Yes, it is a technology that will eventually change the way we do things. But think of the ramifications. There will be less need for manufacturing, therefore fewer jobs for people. It'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

 

[MIB]

Model makers, I'm sure, will be ecstatic. You know all those cool ships from Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica of which you've always wanted a model, but no company ever made one to sell? Well, now all one has to do is stop by scifi-meshes.com.

There is another interesting thing on the website that caught my attention. To prove the accuracy of this system, the 3d printer actually printed out a "gomboc;" a geometrical shape that has one and ONLY one point of stability. So no matter how you place it, it will always right itself purely because of its geometry. There are no counter weights or anything. I've never heard of such a shape before, but that's pretty damned cool as well

 

[Meredith]

Yes, it is a technology that will eventually change the way we do things. But think of the ramifications. There will be less need for manufacturing, therefore fewer jobs for people. It'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

They said the same things about laser printers vs. book publishers and the newspapers. It took the internet to kill off Newspapers not laser printers.

It could end up like cell phones, people in third world countries don't get regular phone, instead they leapfrog to cell phones because they are cheaper.

Maybe for them the production of needed durable goods would be manufactured at a community level.

 

[Ward Fowler]

Yes, it is a technology that will eventually change the way we do things. But think of the ramifications. There will be less need for manufacturing, therefore fewer jobs for people. It'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

They said the same things about laser printers vs. book publishers and the newspapers. It took the internet to kill off Newspapers not laser printers.

It could end up like cell phones, people in third world countries don't get regular phone, instead they leapfrog to cell phones because they are cheaper.

Maybe for them the production of needed durable goods would be manufactured at a community level.

You are right that it will be a leapfrog technology in places like Africa. However, I suspect that, when capable, this technology will displace a lot of manufacturing in developed countries. Not only that, but this same technology will be used for construction of buildings and homes as well. It's already being developed. That's a lot of jobs to automate.
I'm not saying that it shouldn't be done, society can't restrain technology for too long, nor should we try. I understand the concept of creative destruction, but we need a plan on the creative side.

 

[Plecostomus]

What are the properties of the substance this machine manipulates? What are the costs related to making an item with it? By that I mean how much does it cost to prepare the raw material and how much does it cost to run the machine? How much skill does one need to program, setup, and run this machine?

Right now I can run you a part out of nearly any material that you can lathe on my lathe for the cost of the material. If you can draw it on a CAD program and the geometry is proper for the operation I can make it for far less than any given 3D QMS system and I can make it from the material that best suits your application. There are millions of types of materials that I can lathe (metals, plastic, ceramic, wood, composite, glass) wheres the range of 3D QMS materials is quite limited and will be for quite awile.


I give it 10 years for material science and ease of programming/operation to make these technologies a serious threat to traditional methods such as molding and machining and casting. The day WILL come in our lifetime but it a bit out there still.

 

[bryce]

That's nothing...

RepRap - Open Source Machine 'Prints' 3-D Objects, Including Copies Of Itself

 

[CuttingEdge100]

3D Printing has been around for awhile hasn't it?


Bryce,

Reproducing machines... this can be a good or very bad thing

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

That's nothing...

RepRap - Open Source Machine 'Prints' 3-D Objects, Including Copies Of Itself

I think their claims are extreme hyperbole -- manual assembly of the "child" was required, and I doubt that the "parent" could replicate the required metal parts that are required, not to mention the electronics or the software.

 

[Christopher]

That's nothing...

RepRap - Open Source Machine 'Prints' 3-D Objects, Including Copies Of Itself

Wow. That borders on being a literal replicator in the nanotechnology (and Stargate franchise) sense, as opposed to the more idiosyncratic Star Trek usage of the term. No, it's not complete self-replication, but it's the first step toward it.