A Solar-Powered 3D Printer Prints Glass From Sand

Tx-0 writes in with a story in Colossal Art & Design. From the article: "Industrial designer and tinkerer Markus Kayser spent the better part of a year building and experimenting with two fantastic devices that harness the sun's power in some of the world's harshest climates. The first he calls a Sun Cutter, a low-tech light cutter that uses a large ball lens to focus the sun's rays onto a surface that's moved by a cam-guided system. ... Next, Kayser began to examine the process of 3D printing. Merging two of the deserts most abundant resources, nearly unlimited quantities of sand and sun, he created the Solar Sinter, a device that melts sand to create 3D objects out of glass."

Cam-guided?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, cam-guided, as in cam-guided [wikipedia.org] or CAM-guided? PLEASE, editors, do your jobs.

Re:Not impressed

[codepunk]

But it still works much better than the one that you built.

Re:Not impressed

[Afforess]

One must wonder if you really even RTFA, or are just that dense. The 3-d printer using sand and the sun uses widely available resources, in a relatively short time span, to create complex objects, with little/no waste or pollution of any kind. (Exempting the manufacturing of the printer and solar panels themselves). I have not heard of any such similar achievements. The process itself is easy to oversee, (unskilled labor) and seems like it could be scaled up for larger production easily. This process could possibly be used to help start manufacturing on other words, with Mars being mostly sand. What about this achievement is unimpressive, other than your reading comprehension?

Re:de-desertification

[black soap]

I don't think it is ever a good idea to "let a swarm of robots loose."

Re:Not impressed

[TooMuchToDo]

Right. First-generation design doesn't do everything, film at 11.

It's a proof of concept chief. The first cars didn't have 4-5 star crash safety ratings while able to carry you at 80mph while achieving 40mpg (which my wife's Camry Hybrid does)