Rapid prototyping

[Jacks Complete]

Take a look at http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/007614.php

Rapid prototyping is an up-and-coming technology. Sintered metal systems can produce steel blocks with 70% of the strength of real cast steels at the moment, plastic parts that are imaginable but impossible to make are a few minutes from creation, and no-one can tell what you are making from the basic feedstocks!

This is the future, my friends. It will be like the microwave in a few more years. Just download the plan for whatever you want, tweak it a bit, then hit print, and by morning you will have a functional machine in full 3D to do with as you see fit.

[festergrump]

Most excellent! I saw something very similar to this but on a much larger scale in a Popular Science mag some time back. They were discussing the future possibilities of using a crane size and shaped printer to print out houses... complete with wiring and plumbing intact! Now THAT's simply awesome! :D

Time for me to buff up on my 3-D Autocad skills...

[Kamisama]

I don't think the crane sized idea thing will come in for the next 30 years. That's when the idea of the automatic built house started to come in. Things started to get industrialized more.

Other than that, the plastic gun looks of interest. I'd like to see a plastric grenade or some other interesting material.

Looks good, I haven't been into the CAD scene for many, many years. This does a lot better than the subtractive method I can assume though. Because resources aren't really wasted. You can hit stop and you save powder/liquid.

With the subtractive there was a brick and you lost the brick if you f'd up. Not the funnest thing when working on some really complex stuff and you don't have a lot of money to screw around.

[Jacks Complete]

I don't think the crane sized idea thing will come in for the next 30 years.It's here already. There is a UK house builder that does it. The whole thing is accurate to a few mm, all the ducts are there, etc. and the plumbing and wiring is finished on site, then the bricks are put round the outside. All fully customised, even the wallpaper is added before the house is built!

Looks good, I haven't been into the CAD scene for many, many years. This does a lot better than the subtractive method I can assume though. Because resources aren't really wasted. You can hit stop and you save powder/liquid.

With the subtractive there was a brick and you lost the brick if you f'd up. Not the funnest thing when working on some really complex stuff and you don't have a lot of money to screw around.
Yup. And it doesn't have to be plastic, it can be aluminium or steel! I've seen a chess set with the castles as clear resin with two spiral staircases inside, complex and impossible to make any other way, mobius strips, adjustable spanners, small machines, etc.

Funny thing is, the complex hollows inside actually further decrease the manufacturing cost!

And it all runs right off the screen, so no messing about.

[festergrump]

Well, here's some thought regarding the printing out of the firearms:

If one were to design a gun with the 3-D software, publish it online, and everyone with access to one of these printers interested were to print one out exactly as was downloaded... What would this do to forensic investigations of homicides if guns printed in this fashion were used? Would the ballistics be identical if the same brand or even batch of ammo was used?

Also, would these printers be federally regulated to watermark every product printed by each individual machine? Would the printing machines themselves be only available to those who had what the governments of the world would deem a "legitimate need"? Lets face the fact that here in the USA the government feels that 'we the people' aren't ready for certain technologies they've been having fun with in Japan for nearly a decade, now (namely because the government here hasn't found an efficient way to mandate, control, regulate, or tax them).

While this technology is a great step in the right direction for mankind, it is such a thorn in the side to those who wish to maintain control over us free thinking people. I highly doubt this technology will find it's way over here in the US (or the UK) to every Tom, Dick, or Harry with some cash unless smuggled in, and then possession of a device like this might carry a severe penalty (printer + design + X amount of printing substrate = "intent to distibute" sort of thing) without prior authorization from government agencies with severe proctol vision disorder (their fucking heads up their own asses).

Here's hoping, though. I'd love to mess about with one for a while...

[EDIT: Don't get me wrong. I do still have a major thumbs up for the technology but I don't see us getting ahold of it on a level where any of us here will be able to use it as we see fit. We'd be end users of the "product" at best, I think.]

[Kamisama]

ooh copycat weaponry.. such a neat idea. this gives me "good" ideas. :D

To tell you the truth, one of my teachers a few years back, a long time ago.. maybe 7 years ago.
They brought in a video about some government agencies and the stuff inside their buildings.
I believe one was attributed to the FBI and how they have sound proof rooms, technology that could pick out voices from scrambled sound, etc etc.
From what I remember was that they also had this additive technology that, they said could build a weapon in about 24 hours.

[Jacks Complete]

Well, it's now been proven that firearms bullet tests are bad science. Lead melts can vary between bullet batches from the same ladle, while the batches weeks or years later can be identical. Modern Glocks are so similar that the rifling marks are identical, in the same way as most other types of mass produced barrel.

I see no reason why these couldn't be as precise.

As for regulation, yes, I can see that. It would destroy our economies, though, since we would be buying everything in, while the "free world" made and innovated and paid next to nothing for it all.

Building bit by bit, though, you could build a tank or war robot over a few months, one clip together 12" length at a time. No one could tell what it was, either, until all the parts came together. Or the reverse - build an "organ" which you then cut up later to get 24 assorted barrels!