I have a good sized CNC mill in my garage that I use practically every week to make various rocket parts. It is certainly cool, but the realities of tool reach, work holding, and chip removal make it more of a "super power tool", rather than a free-form-fab.
The various technologies that essentially rasterize arbitrary parts are what excite the imagination, but I don't expect any radical changes in society any time soon from them. Stereolithography is pretty mature, and getting arbitrary parts rasterized in plastic is fairly common today. However, in 99% of the cases, these are still used as models / proof of concept / R&D, not actual manufacturing, because they are drastically more expensive than, say, injection molding, and more mechanically limited. There are a lot of technologies touted for rasterizing 3D metal parts, but I spent some time recently trying to find a place to fab modest sized rocket engines, and none of the companies I spoke with were able to handle it for various reasons.
I do expect this to become very exciting, but it is several years away. The excitement won't be about fabricating things that you currently buy (conventional mass production will retain significant cost benefits), but allowing low cost R&D. When you can send an arbitrary 3D CAD model over the net to a company with a metal rapid prototyping machine (they will remain expensive for quite some time) and get your part overnighted to you in a couple days with no setup fees, you will be able to iterate design cycles twice a week at quite low expense. You can do this today with plastic, and in some limited cases of small metal parts, but when you can start doing it in significant engineering materials that can be used in functional prototype machines, lots of new opportunities will arise.
I'm familiar with CNC, Stereo Lith, and variations that use metals, ceramics, etc. The problem is, you can't make most of the things people find interesting - how about a pen? A book? Anything electronic? Anything with parts that are made of more than one material? How about an electric motor, necessary for half the gadgets in your house? The only things these kinds of technology will allow you to make are relatively simple mechanical things, which if you think about it, aren't very interesting. Almost all
You can do this today with plastic, and in some limited cases of small metal parts, but when you can start doing it in significant engineering materials that can be used in functional prototype machines, lots of new opportunities will arise.
There is, after all, no super-material. To design complex machines, the differing properties of materials are often exploited. And in electronics, we still need some pretty rare earth elements.
These problems may be lessened by nanotechnology, where it is possible to cr
You mean like this place [emachineshop.com]? I haven't dealt with them but I've been tempted given the shoddy quality of PC parts (I build my own PCs). The only problem is you really want to be able prototype variations to fine tune a design before you commit to a production run.
I think part of the problem is they no longer make generic parts that you can custom build from any more. It's all custom made and not reusable for any other purpose. It will only get worse until the ability to customize becomes cheap and ubiquit
Too true. In Delft, a professor working on quantum representations of electronic circuits told me the following: it takes them 3 months to get a chip from a fab. Sometimes the chips are flawed...so there go another three months. Sometimes everything is correct, but the circuit still doesn't do what it's supposed to; a quick modification to the design...and another three months worth of waiting. Not to mention the expense! A different group in the faculty is working on systems
Get a calculator, figure the odds. More likely, there will be controls on raw materials that could be used to produce weapons or infringe patents. Think this is far-fetched? I remember when kids could get chemistry sets with real chemicals. Try doing that now.
Rapid prototyping, etc (Score:4, Interesting)
The various technologies that essentially rasterize arbitrary parts are what excite the imagination, but I don't expect any radical changes in society any time soon from them. Stereolithography is pretty mature, and getting arbitrary parts rasterized in plastic is fairly common today. However, in 99% of the cases, these are still used as models / proof of concept / R&D, not actual manufacturing, because they are drastically more expensive than, say, injection molding, and more mechanically limited. There are a lot of technologies touted for rasterizing 3D metal parts, but I spent some time recently trying to find a place to fab modest sized rocket engines, and none of the companies I spoke with were able to handle it for various reasons.
I do expect this to become very exciting, but it is several years away. The excitement won't be about fabricating things that you currently buy (conventional mass production will retain significant cost benefits), but allowing low cost R&D. When you can send an arbitrary 3D CAD model over the net to a company with a metal rapid prototyping machine (they will remain expensive for quite some time) and get your part overnighted to you in a couple days with no setup fees, you will be able to iterate design cycles twice a week at quite low expense. You can do this today with plastic, and in some limited cases of small metal parts, but when you can start doing it in significant engineering materials that can be used in functional prototype machines, lots of new opportunities will arise.
John Carmack
Re:Rapid prototyping, etc (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Rapid prototyping, etc (Score:1)
There is, after all, no super-material. To design complex machines, the differing properties of materials are often exploited. And in electronics, we still need some pretty rare earth elements.
These problems may be lessened by nanotechnology, where it is possible to cr
Re:Rapid prototyping, etc (Score:1, Interesting)
I think part of the problem is they no longer make generic parts that you can custom build from any more. It's all custom made and not reusable for any other purpose. It will only get worse until the ability to customize becomes cheap and ubiquit
Re:Rapid prototyping, etc (Score:2)
Too true. In Delft, a professor working on quantum representations of electronic circuits told me the following: it takes them 3 months to get a chip from a fab. Sometimes the chips are flawed...so there go another three months. Sometimes everything is correct, but the circuit still doesn't do what it's supposed to; a quick modification to the design...and another three months worth of waiting. Not to mention the expense! A different group in the faculty is working on systems
Re:Rapid prototyping, etc (Score:1)