4 ms·
The RepRap is an awesome project, but it is NOT self-replicating. It can print the plastic parts which make up a small part of system Bill of Materials, at much
by replicatorblog 17y ago
The RepRap is an awesome project, but it is NOT self-replicating. It can print the plastic parts which make up a small part of system Bill of Materials, at much lower resolution. It is very lossy. I use a high end 3D printer at my office and even with precision machines they are very finicky and prone to malfunction. MakerBot is similarly cool, but again it won't reproduce itself.
A sub $1000 3D printer is cool enough, lets not get carried away.
- donw 17y agoI'm going to guess that's why they have 'potentially' in the title. The video also mentions that the next version of the RepRap will be able to print out circuit boards, which brings it one step closer to actually being a little self-replicating factory.
- replicatorblog 17y agoDonw, I know, but it is a weak qualifier, sure by part count the thing is 50% reproducible, but my proportion almost none is e.g. the metal bars. Its kind of like saying that your desktop printer can reproduce itself by printing layers of paper that can be cut and glued together. I bet someone could do something, but it is unlikely.
- kragen 17y agoBy proportion, you're 0% reproducible; you consist entirely of atoms that must be sourced from the environment. The relevant thing is the availability of the needed parts from the environment and the amount of human effort needed to carry out the replication. At this point the needed parts are widely available and cheap in the US, but sometimes hard to find in other places, but it doesn't look like that's the real problem. And the time to assemble the new machine once you have the parts isn't a big problem. The current problem, as far as I can tell from reading the blogs, is that the machine isn't yet reliable enough to reproduce itself in a lights-off fashion. You have to keep fixing it.