REP RAP / Fabber 3d printer
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Jon Wood wrote:
http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?1,2083,page=1Above is a link to an interesting, if a little long, forum discussion on the pros, cons and practicalities of building your own 3D printer and some views on the ramifications of mass roll out of these devices.
There is a great quote; "put your feet up Santa, the christmas machine is coming!"
Also they propose the idea of Napster style piracy issues to do with downloading and printing, for instance, toys.
My immediate concern is that criminals could download blueprints for a handgun or other weapon and print out the parts? But a crime spree shouldn't stand in the way of innovation! I want one.I'd be very interested to know if anybody has home built a 3d printer capable of architectural model making.
the problem with printing is that you need a suitable medium. I assume that steel or any sort of alloy would be far too much for one of these to handle. Then again, who knows, its the future right?
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http://www.orszagpark.hu/26szombathely.html
this solution
http://members.chello.hu/hunkat/
Tibor -
Sadly, in my limited scope of the world i cant read that.
But from what i can tell thats a way of working metal? I suppose that given the right machine you could do it with todays technology then. It would require a large machine though.Unless of course that has nothing to do with my previous post and im just babbling in the wind.
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Masta,
Just see the pictures - the models (made by CNC machines) are located in a "Country Park" in Hungary and a whole lot of "famous" buildings are exhibited there (well the mosque in my home town is a little bit "mismodelled" Smile)
That's just the technology.
I read a little bit of the link in the original post and have to tell you I don't really know too much about these technologies (they are mentioning CNC and its limited capabilities too). -
Ive looked into the rep rap stuff before, in order to work with metal you need either extremely high temps or a cnc machine. In order to make something like a gun you would need to deal with metals, thats why i said something like that isnt exactly possible for a rapid prototyper.
There was one made that used sugar and a hot air gun though, that was kind of neat.
It is promising though, although in the end the goal they are trying to achieve is self replication. it would require alot of incoming resources, and a machine capable of doing many different types of operations. Meaning with current technology it would need to be a very large, multi stage machine. Not exactly what they are hoping for though. Not to mention that these machines cant create any parts that make use of metal so motors and wiring are out of the question. At least, thats how it is so far.
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Just to make it clear, I don't want to make a gun! Ok so it looks like you couldn't anyway. But the future for real 3d output is amazing even if this stuff is in its infancy. Architecturally I think this could revive model making,
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This is an interesting field and one that will play a huge part in presentation in the future. Have a look at the DeskTop Factory for $4995, not yet available
but taking orders. The output is rough but the price is okay and they plan to bring it sub $1000.ZCorp produce some better quality 3D printers ranging in price from $20 - 50K
http://www.desktopfactory.com/our_product/
The Desktop Factory 3D printer, which has a list price of $4,995, uses an inexpensive halogen light source and drum printing technology to build robust parts layer by layer from composite plastic powder.
The cost of the build material is expected to be about $1 per cubic inch.
http://www.zcorp.com/Products/3D_Printe ... spage.aspx
Z Printer 310 Pus
$19,900 - $49,900The other way forward for Architectural presentation might be holograms and 3D screens ? There are quite a few companies forging ahead in these fields also.
Interesting times ahead
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Thanks for the links Mike.
The price is already coming down then. I'm very interested in the prospects of having diy 3d printers but the RapRep project seems still quite rudimentary The fabbers seem to be a bit further on. I've downloaded a free version of Pepakura, a free "model unfolder". Interesting.
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