The 3D Un-Printer 91
An anonymous reader writes "3D printing is on its way toward becoming ubiquitous. Of course, if you have such a printer and want to print something, you need raw materials — the plastic filament that's fed into the machine. It's also likely that while you're learning the ropes, you'll print a bunch of terrible attempts at objects, and end up having to throw them out. Now, Wired is reporting on a device aiming to solve both of those problems. Tyler McNaney's 'Filabot' will break down failed projects as well as many other plastic items from traditional manufacturers, turning them into a filament you can then feed through a 3D printer. 'So far the plastics that work are HDPE, LDPE, ABS, NYLON. More to come on the different types that work.' McNaney sees it as a 'closed-loop recycling system on your desk.' The Filabot's Kickstarter campaign succeeded easily in 2012, and now he and his team are getting ready to launch."
Re:Nylon? (Score:5, Informative)
You mean the same Nylon that was tested and didn't even come close to any levels that could be considered toxic?
http://www.instructables.com/id/Is-3D-Printing-Safe-or-DIY-Testing-for-HCN-from-/ [instructables.com]
As someone who is a large part of the community... (Score:5, Informative)
The Filabot has more marketing than it has engineering. The Lyman filament extruder has already surpassed the filabots noisy and slow output. Makible, makers of the soon to be $200 3D printer the Makibox (http://www.makibox.com), are releasing a 1.75mm extruder (dubbed the "ramen) that they've already demonstrated working in previous google plus hangouts. The filabot is overhyped and overplayed. They got huge funding via a kickstarter a while back and ever since then, produced a prototype machine that's on the level of the very first filament extruders the reprap project had to begin with.
Gary Hodgson has released the history of reprap development on his site: http://garyhodgson.com/reprap/reprap-developer-bookshelf/ [garyhodgson.com] - and if you look through the reprap ebook, you'll see people doing what the filabot is doing now....3 years ago.
This is a complete non-story that publications love to jump on, I just wish they would do their research first.
Re:Still waiting... (Score:5, Informative)
Um, no. It converts matter to other matter and release the potential energy stored within it. There is a theory about some 0.001% of the matter disappearing, but it's nowhere near "converted well".
Mass and energy are the *same thing* for these purposes. Whatever energy is released in the burning of a fire is manifested as a decrease in the mass of the reaction products. It's a tiny decrease, but real. The conversion is perfectly efficient, too. So although burning stuff may not be able to convert very much mass to energy, it does so "well" by most definitions.
Re:Still waiting... (Score:4, Informative)
No fire releases energy stored in the molecular bonds all the matter is still there after. Fire is a rapid decomposition releasing the stored energy as heat and light.
Nuclear is far far more efficient. http://xkcd.com/1162/ [xkcd.com]