Political power grows out of the nozzle of a 3-D Printer.
Posted on 12/02/2014 8:26:58 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
One of the obstacles to jumping headlong into the additive manufacturing milieu for many people is often the expense of the 3D printer itself. Further, for those intrepid, budding engineers, designers, makers, and artists, an initial foray might more reasonably and affordably involve logo-instructables-01using a less expensive and complex machine. Enter one Instructables contributor, “mikelllc,” who has designed a make-it-yourself 3D printer that is constructed largely from recycled electronic components.
Currently, only about 12.5% of all electronic waste, or “e-waste,” is recycled. Instead, the majority of cast-off electronic products — around 20 to 50 million metric tons per year worldwide — end up in incinerators or landfills. Many such products languishing in landfills can also release toxic chemicals into the air and soil, including high amounts of lead. So, repurposing electronic products makes great sense economically and ecologically.
The EWaste $60 3D Printer is inexpensive to make given that you can round up the necessary components and follow the maker’s step-by-step instructions, which are clear and detailed. The process, in short, involves schooling yourself on “how a generic CNC (Computer Numerical Control) system works” and then programming your printer-in-the-making to respond to G-code instructions. With the addition and calibration of a plastic extruder, the tuning of the driver power, and other well-outlined and described steps in the construction process, you end up with a “small footprint” 3D printer that is comprised of upwards of 80% recycled components — an eco-conscious and budget-friendly alternative to springing for a new and potentially costly 3D printer.
One of the major selling points of this design for a 3D printer is that not only do you end up with a usable machine at the end of the process, but that the process of building and programming the thing yourself also provides you with a solid tech-ed mini-course (or maxi-course for the completely uninitiated). What you need to get started are two standard CD/DVD drives from a used PC, a floppy disc drive from which you extract stepper rather than DC motors (you’ll need three stepper motors in all), a PC power supply, cables, female connectors, a heat-shrink tube, and some CNC electronics. There are some components — like a NEMA 17 stepper motor — that you’ll need to purchase new, but for the most part you’ll be going with used and recycled parts.
The Instructables page provides thorough instructions for everything from soldering the cables to the motors and doing the basic electrical work, installing and using Arduino printer control software, downloading firmware, configuring the motherboard, and so on. In the instance of components that are not accessible from previously used electronics, there are instructions and templates for making your own laser cut parts for the frame, which can be assembled without the use of glue.
The 3D printer uses 1.75 mm plastic filament, which is both easier to extrude and also much more flexible than 3 mm filament. Additionally, using the 1.75 mm filament means that you’ll require less power to run your machine, which is definitely earth-friendly, as is the use of PLA bio-plastic (as opposed to ABS). This maker is willing to be contacted for troubleshooting, and the project — and completely usable end result — seems worth the fairly complicated process.
Is this a project you’d think to undertake? Have you already? Let us know how you found the process, and what your results were, at the discussion forum for the EWaste $60 3D Printer at 3DPB.com!
I don’t think I get this 3D printer thingy. I picturing something from The Jetsons where you push a button and a steak and a beer appear. Or chicolate.
What are the realistic benefits of 3D technology in your opinion? For instance, will it have more impact on manufacturing or consumers? Speaking as a layman it seems as if no-one knows for sure how this technology will play out.
Ping
It will play out over the next few decades to the point where 3D bio-printers can build you a new heart out of your own grown tissue.
Large, mobile printers will build roads, buildings, bridges, dams..etc
Advanced printers, better known as assemblers, will be able to create complete electronic devices.
The technology will mean that large, low-wage workforces will no longer be an asset. poor China...
Almost everything will become extremely cheap and disposable...
The most valuable commodities will be the detailed plans for creating products.... if you think the copyright woes of the music and movie industry were intense just wait for this one to hit.
The best thing about 3d printers is the boost it has given to kids learning useful things. It’s almost like back in the days of science fairs.
3D printing will eventually take its place among the other manufacturing processes, but it is no going to replace them significantly, except in a few niches such as prototyping. You can mold a part in a fraction of a second; printing can take hours. The technology may take off in the micro manufacturing realm, dentistry and medicine, etc.
There are fifty year old pictures predicting 3d printing of habitat structures on the Moon...
You left out cooking- I heard that you can now 3d print your dinner- the article may be on wired dot com
In the 1970’s I was screen printing PC boards with photographic methods. Still have the equipment. Anything that can be printed on paper or transparent sheets can be transferred to copper foil on G10 fiberglass PC board. It was precision of it’s day. Simple mass production.
Lithography
“However there are other techniques that would allow you to use steel and construct that barrel.”
It is called SLS or laser sintering. I have all of my designed parts made of this process with fiberglass filled nylon. It is far stronger than FDM and is in use on limited production pieces on some of my projects. I do not possess a machine but the price is about half of FDM when using two sources both of which are far less than the “street’ sources like Solid Concepts and the other big players who dominate the marketing side.
SLS is also capable of using different metal powders in the same way to produce weapons that can stand the pressures.
Political power grows out of the nozzle of a 3-D Printer.
Look up “RepRap”. 3d printer that makes copies of itself.
Is there anything reasonably priced in the market that can print a plastic object with very smooth outside surfaces, the way a part would come out of an injection mold?
Your post is full of errors:
handheld lasers are measured in milliwatts mW , not megawatts - Mw
Any Chinese company offering to sell a 1000mW laser for $20 is selling a 100mW fake. An actual 1000mW laser will cost at least $70.
The most powerful handheld diode lasers are blue/purple 3500mW, which cost somewhat over $200. Any company offering lasers over 3500mW are selling fakes.
Price: $300, which is why I don't own one yet.
Did you have to pay sales tax? I bet you got it at one of those wild-and-wooly shady gun shows! You know, where you can buy artillery and Nazi memorabilia without a background check.
Sure, you can print braces and similar parts. But the motors to move in three directions and to push the filament into the heated extruder are not printable (in plastic). Those are the expensive items and this guy uses motors from e-scrap. However, the stepper motors are around $20 and you need four or five; the heated extruder (mostly made of metal) is probably under $100. An even better machine is buildable for under $200, but this guy has a decent approach.
Yeah, I got the 3d printing bug.
See my #20.
I thought you said you didn’t get it?
WOW!
It'd work okay for a gyrojet, or the 40mm high-low pressure chamber system of the 40mm M79/M203 grenade launcher. I know, since in the early 1980s, we were considering a double-barreled, over and under alternative to the Sten gun as a possible item for mass production and airdrop to a potential arming of the Polish resistance Solidarity movement. As it turned out, the actual manufacture of those [and other nifty tools for a potential Polish resistance movement, including an anti-tank version of the Claymore mine, based on the Rockeye cluster bomb munition] was unnecessary, since even the thought of one Soviet *fraternal socialist* country engaged in such acts could well have given the others similar ideas. Would Reagan have done it? Above my pay grade. But the Soviets backed down, and Poland is now one of the few bright spots of relative individual freedom in Europe.
Speaking of the 9mm Sten, I suppose you know that during WWII, some Stens had barrels that were made of a flat rectangular steel plate with 4 grooves milled diagonally across it, which was then bent around a mandrel and fusion-welded at the joint seam and chambered. Nowadays, that'd be done with an Appel-process hammer forging, but even 75 years ago, there were production shortcuts that worked pretty well when the economies of scale were right. Some of those Stens were produced for less than $5,00 each; the 7 magazines that accompanied each gun in its waxed cardboard shipping carton cost more to build than the gun did. And that caused US Army Ordnance to look real hard at the $200 per copy M1928A1 Thompson and $85 per M1A1 versions, and come up with the M3 and M3A1 *grease guns* at circa $18 each instead.
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