Defense Distributed Is The Greatest

[gaelic cowboy]

Wow. Imagine the computer parts you could make with this stuff.

The parts might be big at first but you could print hundreds of chips and essentially create a super computer.

You could print a house or a car if you like, maybe you fancy building a corporate jet or a spaceshuttle. The only limit is the size of the printer and the material for the printer itself.

But even that can be overcome with some clever CAD design (or download someone elses)

Major corporations we think are monolithic will go bust as they wont be able to monetise the new system.

[ICantSpellDawg]

3d printing is that big thing that we've been wondering about. It will destroy the economy of China... and probably the rest of the world. But the possibilities are endless, guns, household parts, car parts, computer parts, etc.

As far as bullets go, getting smokeless powder will be tricky. You can print the casing in polymer and will be able to print the projectile, but the only powder that you will be able to get no matter what is black powder, which will render an AR15 completely ineffective due to the soot - the primer will be easy enough, but you won't have an effective modern weapon. This is the next problem, but I'd imagine that printable rail guns or some other magnetic accelerator arent too far behind.

[HopAlongBunny]

Pretty wild stuff :)

I remember listening to a lady who was touting the ability to have your feet scanned, and print custom-fit shoes on the spot. The savings in labour, transportation and inventory management would be huge.

Too bad for the schlobs out-of-work...

[Greyblades]

Too bad for the schlobs out-of-work...

Hey maybe we'll finally go all star trek; abandon all concept of employment, only doing required professions out of general boredom instead of financial incentive and become directionless hippies like Gene Roddenberry dreamed :P
I don't think too many would be out of work, at least in the service based western economies, most of the things this would replace are already almost completely automated and currently this seems too inefficient to replace the output of Asian sweatshops. As with all things: convenience wins out, unless the build time is reduced to a matter of minutes I don't see this replacing the average persons shopping trips any time soon.

[gaelic cowboy]

Hey maybe we'll finally go all star trek and become directionless hippies :
I don't think too many would be out of work, at least in the service based western economies, most of the things this would replace are already almost completely automated and this seems really inefficient for bulk manufacturing. As with all things: convenience wins out, unless the build time is reduced to a matter of minutes I don't see this replacing the average persons shopping trips any time soon.

if only but i am afraid it will be very disruptive and unfortunately millions of people worldwide will lose there jobs.

The exporting of goods could and probably will end in the majority of cases, people will get stuff printed locally and delivered by post.

It will be impossible to police intelectual property effectively so companies will have to switch to providing services or go bust.

[Sir Moody]

3d printing is that big thing that we've been wondering about. It will destroy the economy of China... and probably the rest of the world. But the possibilities are endless, guns, household parts, car parts, computer parts, etc.

As far as bullets go, getting smokeless powder will be tricky. You can print the casing in polymer and will be able to print the projectile, but the only powder that you will be able to get no matter what is black powder, which will render an AR15 completely ineffective due to the soot - the primer will be easy enough, but you won't have an effective modern weapon. This is the next problem, but I'd imagine that printable rail guns or some other magnetic accelerator aren't too far behind.

While Gauss guns would be the holy grail of this sort of technology they just are not feasible for hand held weapons without radical changes in our ability to generate power - to get the same velocity as a standard firearm you need a massive amount of energy to generate a large enough magnetic field - right now the best we can a manage for a hand held gun would be similar in velocity to a air gun - and would have a fire rate similar to a crossbow

personally I find that comforting because they are really easy to make...

The technology is far better suited to static or mounted emplacements where larger generators (and longer barrels) can be employed

I believe DARPA has a coilgun department so maybe they will crack it someday

[Hooahguy]

Feinstein is gonna have a heart attack when she sees this.

[gaelic cowboy]

Feinstein is gonna have a heart attack when she sees this.

Never mind Feinstein every company ceo, bankster, investor vampire squid and pension fund will run in fear from this.
3d printing has far bigger implications than your puny attempts at gun laws, there is an entire social and economic order about to be turfed out.

[Hooahguy]

Never mind Feinstein every company ceo, bankster, investor vampire squid and pension fund will run in fear from this.
3d printing has far bigger implications than your puny attempts at gun laws, there is an entire social and economic order about to be turfed out.

True, though only when 3D printers become more available.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Right. The internet is the coolest thing in the history of the world to date. Home 3d printing is high on that list as well

[Tellos Athenaios]

Wow. Imagine the computer parts you could make with this stuff.

The parts might be big at first but you could print hundreds of chips and essentially create a super computer.

Eh no. The problem with "big" is not just that you need a lot of space, but also that there is physically more stuff of which you need to coerce electrons to do your bidding. Coercing takes power, which means heat, which means coolers. Additionally longer wires have long propagation delays, which means lower clock speeds, which means less bang per buck of electricity bill and less performance. Additionally the bigger package, thermal and power enveloppes mean that even relatively straightforward electronics won't "fit" in the packages we currently expect.

You need semi-conductors, and you need them to be tiny (order of magnitude of now more than a few tens of nm) because you need to cram in millions of them. Then you need to have good switching properties for your semi conductors, which also means longevity and longevity of semi-conductors is not improved by applying more force (more power) or running at higher temps (melting). You also have industrial specs to contend with which may require typically -45°C to 80°C ambient temperature operating range, even for CPU's.

For modern CPU's we are currently down to such a scale that only a few atoms of Si can fit together in the wire (22nm) and the material has to be subjected to quite some special treatment to achieve this (basically "stretching" the atoms). Parts are cut out by means of intense (i.e. human-frying) UV radiation, and doping the semi-conductors is a lot trickier at that scale as traditional doping would not yield sufficient conductivity at all when the semi-conductor is switched "on". Try injection-printing that.

You could print a house or a car if you like, maybe you fancy building a corporate jet or a spaceshuttle. The only limit is the size of the printer and the material for the printer itself.

But even that can be overcome with some clever CAD design (or download someone elses)

Not if you need the thing to behave as "a solid thing". That is traditionally overcome with welding, but how will 3d printed stuff take to industrial welding? That's a major headache with current aerospace techniques already given the operating parameters the parts are subjected to.

[gaelic cowboy]

Eh no. The problem with "big" is not just that you need a lot of space, but also that there is physically more stuff of which you need to coerce electrons to do your bidding. Coercing takes power, which means heat, which means coolers. Additionally longer wires have long propagation delays, which means lower clock speeds, which means less bang per buck of electricity bill and less performance. Additionally the bigger package, thermal and power enveloppes mean that even relatively straightforward electronics won't "fit" in the packages we currently expect.


You need semi-conductors, and you need them to be tiny (order of magnitude of now more than a few tens of nm) because you need to cram in millions of them. Then you need to have good switching properties for your semi conductors, which also means longevity and longevity of semi-conductors is not improved by applying more force (more power) or running at higher temps (melting). You also have industrial specs to contend with which may require typically -45°C to 80°C ambient temperature operating range, even for CPU's.

For modern CPU's we are currently down to such a scale that only a few atoms of Si can fit together in the wire (22nm) and the material has to be subjected to quite some special treatment to achieve this (basically "stretching" the atoms). Parts are cut out by means of intense (i.e. human-frying) UV radiation, and doping the semi-conductors is a lot trickier at that scale as traditional doping would not yield sufficient conductivity at all when the semi-conductor is switched "on". Try injection-printing that.

People thought we would never get to 12in wafers either so of course people will print microprocessors eventually.

Not if you need the thing to behave as "a solid thing". That is traditionally overcome with welding, but how will 3d printed stuff take to industrial welding? That's a major headache with current aerospace techniques already given the operating parameters the parts are subjected to.

You dont need welding in 3d printing, remember the process is additive so you can print a frame fully assembled. Aerospace people are looking at printing hollow parts which would lighten a plane and still retain the majority of the strength.

the possibilities are only limited by size and materials in my view

Chocolate 3-D Printer Arrives At Last

3D Printing, Now in Glass

It's a cliche to say it's going to change everything but I guessing it will be pretty close to it.

[Strike For The South]

Meh, Not impressed.

Is this supposed to be how we get around the evil tyranny?

Because you can find plenty of parts around, maybe not in New York, the ammo is the rub

GET WITH THE PROGRAM PEOPLE, LEARN HOW YOU'RE BEING OPPRESSED.

[Montmorency]

GET WITH THE PROGRAM PEOPLE, LEARN HOW YOU'RE BEING OPPRESSED.

Tell us.

[Strike For The South]

Tell us.

That was the end of my joke.

You seem to think I am holding back some sort of awesome knowledge.

I am a drunk butcher, I AM YOUR PAPER GOD

[Tellos Athenaios]

People thought we would never get to 12in wafers either so of course people will print microprocessors eventually.

Fundamentally there is a difference between cutting out and printing. On the one hand you have a solid which you know "works" and can be cut repeatedly to trim it down to the required size,on the other you have to hope the right bits (i.e. doped versus normal) land up at the right place (a few nm difference) and then the bits you "spray" have to be of less than the required size because you can only add more of them. You have to be able to aim with nm precision here.

Cutting is considerably easier to do, no need for moving parts with nm precision.

You dont need welding in 3d printing, remember the process is additive so you can print a frame fully assembled. Aerospace people are looking at printing hollow parts which would lighten a plane and still retain the majority of the strength.

Yes but then you need to produce the thing in one go, i.e. no prefabbed parts and assembly. So either you need to be able to 3d-print as big as your parts need to be (in the case of aerospace, very big) or you need to weld.

[gaelic cowboy]

Fundamentally there is a difference between cutting out and printing. On the one hand you have a solid which you know "works" and can be cut repeatedly to trim it down to the required size,on the other you have to hope the right bits (i.e. doped versus normal) land up at the right place (a few nm difference) and then the bits you "spray" have to be of less than the required size because you can only add more of them. You have to be able to aim with nm precision here.

of course but seeing as were already very close to being able to print circuit boards it's likely that something like a very simple processor will be printed in the next 10yrs. Very soon no doubt people will print the board on which the processor sits and buy summit off the web to sit in it.

Once your doing that the drive to complete the circle will be immense.

Cutting is considerably easier to do, no need for moving parts with nm precision.

But cutting is wasteful and it has limitations on geometry that are not as prevalent in additive manufacture.

Yes but then you need to produce the thing in one go, i.e. no prefabbed parts and assembly. So either you need to be able to 3d-print as big as your parts need to be (in the case of aerospace, very big) or you need to weld.

one could imagine a scenario where a frame is extruded from a printer that inches along a track inside a large warehouse.


also welding does not appear to be a problem

[Idaho]

All these waves of immigrants to the US got there only to discover they were expected to fit in and shut up.

The land of the free. Providing universal suffrage since 1968.