3 ms·

Technology: Print me a Stradivarius

5 points by oliverdamian 16y ago

nyellin 16y ago
Here are some "open source" 3d printers that you can build at home for under $1500: * RepRap - A project with the lofty goal of printing circuit boards and becoming self-replicable (http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page) * Fab@Home - a 3d printer that tries to optimize print quality, but not necessarily print itself (http://www.fabathome.org/ http://www.fabathome.org/) * MakerBot - A company that makes several variants of the RepRap (http://makerbot.com/ http://makerbot.com/) There is a community site of 3d models to print at http://www.thingiverse.com/tag:reprap http://www.thingiverse.com/tag:reprap
- nyellin 16y ago
  HNers and engineering majors: There is a $20,000 prize from HumanityPlus for anyone to develop a RepRap that can print conductive material. http://humanityplus.org/gadaprize/ http://humanityplus.org/gadaprize/ http://reprap.org/wiki/Gada_Prize http://reprap.org/wiki/Gada_Prize
sliverstorm 16y ago
I suspect this will NOT undermine economies of scale (at least in some areas), due to 'toner' costs, operational costs, and power consumption. It will doubtless be less efficient to print a true-to-life oak 2x4 than it is to harvest and mill one with proper economies of scale set up.
Qz 16y ago
One of my favorite sci fi books on this subject is Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. The awesome part is that the book is about the manufacturing revolution that follows the 3d printer. Always two++ steps ahead, that guy.
- bergie 16y ago
  In Diamond Age it was interesting how the control of the printing material ("the source"), and designs was used for a new form of colonialism. The former can easily be controlled in reality as well, but I wonder whether the open source ethos will be able to keep designs free.
  - oliverdamian 16y ago
    I think the command & control aspect of the Industrial age happened because of the need for and the benefits of economies of scale. There was a need to marshal together huge pools of capital, equipment, management structures, assembly lines, etc. With 3D printing and additive manufacturing, there is the hope of bringing peer-to-peer production that has successfully been implemented in software, information, culture & other intangibles, to the tangible physical realm. This is the direction we should be heading to, not the other way around of trying to apply Industrial age property laws and scarcity paradigms to the abundant fractal scalability of peer-to-peer production.

5 points by oliverdamian 16y ago

Here are some "open source" 3d printers that you can build at home for under $1500: * RepRap - A project with the lofty goal of printing circuit boards and becoming self-replicable (http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page) * Fab@Home - a 3d printer that tries to optimize print quality, but not necessarily print itself (http://www.fabathome.org/ http://www.fabathome.org/) * MakerBot - A company that makes several variants of the RepRap (http://makerbot.com/ http://makerbot.com/) There is a community site of 3d models to print at http://www.thingiverse.com/tag:reprap http://www.thingiverse.com/tag:reprap

nyellin 16y ago
HNers and engineering majors: There is a $20,000 prize from HumanityPlus for anyone to develop a RepRap that can print conductive material. http://humanityplus.org/gadaprize/ http://humanityplus.org/gadaprize/ http://reprap.org/wiki/Gada_Prize http://reprap.org/wiki/Gada_Prize

sliverstorm 16y ago

I suspect this will NOT undermine economies of scale (at least in some areas), due to 'toner' costs, operational costs, and power consumption. It will doubtless be less efficient to print a true-to-life oak 2x4 than it is to harvest and mill one with proper economies of scale set up.

Qz 16y ago

One of my favorite sci fi books on this subject is Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. The awesome part is that the book is about the manufacturing revolution that follows the 3d printer. Always two++ steps ahead, that guy.

bergie 16y ago
In Diamond Age it was interesting how the control of the printing material ("the source"), and designs was used for a new form of colonialism. The former can easily be controlled in reality as well, but I wonder whether the open source ethos will be able to keep designs free.
- oliverdamian 16y ago
  I think the command & control aspect of the Industrial age happened because of the need for and the benefits of economies of scale. There was a need to marshal together huge pools of capital, equipment, management structures, assembly lines, etc. With 3D printing and additive manufacturing, there is the hope of bringing peer-to-peer production that has successfully been implemented in software, information, culture & other intangibles, to the tangible physical realm. This is the direction we should be heading to, not the other way around of trying to apply Industrial age property laws and scarcity paradigms to the abundant fractal scalability of peer-to-peer production.