A GADGET GEEK?S DREAM COME TRUE: PUNCH ?PRINT? FOR ANYTHING YOU WANT

Smalltimes ^ | July 25, 2003 | David Pescovitz

[sourcery]

FYI

[John Beresford Tipton]

This will surely make blow-up adult dolls obsolete!

[Izzy Dunne]

Anybody see the movie "Weird Science"?
Remember what those kids built with this technology?

[RightWhale]

Model-making from a printer is something we heard of 3-4 years ago in the CAD industry. But a model is one thing and a machined piece of metal is another. Still not Star Trek.

[SC DOC]

We have that beat in South Carolina. We're using printers to spit out living tissues and organs

[Hodar]

3M uses a similar technology (and has for at least 8 years)to produce mechanical samples of fairly complex sockets. For example, long before that 900 pin socket on your motherboard was around, a sample of what that socket was created. This sample was used to help work out the bugs before a tool and die machine made the production socket we all know and love. It's a fascinating process to watch. The socket is first designed in software, then lasers hit and fuse material together, inside a tank containing a special plastic resin with micro-encapulated reagants. The lasers cause a chemical reaction to take place on the near-microscopic level, making a small blob of solid plastic in a liquid plastic tank. The lasers then continue on, building the socket up from the lowest levels, until the piece is finally completed. A few hours later, the pieces are all hand assembled and delivered to the engineers to play with (and then break). Super neato... Looks like they have come quite a ways in the past few years.

[Frank_Discussion]

I would say it's approaching at about Warp 7, though. In a decade, I'm betting.

[techcor]

CNN and Tech TV have done stories on creating organs this way. Need a new liver? Print one out for you. I pity some technician of the future have to clean out some print queue because someone hit "print" for their liver a dozen times.

[redangus]

Tea, hot, Earl Gray

[L,TOWM]

There is hope that we can get you that dream date after all. Send our crack research team the specifications...

[RightWhale]

In a decade, I'm betting.

Bet, sure, but it's too soon to invest. As an addition to the portfolio it would have to join asteroid mining and the cure for cancer and whatever else ails us, not to mention clone babies. It's part of that small fraction of the nest egg that won't be missed if lost but will make the heirs go 'hmmm, maybe not so stodgy after all' when they break open the inheritance box. It is part of the asteroid mining process already, BTW.

[Frank_Discussion]

Hmmm... As a college student, I remember rapid prototyping techniques being discussed as super-expensive and built by large rudimentary devices for single-piece parts. Of low quality, too. Ten years or so down the road, I've seen functional assemblies come off of a machine no bigger than a copier machine. In different colors and with smooth surfaces. Certainly not production quality, but still very good for engineering evaluations.

Another decade will tell the tale, and it will be interesting.

[BushCountry]

Bump to read everyone's response later.

[SoothingDave]

Model-making from a printer is something we heard of 3-4 years ago in the CAD industry. But a model is one thing and a machined piece of metal is another.

We print real, functional metal parts from CAD models.

Prometal

SD

[RightWhale]

That's more like it. Tnx for sharing.

[templar]

I wonder how the Feds will controll what is being produced? (hint: think about background checking).

[Grig]

You just know where this will lead. Hackers will manage to capture the data used to create the object, then you and I could go on Kazza and download them to print ourselves hard goods. Then watch all heck break loose.

[VOA]

bump

[CyberCowboy777]

Very cool

How is structural integrity of the steel skeleton in comparison to machined parts?