3D Self-Replicating Printer to be Released Under GNU License 313
Rob O'Neill writes "A Kiwi open source developer is working on a self-replicating 3D printer, RepRap, to be made available under the GNU license. 'The 3D printer works by building components up in layers of plastic, mainly polylactic acid (PLA), which is a bio-degradable polymer made from lactic acid. The technology already exists, but commercial machines are very expensive. They also can't copy themselves, and they can't be manipulated by users, says Vik Olliver. RepRap has a different idea. The team, which is spread over New Zealand, the UK and the US, develops and gives away the designs for its much cheaper machine, which also has self-copying capabilities. It wants to make the machine available to anybody — including small communities in the developing world, as well as people in the developed world, says Olliver. Accordingly, the RepRap machine is distributed, at no cost, under the GNU (General Public License).'"
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
If a toaster can toast itself, is it self-aware?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Nah... (Score:5, Funny)
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We know that people are going to use the printer to try to make weapons [and] sex toys and drug paraphernalia,
And your concerned about circuit boards?
Seriously, that's a good point though, the article isn't really clear.
A head that deposits low melting-point metal is in development, he says.
Yet the article also states:
RepRap also allows people to build circuits in 3D
Just what are these circuits made of? Or are they just masks you can lay down on a PCBA, leaving you to solder it all together? Anyone know?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, it sounds like it would be trivial to build a PC "board". It wouldn't have to be flat, and you wouldn't need to etch it. You could have places on your device to surface attach ICs.
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Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Rapid prototyping and even direct-to-manufacture with the selective sintering machines is becoming much more accessible and widespread.
Think of it as mimeograph and dot matrix from 20 years ago vs the mundane throwaway photo-quality walmart variety printers now.
"Hang on, mama, I need to print out a new carburetor before we can go to the tractor pull!"
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it as mimeograph and dot matrix from 20 years ago vs the mundane throwaway photo-quality walmart variety printers now.
While I agree, I don't think that this particular technology is where it's at.
You should keep in mind that this is essentially a computer controlled glue gun. It requires the use of low-temperature, air pressure thermoplastic, or similar materials.
Those kinds of materials just don't stand up to abuse. You need to be doing this kind of thing at high temperatures and pressures to make it practical, and then it starts to get dangerous. Further, building layer upon layer in this printing fashion does not lend itself to strong bonds within the material.
What can we do at low temperatures that can do this kind of thing? Rather than adding material to objects, the trick is to remove it.
We have computer controlled routers, lathes, and milling machines that can cut through pretty much any kind of metal or wood with accuracy that far surpasses that of the RepRap, and the end result is sturdier.
Its not like the "waste" is even that, either - metal scraps can be melted down and reused, and wood scraps can be made into compost, kindling, paper, or particle board.
A machine that does this is called a CNC machine, and they already exist. You can buy one ready made, or find tons of articles on the internet discussing how to make one - mostly out of parts available at hardware stores, so they end up being between easily available in the $400-$1500 range.
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For building a piece of capital equipment, the parts must be designed in CAD and the DXF files and part prints must be created. Then all of the sheet metal parts, steel plate parts, machined parts, purchased parts, and hardware have to all be ordered, made, purchased, borrowed, etc.
What if, some day, a company that wanted to design and build a piece of capital equipment could do so - all internally? Without
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Also as to the applicability of the GPL to a device, It is the plans, designs, and instructions which are GPL'ed and, Yes copyright has been used in attempts to control physical device distribution(Epson printer cartridges I believe).
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It also needs some commodity parts for full replication. This is also still in active development, and I'm glad to see multiple groups working on this concept.
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Hugs n' Kisses,
Sam
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Currently it only builds things out of extruded thermoplastic. But it would certainly be possible (and this is a future plan) to use other materials. From the plastic extrusion they're doing now, it's a relatively small step to add a solder-extruder as well, allowing for circuit boards to be assembled.
Actu
We're doomed! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Really? (Score:4, Informative)
HELP REPRAP! (Score:3, Informative)
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In Soviet Russia printer prints printer!
Sheesh, this story has been up for minutes now, keep up, I don't want to have to do everything around here...
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Real headline (Score:2, Informative)
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I don't think that's close to being the case, though.
Re:Real headline (Score:5, Informative)
Text (Score:5, Informative)
Based in the Waitakeres, in West Auckland, software developer and artist Vik Olliver is part of a team developing an open-source, self-copying 3D printer. The RepRap (Replicating Rapid-prototyper) printer can replicate and update itself. It can print its own parts, including updates, says Olliver, who is one of the core members of the RepRap team.
The 3D printer works by building components up in layers of plastic, mainly polylactic acid (PLA), which is a bio-degradable polymer made from lactic acid. The technology already exists, but commercial machines are very expensive. They also can't copy themselves, and they can't be manipulated by users, says Olliver.
RepRap has a different idea. The team, which is spread over New Zealand, the UK and the US, develops and gives away the designs for its much cheaper machine, which also has self-copying capabilities. It wants to make the machine available to anybody -- including small communities in the developing world, as well as people in the developed world, says Olliver.
Accordingly, the RepRap machine is distributed, at no cost, under the GNU (General Public Licence).
RepRap's open-source project aims to keep on improving the machine. "So it can do what people want it to do", says Olliver. Improvements will go back to users and, in this way, the machine as a whole evolves, he says. The idea of evolution is important, he adds. The device Olliver is creating now will probably bear very little resemblance to the device that will appear on everybody's desks in the future, he says.
"We want to make sure that everything is open, not just the design and the software you control it with, but the entire tool-chain, from the ground up," he says.
Olliver works for Catalyst IT, a Wellington-based open-source business system provider. He is fortunate enough to get "Google-time" from the company, which means he is allowed to work on his own research projects one day a week -- just like employees at Google. This has led to considerable developments in the RepRap project in the last six months, his says.
New features include, for example, heads that can be changed for different kinds of plastic. A head that deposits low melting-point metal is in development, he says. The metal melts at a lower temperature than that at which plastic melts, which means the metal can be put inside plastic, says Olliver. "That means, in theory, we could build structures like motors."
RepRap also allows people to build circuits in 3D, as well as various shapes, with the result that objects, such as a cell phone, don't have to be flat, he says.
There are at least seven copies of the RepRap machine in the world that Olliver knows about. The 3D printer also allows for a new and fascinating way of communicating: Olliver can design something at home in New Zealand, which then appears on another researcher's desk, in Bath, in the UK, or the other way around.
At the moment, the RepRap uses two different kinds of plastic -- PLA, a relatively rigid plastic, which is ideal for making objects such as corner brackets; and a more flexible plastic for making, for example, iPod cases, he says.
But having the machine copy itself is the most useful thing the team can make it do, and that is the primary goal of the project, says Olliver. However, it can also be used to make other things, such as wine glasses -- definitely water-tight, he adds -- and plastic parts for machines. When Computerworld talked to him, Olliver had just printed out a small part to fix his blender.
"We know that people are going to use the printer to try to make weapons [and] sex toys and drug paraphernalia," he says. "This is obviously not what we're hoping they are going to build. We are hoping they are going to build more and better RepRaps."
wikipedia link (Score:4, Informative)
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reprap://warez.com/selfdestruct.rr
Free? They make all their money off the 3D ink! (Score:2, Funny)
Skynet Tag (Score:3, Funny)
wrong sci-fi show (Score:2)
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Vik
so last year (Score:5, Informative)
Re:so last year (Score:5, Informative)
GNU license? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:GNU license? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:GNU license? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The GPL is more a social contract than a legal one.. if someone releases something under the GPL, only a rude person will hoard their changes.
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Mod Parent up (Score:2, Interesting)
One Question (Score:5, Funny)
-Peter
Re:One Question (Score:4, Informative)
For example, something one tenth the size will have 1/1000 the mass but 1/100 the strength. Thus from the smaller scale it would seem to be ten times stronger. Hence you can look up SEM pictures of microcantelievers where a flat plane can stand out, hundreds of times longer than it is thick, with no support. How would you wind coils out of wires that seem to be getting stiffer and stiffer?
Fluids are even more interesting. Viscosity will seem to increase as you shrink down, as the same speed of movement corresponds to much more rapid shearing. There are also surface effects; At the scale of small insects, the surface tension formed by a molecule-think water layer is strong enough to support small, flat pieces of steel. It would be harder and harder to force the molten plastic through the nozzle.
Heat diffusion. The RepRap has to melt the plastic to form it, right? The smaller you get, the more rapidly heat will diffuse out of its hopper and into the surrounding materials.
How long till the virus bots show up? (Score:5, Funny)
So I'm going to double click an email attachment and wake up the next morning to find my house infested with little insect like robots wandering around my house looking for credit cards.
researcherÃ(TM)s (Score:2, Funny)
weapons [and?] sex toys (Score:5, Funny)
"We know that people are going to use the printer to try to make weapons [and] sex toys and drug paraphernalia," he says. "This is obviously not what we're hoping they are going to build. We are hoping they are going to build more and better RepRaps."
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Do weapons and sex toys have some kind of association that requires the use of an "and" as opposed to a comma?
Can it produce ink too? (Score:2)
I can't get to the article right now but I wonder how hard it would be to have the printer make a machine to create its own "ink" from common household items like sand/glass oil and animal fat, something bizarre like that.
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Can you get to the summary on this page?
copy of a copy of a copy? (Score:4, Interesting)
And would interesting mutations get in, like in DNA replication, I wonder?
Not a facsimile machine (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you could build some sort of scanner-type machine that would scan an object and create a digital description of it. Then maybe you could get generation-based degradation, if you really want to. ;)
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I think the idea is that maybe the measurement will be slightly off in the first generation, leading to the track the head runs on to be slightly wider in the second generation, leading to a machine that stretches everything it produces by 0.05% in one dimension in the third generation, which just happens to have been assembled so that the nozzle points along the other axis and produces things stretched by 0.05% in one dimension while 0.05% thicker in the
Yes but... (Score:2)
Official links (Score:5, Informative)
http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome [reprap.org]
Here's their main blog, where you can keep track of progress on RepRap:
http://blog.reprap.org/ [reprap.org]
That's great... (Score:5, Funny)
But the liquid plastic cartridges are $250 each...
It doesn't really self-replicate (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's the real site. [reprap.org] Look at the picture. The machine can make the white plastic parts. Not the motors, not the leadscrews, not the frame rods, not the belts, not the wiring, and not the control electronics. The parts it is making look like about $10 worth of injection molded plastic - the cheap parts.
Re:It doesn't really self-replicate (Score:5, Interesting)
And $650 $45000.
Re:It doesn't really self-replicate (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong; that's not $10 worth of injected-molded plastic, that's thousands of dollars worth at least.
Injection-molded plastic, as the name implies, requires a mold, and a machine to inject plastic with. Molds are expensive, as are these machines. Do you have the facilities at home to make injection-molded plastic parts? No? Then it's going to cost you a fair bit of money to send your CAD drawings to a place for them to make a mold and produce parts for you in large quantities. You say you only need one? Too bad. The cost isn't much different whether you want one or 1000.
That "$10 worth" of parts is only $10 when someone has gone to the trouble of making molds and doing a production run in the thousands or more.
With a machine like this, those parts can be made for next to nothing. You'll still have to add motors, leadscrews, belts, wiring, etc., but all that stuff is easily bought off-the-shelf, since it's all standardized. Special plastic parts for your particular application aren't available off-the-shelf, and that's the problem solved here.
Von Neumann probes (Score:2)
Hint to the project leader: Contact NASA, this is some cool stuff. Just don't screw up like the Slylandro [wikipedia.org] did.
--
Toro
NASA & ESA Not interested (Score:2)
Vik
The singularity (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, never mind.
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Re:The singularity (Score:5, Insightful)
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You've got to tell them... (Score:3, Funny)
whoo! lego! (Score:4, Funny)
this is going to be the ultimate answer to lego. Which of course means as soon as it comes out, it will destroy the social lives of millions of tinkering adults.
At least the cat can't pee in it XD
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Instead of it being the death of Lego, it could be the birth of Legos ginormous monopoly on small printed plastic parts.
I'll get it to make... (Score:4, Funny)
It's all about the qty (Score:2)
Or perhaps 42 oz? or maybe 42cc?
Missing the forest (Score:5, Interesting)
However, in my opinion (such a rare thing on the internet) they are so enthralled with their grand ideas that it prevents them from actually getting anywhere. From their point of view, any design that can not replicate itself (except the metal) is an inherent failure. The other properties of the machine only start to matter once that is achieved.
While there is nothing wrong with the goal, it means that there is almost no drive at all to produce a machine that is practical for anything BUT duplicating its own plastic parts. Their design calls for basic, lumpy plastic bits and so there is no emphasis on better precision. They are only willing to use materials that can be made yourself, and so there is no chance of it working with better quality plastics. They have designed a machine that needs no small parts or detail work and so there is no emphasis on getting a print head design or motors that supports a better resolution, not that the current plastic could support a better resolution.
Five years from now they are going to announce they they have been able to successfully create a machine that can cheaply and easily replicate itself and that now they will work on making it better. And not even
Missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, making it capable of producing its own parts automatically makes it capable of creating a whole heap of other stuff. People are subverting bits of the design already.
Vik
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And not even /. will cover the announcement because there will be consumer machines on the shelves that don't cost that much more, are more dependable and can do useful work.
Such devices are already available, but they cost thousands of dollar, since there is little chance of these to ever become mass marketed I doubt that their price will fall anytime soon or ever for that matter. However what might likely happen is that somebody will allow you to send in your CAD design by email, get it printed out and then send it back to you. There already is a shop that is doing that for World of Warcraft character models, including custom armor, color and stuff, can't take long till some
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But that's like complaining that the OLPC won't run Vista. That's not it's point, which is to put something otherwise inaccessible into the hands of the masses. By requiring it to work with materials you can make yourself, even the relatively impoverished can start using one without having to scrounge expensive supplies from charities or other benefactors.
Sure, it's a poor knock-off of industrial grade machines - in almost exactly the same way that an OLPC is a poor knock-off of a mainframe.
Here's a short-cut for ya (Score:5, Funny)
All you have to do is, when some tells the machine to print a copy of itself - have it print a weapon instead. Then it points it at the user and says, "Go buy another copy of me and tell everyone I printed it. And if you think you can come back here with the police instead - keep in mind that I can also print sex toys and drug paraphernalia. So... do we understand each other?"
Granted, it'd make for some pretty awkward moments at trade shows - but it would still technically be a self-replicating printer.
*raises hand* (Score:2)
How long until I can make a sex android?
Seriously.
Copyleft life (Score:2)
Sure, this printer might be able to reproduce itself, but how can we be sure that it will always reproduce a copy of its complete corresponding source code? Or at least a written offer? What happens if it doesn't honour the written offer? Can its ability to propagate itself be revoked?
Self Replicating Printer (Score:2, Funny)
Kiwi? (Score:4, Funny)
Deterioration in later copies (Score:5, Informative)
If they actually start making the hard parts, they'll run into some of the tough problems of machine shop work. A classic problem: how to make a leadscrew more precise than the one you've got. If you just make a new one using an existing one for positioning, each generation of copy will be worse than the previous one.
Maudsley solved this problem between 1800 and 1810, with his "screw-originating machine". This makes a very accurate screw, slowly and in a soft metal. This screw is then used in a thread-cutting lathe to make second generation leadscrews that aren't quite as good. So most screws are "descended" from a reference screw, and are only a few generations removed from it.
There are other ways to approach the problem today, typically using some form of position feedback separate from the drive mechanism. For a self-replicating machine that doesn't get precision parts from an external source, position measurement via absolute means, like interferometery, as in a ruling engine, might be necessary.
Right now, the RepRap people are punting on the generation loss problem, because they're only making the easy parts. If they're serious, they'll need to solve it.
Damn those new-fangled printers (Score:4, Funny)
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Yes, but... (Score:2)
Who created the god creating god?
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As several people pointed out earlier, although plastic material is cheap, the plastics are actually the expensive parts because of the extremely high cost of making an injection mold. This project is definitely something to keep an eye on.