Posted on 09/20/2007 9:36:25 AM PDT by cool2007
FSB Magazine) -- After midnight, it's dark and nearly silent in the Klock Werks Kustom Cycles shop (kustomcycles.com) in Mitchell, S.D. The only sound is the low hum emanating from a box that looks like a cross between a dormitory fridge and a Xerox machine. Behind a compartment of clear glass, the device - a Stratasys Prodigy 3-D printer - is constructing a complex shape, all curves and spaces, out of plastic.
When he arrives at his shop in the morning, Brian Klock strolls over to the printer and pops open the glass compartment. Carefully breaking away the supports, he pulls out a perfectly turned machine part - a plastic housing that slides neatly into place between the metal handlebars of the custom-built motorcycle he's been working on, covering the fuel gauge, speedometer, and other dials. All that's left to do is to paint it.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
It's nothing new, really. jewelers have been using these machines for some time now to make cores for lost-wax-process casting. My company used to sell them. They can make metal parts with them now too. There were several 3D printing machines that used metal as a medium at IMTS last year.
I remember reading about something like this in one of those old “adventurer on Mars” type books. The guy discovered the machine and made a propeller. I remember thinking as a boy what a cool machine that would be. Now it’s finally happening.
You’ve got to admit, though, that it’s a pretty damned amazing (and transformational) technology. Consider, for example, the implications for catalyst or heat exchanger design; rocket injector plates, and so on. Amazing potential!
How soon to The Fifth Element cloning chamber?
Otherwise known as Stereo-lithography....
These machines have been around for years...it’s just the technology has reached the point where the process is much cheaper now.
This is a rapid prototype machine, machining the part from a 3D file. You’re right, it’s not new.
That it is. The main obstacles right now for the applications you speak of seem to be getting it to work with materials that are strong enough and can withstand extreme heat.
perfectly turned machine part
:::::::
I think lathes ‘turn’ parts.
I forgot to mention the potential big advantages to products like this: Unlike machining parts from a solid, casting, or forging, there are no tooling costs, and parts can go from a solid model like an IGES file direct to the machine without toolpathing, post-processing, program editing, or proving out. That’s huge, since drawing the solid model is the easy part. Also, there are certain parts you just can’t machine, like a part that has a winding passage for fluid to pass through. And there’s far less wasted material.
Mass produced, low cost, flux capacitors?
Print me a diamond ring. Print me a laptop. Print me a car. Print me a barrel of oil. Print me a tank of gas. Print me a handgun. Print me a shotgun. Print me dinner at a high-class restaurant, and keep it at the right temperature.
You and some others here have missed the point. The story never said it was new technology, the story was about these systems becoming affordable to smaller businesses.
Seems to me that you could add a second cycle for those. Vapor deposition doesn't seem to be that big a barrier for any material, even titanium or the more exotic alloys.
What you could do, is to deposit a "vapor layer", and then print an "etching layer" over it. That's the approach they're using for nanotech parts ... why not use it for macro-scale items as well?
“I think lathes ‘turn’ parts.”
We also don’t dial telephones any longer or flip channels on the tv (remotes in the 1960s used to have flipper switches), but the context is the same.
OK
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