Despite what the linked article says, FAST needs to undergo a long testing and commissioning period of about three years before it actually begins doing any science.

Well... except for the STOVL variant. It's not normally used, but it is most definitely capable of VTOL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Bill

Seems kind of expensive to me for a rotating plate, two LED lasers and a camera.

Bill

You should check into ultra light aircraft... There is no requirements for licensing, registration or airworthyness. A lot of the modern design new ultralight aircraft don't even look like ultralights of the past... They're made with carbon fibre and are fully enclosed. I saw one this year down at Sun-n-fun that was an electric motor glider and could fly for two hours under power... But could sail as long as your bladder could hold out... Which is about the same capability as any other plane. Times are changing for the better in the national airspace. Bill

The article mentions resolution down to .3mm... I'm sure he is incorrect here... the Form1 must be able to go much higher. Standard FDM printers like the Makerbot Replicator can easily do .1mm or even less. RepRaps get down below .02mm regularly.

Bill

I'm not sure where you got that information, but the only problem with the fasteners on the 787 had nothing to do with where they got them... as they are custom designed for this application. It had everything to do with the way they were installed. The problem was that the fasteners were not installed per the specification which caused them to have less holding power than the specifications said.

Those fasteners were designed to hold the composite components to the titanium sub structure, and even in their weakened state were still more than the 1.5x strength factor required. And they NEVER bought them from the hardware store... no hardware store on earth would stock that specific component.

Bill

The temperature at which nylon melts is significantly less than the temperature of ignition, which is where the toxic gasses occur. Many people have been using nylon in their 3d printers with no issue... In fact, it turns out to be a great filament to use in them and makes very nice products.

Bill

Am I missing something? I don't see a linked article or documentation anywhere in the post that states these prices.

Why would a bouncing infrared laser hurt the lens that the laser beam just passed through??? The other end of the laser tube is another IR mirror. There is no ill effect of having the beam bounce back directly down the path.

Bill

White paint would have no effect unless of course it was "titanium white" in which the titanium would be a relfector. The rest of it would simply vaporize away. This isn't a little laser pointer we're talking about... it's a 40 watt CO2 laser... that has a wavelength of 10600 nm. That's a far longer wavelength than the ~800 you can see in the near infrared and will be absorbed in quite a few materials you think are good optical reflectors. Using a rough metal shield would be the best thing to have. (Smooth metal shields tend to be infrared mirrors... which wouldn't exactly help the issue.)

Bill

If the project is well thought out and the pitch is done reasonably well so that the the funder knows what they are getting into, then yes, it does work.

As a kickstarter myself (shameless plug: Ultra-Bot) I started out with a modest goal... and quickly achieved it with a product that I think was well thought out, had reasonably low expectations and offered the intended audience exactly what they wanted.

With that said, however, there are a few kickstarters that are way off the mark and haven't thought it out that well... usually because they have their emotions tied into the product and it really isn't as good as they think it is... which in that case, Kickstarter actually works as well... it allows you to know that your idea isn't so hot before you invest a billion bucks in it.

Bill

And then said "Famous douchebag" posts your message as an A/C on Slashdot.

Man, I just wish I had mod points.

Bill

It's most certaintly not the first. There are several 3D printer manufacturers (including MakerBot themselves) out there that have been doing this for quite a while now... but none of them are charging as much for their consumables. It seems that for $50, you get about a pound of material, which is roughly 3 times the normal cost.

Bill

Bullshit. The largest antitrust fine to date: €1.06B, was on Intel, for abusing its dominance in the computer chip market.

Perhaps you missed the linked videos... but they actually show how flexible the display is as well as how tolerable it is to cutting it in half!

Bill