Make your own... anything! Heard of 3D printing?

[alphamule]

http://en.wikipedia....iki/3D_printing

http://www.zcorp.com...ters/spage.aspx

http://isnblog.ethz....wnload-a-weapon Gee, who didn't see this coming?

http://arstechnica.c...omes-of-age.ars


My favorite example - uses sand and sunlight!

Essentially, you have a printer that instead of dropping ink on a page, drops layers of a 3D object. It repeats this for each layer until you have a real life version of a 3D object you defined (or downloaded). Thus it is called a '3D printer' or 'rapid prototyping' system. There are variations that don't use simple layers just like there are plotters in addition to dot-matrix (most impact/inkjet/laser) printers. For example, you can program some lathes to make custom furniture pieces.

 

[Nathan Drake]

3D printers are very old news. They've been used to model new products when developing for awhile.

 

[Mantis41]

They made a jaw bone for an ederly lady using the same method. It was made using a titanium compound.

 

[Pong20302000]

i used one of these at Uni a few years back

there very good how they work

 

[FAST6191]

Personally I prefer to use them as a stepping stone to something else (investment casting and such) and frankly although I would never turn one down and they certainly have their place I still hold subtractive methods do more for me at this point in life.

Also all that and you did not link up http://www.shapeways.com/ ?

 

[gshock]

Yes they are cool. Too bad they are prohibitively expensive.

3D printers for professional/corporate use have been available for some time at unobtainable prices for the average person and very long print times but 3D printers for home use are a different story. They haven't been around long and there are models that I've seen recently that are faster at printing out models ( at reasonable detail levels ) then their professional counterparts.

Hope the technology goes in the right direction. There's a lot of potential for them to be used outside of only art, hobby & crafts.

I'd bet those individuals that like to buy things like "nendroids" or whatever the larger versions of anime figurines are called, would save a lot with these, if they could just print the model-designs by themselves without any sculpting talent necessary or required. :P Painting it would still be one's responsibility but if you made a mistake you could always just print another model and try again.

The 3D printers I've seen so far used an inexpensive (biodegradable?) spool of resin of some kind. I think it was made from corn, but I'm not really sure tbh. But if its cheap and relatively eco-friendly, I can be on board to that.

But I like the idea that if you wanted to use it and you were missing a hammer or a screw driver of the right size... no problem. Just design the model ( or download one maybe if these were more wide spread in use ) and print yourself one and use it.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Sure have. Old news is old. A friend of mine made his own, he used to print out a ton of shit until he got bored with it. I was gonna buy it off him, but he was being bitchy about it...

 

[gshock]

What does a pokemon picture have to do with a 3d printer.

I guess that depends what you think "old" is. The last I read they still had a long way to go before you could use them practically outside of art/crafting and prototyping. But I could be wrong, that was quite a while ago.

 

[EpicJungle]

What does a pokemon picture have to do with a 3d printer?

He posted a pokemon called Slowpoke, so he is implying that the OP is old news.

Anyways, this is the first time i've ever hear of this.., looked at how it works and it's really clever.

 

[Rob3rr]

They made a jaw bone for an ederly lady using the same method. It was made using a titanium compound.

This was on BBC news a while back if I remember correctly.

 

[Thesolcity]

The Penguin Bar has physibles out. Seems like a cool idea.

 

[Rydian]

Yeah I read about this one way back.

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/candyfab

DIY. Uses sugar.

Not anything that could be used for actual production though. Too low of a resolution.

 

[alphamule]

...3D printers for home use are a different story...

Yeah, the reason I posted this is that they're getting way cheaper. When you see them in the big chain stores, people will really go for them for home use!

 

[pyromaniac123]

Can you print a 3d printer?

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Can you print a 3d printer?

You can print parts out for one, so technically yes.

Turns out a friend of mine went out and bought one today, coincidentally. They are quite the interesting thing, however it's hard to figure out what to do with it for home use.

 

[Gahars]

Make your own anything, you say?

 

[Rydian]

Damnit I missed this oppurtunity, but...

Prowler can make his own dildos!?!?

 

[alphamule]

If you had the schematic, I image you could make a lightning gauntlet to get the same effect. The price of the power cells though... in practical terms, you're limited to shapes and not materials. It would be awesome in 50 years to see how this tech can make materials as well. Freaking Star Trek replicators, baby!

A little theory behind projecting lightning:

Normally, air is a poor conductor but ionize it using UV light or such and it becomes easy to turn into very conductive plasma. That fact about plasma is the idea behind the old tubes that used helium and not just a vacuum to get much higher outputs. UV lasers aren't exactly cheap.

Combine this with the second part of the device - a tesla coil or similar. This is old school.

The third part is to protect the user from short circuits/feedback. That is possible using something like an ground fault interrupter?

Yes, that was mostly a joke but it would be funny if you could just print something like that out. Even if it was purely cosmetic like a plasma globe.

Well yeah, I'm pretty sure that's mentioned in more than a few articles on 3D printers. New: Iran bans 3D printers! (LOL, along with everything else)

 

[Veho]

It's fascinating technology, but unfortunately the resolution available to the public is still too low for bootleg I mean custom Warhammer 40K figs.

Prowler can make his own dildos!?!?

Pretty soon these things will be able to print human organs. Dildo nothing, prowler can make the real thing

 

[Qtis]

Good for making prototypes (quality is ok for the most of it), but there are quite a few better ways to make things. When the tech really becomes cheaper, this could lead to something interesting.