8 ms·

The Microfactory: A machine shop in a box

31 points by bshanks 13y ago

bshanks 13y ago
yes, the kickstarter is expired, but https://twitter.com/Mebotic https://twitter.com/Mebotic indicates that the project is still alive.
- mebotic 13y ago
  Hey guys, just saw this thread. Yes the project is very much still alive. we are making a less expensive version of the machine which we hope to have up on Kickstarter in the near future. In the interim we are having a ton of fun posting projects we've been making with the machine which you can find on the bottom of our homepage www.mebotics.com THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT!!!
Blahah 13y ago
That thing looks amazing, but probably before its time, $5k is a lot to throw down on a preorder for a machine. I would happily put down that if the thing was already available though... perhaps they should explore more traditional funding routes to get production started?
- Turing_Machine 13y ago
  You can get a milling machine + lathe + a bunch of tooling for way less than that, and have plenty left over to make it CNC if you so desire. http://littlemachineshop.com/ http://littlemachineshop.com/
  - Turing_Machine 13y ago
    Also: http://www.mini-lathe.com/ http://www.mini-lathe.com/
  - shpxnvz 13y ago
    Not to mention that LittleMachineShop sells complete proven CNC rigs for about the same price with no risk, and which are obviously much more rigid as well.
adamwong246 13y ago
How much longer till a machine can produce an identical, working and complete copy using only raw materials and a blueprint?
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  After we discover a way to make microchips in factories that cost $1k instead of $1G, and deal with the revolution in economics and computing that follows it... Then we can think about machines that reproduce themselves.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    As chip technology advances, does any of it make it substantially easier and cheaper to make old, slow chips? In other words, while massive factories are clearly the way to go for current technology and they let you pump out cheap chips in massive quantities for ridiculously low per-unit prices, what if you wanted to, say, fab an 8086 today? If you jump a few decades back, can you make those chips individually today through some reasonable process, or is the whole business just inherently large-scale even after all this time?
    - sbierwagen 13y ago
      An automated chip factory intended for use in a self-replicating machine is only useful if it can produce chips from unprocessed ore. You can make your job a lot easier if you design it to just run on silicon boules-- but those are almost as expensive per kilogram as finished packaged chips... So you need a furnace for refining sand, a chemical factory to produce the dopants, lithography equipment, clean rooms, ultraprecise steppers... Really, the problem here is the hidden complexity. It's not like you can look an obsolete chip foundry, and say, "Okay, so this facility is worth $100 million, and is about an acre of equipment, how do we miniaturize it?" That single foundry is the tip of a $100 billion pyramid. You can't just replicate the foundry, you have to replicate all the factories that built the stuff that went into the foundry.
      - 13y ago
BryantD 13y ago
In the interests of transparency, please note that one of the four founders didn't complete fulfillment on his last maker-oriented Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1738994529/kikori-open-source-cnc-gantry-router/posts/560028 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1738994529/kikori-open-...
- storborg 13y ago
  It's amazing to me that Kickstarter allows delinquent creators to start another project.
  - BryantD 13y ago
    I don't know how they'd track it when it's not the same account. I pledged to the Kikori Kickstarter (which, btw, means I've got some bias in this although I wasn't up for any rewards) so I knew who the guy was, and I happened to notice that he was involved in this one. Even a human reviewer wouldn't have caught that. Well, you could do simple name matching but I don't think that's good enough -- compare this to the no-fly list, for example. So I'm OK with word of mouth being the governor here. It's also a good indicator that you should research before you pledge. I do a quick web search if I'm backing something from someone I don't know. It helps set my expectations.
    - storborg 13y ago
      Kickstarter campaigns do have to be submitted for approval, so theoretically there is a human reviewer. I'd assume step 1 would be "Google the names of the project founders".
      - BryantD 13y ago
        Sure, but then you have the false positive problem that plagues the no-fly list or any other string based name matching system. It'd work for Judah Sher since that's a fairly uncommon name (his Kickstarter is in the top ten results). It wouldn't work for plenty of other people.

31 points by bshanks 13y ago

yes, the kickstarter is expired, but https://twitter.com/Mebotic https://twitter.com/Mebotic indicates that the project is still alive.

mebotic 13y ago
Hey guys, just saw this thread. Yes the project is very much still alive. we are making a less expensive version of the machine which we hope to have up on Kickstarter in the near future. In the interim we are having a ton of fun posting projects we've been making with the machine which you can find on the bottom of our homepage www.mebotics.com THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT!!!

Blahah 13y ago

That thing looks amazing, but probably before its time, $5k is a lot to throw down on a preorder for a machine. I would happily put down that if the thing was already available though... perhaps they should explore more traditional funding routes to get production started?

Turing_Machine 13y ago
You can get a milling machine + lathe + a bunch of tooling for way less than that, and have plenty left over to make it CNC if you so desire. http://littlemachineshop.com/ http://littlemachineshop.com/
- Turing_Machine 13y ago
  Also: http://www.mini-lathe.com/ http://www.mini-lathe.com/
- shpxnvz 13y ago
  Not to mention that LittleMachineShop sells complete proven CNC rigs for about the same price with no risk, and which are obviously much more rigid as well.

adamwong246 13y ago

How much longer till a machine can produce an identical, working and complete copy using only raw materials and a blueprint?

marcosdumay 13y ago
After we discover a way to make microchips in factories that cost $1k instead of $1G, and deal with the revolution in economics and computing that follows it... Then we can think about machines that reproduce themselves.
- mikeash 13y ago
  As chip technology advances, does any of it make it substantially easier and cheaper to make old, slow chips? In other words, while massive factories are clearly the way to go for current technology and they let you pump out cheap chips in massive quantities for ridiculously low per-unit prices, what if you wanted to, say, fab an 8086 today? If you jump a few decades back, can you make those chips individually today through some reasonable process, or is the whole business just inherently large-scale even after all this time?
  - sbierwagen 13y ago
    An automated chip factory intended for use in a self-replicating machine is only useful if it can produce chips from unprocessed ore. You can make your job a lot easier if you design it to just run on silicon boules-- but those are almost as expensive per kilogram as finished packaged chips... So you need a furnace for refining sand, a chemical factory to produce the dopants, lithography equipment, clean rooms, ultraprecise steppers... Really, the problem here is the hidden complexity. It's not like you can look an obsolete chip foundry, and say, "Okay, so this facility is worth $100 million, and is about an acre of equipment, how do we miniaturize it?" That single foundry is the tip of a $100 billion pyramid. You can't just replicate the foundry, you have to replicate all the factories that built the stuff that went into the foundry.
    - 13y ago

BryantD 13y ago

In the interests of transparency, please note that one of the four founders didn't complete fulfillment on his last maker-oriented Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1738994529/kikori-open-source-cnc-gantry-router/posts/560028 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1738994529/kikori-open-...

storborg 13y ago
It's amazing to me that Kickstarter allows delinquent creators to start another project.
- BryantD 13y ago
  I don't know how they'd track it when it's not the same account. I pledged to the Kikori Kickstarter (which, btw, means I've got some bias in this although I wasn't up for any rewards) so I knew who the guy was, and I happened to notice that he was involved in this one. Even a human reviewer wouldn't have caught that. Well, you could do simple name matching but I don't think that's good enough -- compare this to the no-fly list, for example. So I'm OK with word of mouth being the governor here. It's also a good indicator that you should research before you pledge. I do a quick web search if I'm backing something from someone I don't know. It helps set my expectations.
  - storborg 13y ago
    Kickstarter campaigns do have to be submitted for approval, so theoretically there is a human reviewer. I'd assume step 1 would be "Google the names of the project founders".
    - BryantD 13y ago
      Sure, but then you have the false positive problem that plagues the no-fly list or any other string based name matching system. It'd work for Judah Sher since that's a fairly uncommon name (his Kickstarter is in the top ten results). It wouldn't work for plenty of other people.