Affordable 3D Metal Printer Developed Based on RepRap 199
hypnosec writes "Researchers have developed and open-sourced a low-cost 3D metal printer capable of printing metal tools and objects that can be build for under £1,000. A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Joshua Pearce at the Michigan Technological University developed the firmware and the plans for the printer and have made it available freely. The open source 3D printer is definitely a huge leap forward as the starting price of commercial counterparts is around £300,000. Pearce claimed that their technology will not only allow smaller companies and start-ups to build inexpensive prototypes, but it will allow other scientists and researchers to build tools and objects required for their research without having to shell out thousands, and could be used to print parts for machines such as windmills."
It's a modified RepRap; looks like we're getting closer to the RepRap being able to print all of its parts.
Piracy (Score:5, Funny)
You wouldn't download a car........?
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You wouldn't download a car........?
You wouldn't steal a baby.
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Fuck yes I would!
And next year I will be uploading some car parts. Stay tuned for my 4AGE 16v ITB adapter and crank ladder bars.
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Has anybody said "guns" yet?
Side Show and a Game Changer (Score:5, Insightful)
With this technology, guns will be a side show. Yes, people will make them and there will be much bloviation about that, but the real impact will be on local economies.
Open any phone book or Google for any city, "machine shop"; there will be hundreds. They are the foundation of any kind of manufacturing economy. My company deals with at least 20 different shops, parceling out work to meet shipping deadlines and lower costs. When this technology matures to the point where it is as ubiquitous as a CNC mill or lathe, you will see turn around times crash and labor shift from skilled machinists to skilled CAD engineers (good or bad...you decide). It's conceivable that the actual making of a part becomes almost a lights out operation.
Hang on to your hats, this will be a game changer in the world economy.
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I don't think that's really true, at least not in the near term.
Years ago I had something simple made out of steel at a local machine shop and it cost be a bloody fortune for something simple. That's the kind of stuff this will be replacing for the near term. The one off relatively simple things is where something like this printer comes into play and (good) machine shops don't live off of that type of work. What you are talking about is the higher volume and higher skill machining and that will not be repl
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This won't replace a machine shop. It uses a MIG welder as an extruder, so precise tolerances aren't what this machine is for. Hackaday [hackaday.com] featured this yesterday, and they have a picture on the front page that may have come from an academic journal.
It might complement other equipment in a machine shop, though. It's also interesting to realize that this may work with other metals.
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Jet engine makers have made and tested (successfully) titanium turbine blades using additive manufacturing. Tolerances for those blades is on the order of 0.0001". I assume there must be some final fitting and polishing but they're not talking. And NASA funded a project that successfully built and tested a small rocket motor. The rocket motor was made in one piece, replacing a fabricated item that had many pieces. The time and cost to make it were both less than 10% of the old method.
IOW, companies are
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3D printed guns. (Score:3)
This will be the next thing demonised in the media, even though the technology has many positive benefits in terms of manufacturing. But after printing the object do you still need to trim it and sand it down? Maybe you print it slightly oversize and then trim it down to smooth it out. What is the exact finishing process with this tech?
Re:3D printed guns. (Score:5, Informative)
The demonization has been going on for a while. Here's an article from almost a year ago: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/01/18/meet-steve-israel-the-congressman-who-wants-to-ban-3d-printable-guns-qa/ [forbes.com]
Steve Israel wants to ban your access to 3d printers, and he's using guns as a way to get the camel's nose under the tent. Here are some particularly telling quotes from the interview in the story linked above:
What we’re trying to do is make it clear that if you choose to construct a weapon or weapon component using a 3D printer, and it’s homemade, you’ll be subject to penalties.
Catch that? If you're a business, doing it for commercial gain, then he thinks it's okay. If you're the little guy, doing it as a hobby, then simply doing it even if no one ever gets hurt will get you sent to jail.
Steve Israel: But if you’re going to download a blueprint for a plastic weapon that can be brought onto an airplane, there’s a penalty to be paid.
Interviewer: Just for downloading it?
Steve Israel: No, no, for actually manufacturing it. And we’re not even going after manufacturers, either, but lone wolves, individuals.
Again there, if you're a business he's fine. If you're an individual, it's banned. He even slips and admits he want to criminalize the sharing of the information.
So we’re talking to stakeholders, and working to create a distinction between that lone wolf and legitimate manufacturers of plastic clips.
Make no mistake: the forces working to ban private ownership of 3d printers are already moving against you. The bogey man of undetectable guns is simply a convenient way to get people on board with the first step of restriction. Once that's in place another big-business congressman will come back and say, "Poor GM is losing money because it can't sell overpriced factory parts because people are just printing them. Ban all private 3d printer ownership!"
The only thing in question is how many people will be fooled and take up the torch and pitchfork against 3d printed guns, not realizing that they're working against their own desire to have privately owned 3d printing technology. As is commonly the case, the fight for gun rights is only a microcosm in the larger fight for natural and civil rights. You want 3d printers? You're going to have to fight to protect 3d printed guns. You want marijuana legalized? You're going to have to fight for private ownership of machine guns. You want to continue to be free from poll taxes? You're going to have to support repealing the NFA.
Issues of law and politics don't each exist in separate vacuums.
Does it actually print, or does it cut? (Score:2)
It's not really clear what it's doing. The photos show square bits of metal, and no signs of any kind of additive manufacturing. This looks more like a computer controlled metal cutter. Which is nice and all, but not really a 3D printer.
When I heard "metal printer" I thought it was a laser sintering machine or something of that kind.
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Its a MIG welder with a moving base plate. This means the resolution will be quite poor (like 4-5mm wide draw path) and you will need to print onto a metal plate/base and then cut it off after if required. Despite its limitations it is an interesting concept.
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But is the resolution actually that bad? Because that would be quite useless. You'd have to machine the final product in practically every case.
I guess we'll never know, because the linked article was hosted on a cracker jack box. Techienews indeed.
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But is the resolution actually that bad? Because that would be quite useless. You'd have to machine the final product in practically every case.
I guess we'll never know, because the linked article was hosted on a cracker jack box. Techienews indeed.
Yes, it would be that bad. I can't imagine there's really any use for a "printer" like that ... you'd end up with a messy blob of metal with little strength that would need more machining to make useful than it would take to just CNC... or use a real sintering printer.
Its sort of a cool hack, but ... I mean, if you want a non-plastic printer, make one that prints out cookie dough. At least you'd get something tasty out of it.
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Yes, it would be that bad.
Citation needed. The paper does not in fact specify the feature size, but it does say it's related to wire size. I think it's much smaller than you think.
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This can't come about fast enough (Score:5, Interesting)
I first tried laser sintering 5 years ago - I got a few steel gun parts custom-made by a "printing" company, then mounted the parts in a real gun and got the proofhouse to shoot it until it died. I was working for a certain very well known luxury gunmaker at the time, and we were investigating new ways of producing parts in very small volume.
The laser sintered parts were as good as, or better than the original parts! And the prices are great too: we paid per cm3 of material "printed", which worked at at just under $900 for a receiver, as opposed to $7500 for the equivalent part machined with conventional tools.
I've known since then that this is the future of metalworking. As a result, I've been holding off upgrading the lathe and the milling machine in my workshop, because I've been waiting for a metal-building machine that doesn't cost a quarter million bucks.
This $1000 thing probably won't be it, but the next generation machines, or the generations after them, will. At last!
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This isn't laser sintering. Its using a MIG welder like a plastic 3D printer uses filament.
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The laser sintered parts were as good as, or better than the original parts!
But does that mean that the sintered parts were good, or that the originals are shit? You haven't given us enough information (make, model, caliber, and year of firearm to start with, not to mention the actual parts) to make this determination ourselves.
I'm only skeptical because "powder metal" (large-volume sintering) is shit. A PM conn rod for a 7.3 powerstroke is twice as likely to fail and has 1/10 as desirable a failure mode as the forged part; it's ten times more likely to break rather than simply ben
Re:This can't come about fast enough (Score:5, Interesting)
But does that mean that the sintered parts were good, or that the originals are shit? You haven't given us enough information (make, model, caliber, and year of firearm to start with, not to mention the actual parts) to make this determination ourselves.
Well, I can't give you any specifics (make/model) or I'd reveal whom I worked for, and I'm under a non-disclosure agreement.
But here's an example of what I experienced with the sintered metal:
I took a test side-by-side 12 cal which had silver-brazed demi block barrels made of high-quality Bohler steel. I had a lock printed. All we did to the lock was polish it a bit to achieve perfect fit in the receiver, when we shot the gun repeatedly in double-shot with proofhouse loads (+30% powder). At some point, a rather massive 2-mm disjunction occured at the breech. We figured the lock's metal had given way. In fact it was the barrel's lugs that had flattened themselves onto the lock, and the lock itself was just fine. We were really amazed!
Re:This can't come about fast enough (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting, but still not clear why the failure occurred.
A very quick browse of available literature (VERY) suggests that laser sintering produces a very fine crystal structure, which suggests that the laser-sintered metal will have the same problem as other types of sintered metal. That fine crystal structure is inferior to a large grain structure. Parts will snap instead of bending when they do finally fail if sintered as compared to forged, or machined from forged billet.
Still cool for prototyping, and lots of parts. I'd rather have laser-sintered parts in my gun than traditional powder metal. I'd rather have parts made from forged billet than either.
Re:This can't come about fast enough (Score:4, Informative)
12 cal? Yeah, your story checks out! /s
For you edification, the firearm he is describing appears to be a very high-end double rifle, in "12 bore" size (0.739"). That is a dangerous game rifle, and may well cost over $100,000.
Sigh. (Score:2)
Wake me up when we can print silicon.
Any developments in this direction? It surely would be possible to print a 1950's type of transistor at home, right?
Re:Sigh. (Score:4, Funny)
I'll be more impressed when it's capable of printing a vaccuum tube...
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I'll be more impressed when it's capable of printing a vaccuum tube...
Printing a metal-shelled tube shouldn't be that hard.
Printing the vacuum, on the other hand.
Re:Sigh. (Score:4, Funny)
Attach a small fan to it as an air-printing attachment, then turn the power plug 180 degrees so it runs backwards. Do I really have to think of everything around here?
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Or use a multiple material printer and as you build up the walls fill it with liquid mercury, and add a small valve. When the tube is completed let the mercury drain out for the most part, it should pull a vacume behind it, and then permanently close the valve.
Historically you would make the vacume tube and then put it through a process to create the vacume and seal the tube. One of the better was of creating the vacume was to attach the tube to a tube trap through which mercury was dripped. The space betwe
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Wake me up when we can print silicon.
Any developments in this direction? It surely would be possible to print a 1950's type of transistor at home, right?
We already print silicon. That's how Intel and AMD make their chips. Print masks and deposit materials through the masks.
Ohhhh. You wanted a home printer for silicon!
Seriously, take a look at the photo of the original transistor. Not exactly a work of beauty there. But the hard part about making more sophisticated chips is in refining and doping the silicon. Granted, you probably don't have ion-deposition equipment in an old closet either, but you can't just build micro-electronics from the kids sandbox.
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Wake me up when we can print silicon.
Any developments in this direction? It surely would be possible to print a 1950's type of transistor at home, right?
We already print silicon. That's how Intel and AMD make their chips. Print masks and deposit materials through the masks.
Ohhhh. You wanted a home printer for silicon!
Seriously, take a look at the photo of the original transistor. Not exactly a work of beauty there. But the hard part about making more sophisticated chips is in refining and doping the silicon. Granted, you probably don't have ion-deposition equipment in an old closet either, but you can't just build micro-electronics from the kids sandbox.
Actually we print on thin slivers of silicon. You wouldn't accuse a Xerox of printing paper would you?
Recursive self printers near at hand? (Score:2)
Right now I am imagining a bug that causes a self-printing printer to go out of control, so that the printers keeps printing printers that keep printing printers that keep ...
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Right now I am imagining a bug that causes a self-printing printer to go out of control, so that the printers keeps printing printers that keep printing printers that keep ...
Cue up Paul Dukas. Bomp-de-bomp-de-bomp-de-bompitty...
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In 1955, Philip K. Dick wrote a short story, "Autofac [wikipedia.org]", about self-replicating machinery. Still a good read, IMO.
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Right now I am imagining a bug that causes a self-printing printer to go out of control, so that the printers keeps printing printers that keep printing printers that keep ...
It's called the Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Fundamental problem (Score:3)
"...looks like we're getting closer to the RepRap being able to print all of its parts."
Sure, assuming it can print an Millermatic 140 arc welder and an Arduino.
Look, nature has already solved this problem, so we know something about the complexity and difficulty involved. We have cows that print milk and copies of themselves, chickens than print eggs and copies of themselves, grass that prints grain and copies of itself, etc. These things consists of millions of cells, each about as intelligent as an Arduino. Good luck creating something like that with a few hundred parts!
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"A horse can make other horses, that is a trick that bulldozers haven't figured out yet."
Heinlein
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With a little finagling, you can print serviceable PCBs and functional transistors using the same basic machine. Not in any real quality of course, but "it technically works" proof of concept stuff so far.
But after a certain point, you're no longer printing parts but just commodity items. For example, there's no point in printing nails for a wooden frame because nails are literally cheaper than a dime a dozen to begin with.
=Smidge=
I long for the day when stories about 3D printers (Score:2)
do generate more comments about guns than anything else. But I guess other uses are not "newsworthy". We are all idiots and we deserve the government and laws we refuse to do anything about. 30k dead per year is nothing compared to the value of our freedom to kill 30k per year. Yay! We win!
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But I guess other uses are not "newsworthy".
Prints a "Michael Jackson Pacifier!"
Umm, just get a welder. (Score:2)
Isn't an affordable 3D metal printer simply a welder attached to an x, y, z axis table? With a welder you can control the bead size by simply adjusting the feed rate and current. What is the issue here? Just get a mig welder, disassemble and attach it to a robot, then enclose the whole thing in a box filled with inert gas.
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Just get a mig welder, disassemble and attach it to a robot, then enclose the whole thing in a box filled with inert gas.
And then write the control software etc...
This is basically what they've done. And they're giving you the plans so you can do it more easily.
3D metal printer, self assembling (Score:2)
Well, I'm not going to worry until it's capable of scavenging the raw materials to build copies of itself.
That could get a bit dicey.
cf "The Mechanical Mice" by Eric Frank Russell
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printrbot simple is 300 bucks too.
but really, it doesn't print metal. metal depositing printer by some means that works is a big deal even if you can get a crappy cnc that does metal somewhat for 1000-3000 bucks.
Re:Maki box @ US$300 (Score:5, Funny)
http://makibox.com/
I've yet not tried it but not heard any major disasters.
Based on your very thorough review of this product, I'm seriously considering ordering one.
Re:Guns...Lots Of Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
More like the wingnuts who attempt to print their own guns will end up disarming, or at least dishanding themselves.
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http://hexus.net/tech/news/peripherals/62261-direct-metal-laser-sintering-used-3d-print-working-metal-pistol/ [hexus.net]
You were saying?
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I'm guessing most tinfoil hat types don't have tens of thousands of dollars and an team of engineers at their disposal. I imagine consumer grade models will use something like pot metal rather than stainless steel. And even this .45 is surely not as strong as the forged barrels of production weapons. I wonder what would happen if they tried to print a functional .30-06 M1 Garand?
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He's talking about the people who use a $300 printrbot to try to print a zip gun, which then proceeds to blow up in their hand like a cheap firework.
These are the same geniuses that kill/injure/maim themselves and others and destroy homes and property every single day doing things like putting a frozen turkey into a gas burner heated deep-fryer full of hot cooking oil, and uncountable numbers of other equally idiotic and extremely dangerous actions and worse.
You can't fix stupid by trying to idiot-proof the world. It's not possible, it cannot work, and it unfairly curtails everyone else's choices and freedoms.
Darwin gots' to get paid, yo.
Strat
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Cause and effect reversed. (Score:5, Insightful)
The freedom of expression, used by people willing to suffer the consequences of standing up to tyrants, their ability to inspire millions of ordinary people to rise up against tyranny is what creates a thriving democracy with great standard of living. That is when warrior wannabes like you strut around claiming to be the cause. You are the effect, not the cause, of the first amendment.
Trying your "second amendment solutions" against a lawfully elected government of the USA is rebellion, and it is constitutional for the government to put such insurrection using any means necessary. If the government is restrained it is because of the first amendment rights of people who would speak up against heavy handed tactics by the government. Definitely not because of your puny little glocks, brownings or bushmasters. Our army had been battling AK-47s and IEDs for ages now buddy, you don't stand a chance against our army. You are able to trash talk, only because we restrain our government against taking overt and open actions against US Citizens.
Just look around you. People who used guns to overthrow tyrants became tyrants themselves. People who spoke out and inspired ordinary people to rise up against tyranny created enduring democracies. Only in such democracies crazy wingnuts are able to run around waving their guns thinking they somehow are the protection against tyranny.
Re:Cause and effect reversed. (Score:5, Insightful)
You got cause and effect reversed.
You got the whole point missed. Right to bear is not medicine. It's vaccine.
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You got the whole point missed. Right to bear is not medicine. It's vaccine.
Very funny, probably true too. Vaccines are just viruses rendered impotent. Glad you agree you guys are just armed thugs rendered impotent.
You are free to dwell in your realms of fantasy. Right to bear arms is constitutional in USA, and if it provides you some solace and some way to compensate for your feelings of inadequacy, go ahead, buy all the guns you can afford and even pretend you are somehow a liberator.
And we will protect your rights too.
Re:Cause and effect reversed. (Score:2)
People who used guns to overthrow tyrants became tyrants themselves.
Like the founding fathers?
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People who used guns to overthrow tyrants became tyrants themselves.
Like the founding fathers?
Got anything more recent in the last two centuries? eh?
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Most 20th century "tyrannies" took power with the support of an armed general population.
Hitler famously banned guns, but what people don't mention is that he only banned guns for Jews, while restrictions for the population in general were relaxed— and this, more than five years after he took power. How could it have been any other way? Before World War II, the SA and SS were nothing more than private citizens engaged in gun clubs with very spiffy outfits. Radical authoritarian governments, from th
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Just look how many times guns were used against tyranny that produced enduring democracies instead of next set of tyrants?
Well at least a few times.
How many times freedom of expression against oppressors liberated people and created enduring democracies?
Zero? What are you talking about?
That is when warrior wannabes like you strut around claiming to be the cause. You are the effect, not the cause, of the first amendment.
Calling it an issue of cause and effect doesn't really make sense. But there's no doubt that warriors enabled both the 1st and 2nd amendment. You do know what was going on in this land before the Constitution was signed back in 1787? It involved warriors strutting around and shooting British soldiers. And one of them, a guy named George Washington, even became the first president.
Trying your "second amendment solutions" against a lawfully elected government of the USA is rebellion
You're claiming free speech can be used to overthrow governments as we
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How many times freedom of expression against oppressors liberated people and created enduring democracies?
Zero? What are you talking about?
Gandhi. Mandela. Aung San Suu Kyi (work in progress).
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Now suddenly you change your point of view and start talking about raising up in rebellion against our own army! Our own government! You little gun twits, if you were a real threat to our democracy we will put you down, using any means necessary, and it is constitutional to do so too. You rise against our duly elected go
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More to the point: Congress has explicit authority to call upon the Militias to suppress insurrections, and so called the Militias are under the command of the President.
These are the same "Well Regulated Militias" mentioned in the 2nd Amendment.
So it seems rather ignorant for anyone to make claim to "2nd Amendment Solutions" as they are sometimes called, because in a strict interpretation of the US Constitution a "2nd Amendment Solution" as these people envision it would be to just shoot themselves.
The rea
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But even if we thing a time traveling mind readers have been installed as a justice of the Supreme Court, we need to obey their reading of that amendment. We have the freedom to disagree with them but unless
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Guns have never protected freedom of speech.
Warning! History lesson ahead.
Please exercise caution, as facts are known to the State of California to cause extreme mental anguish in those suffering from politically/ideologically-driven voluntary ignorance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946) [wikipedia.org]
Strat
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The Revolutionary War was about home rule, with specific points of contention over taxing of commodities, and the independence and impartiality of the judicial system. This is why most of the founders were importers, farmers and lawyers, silly.
Britons in the 18th century, with the exception of certain kinds of lese majeste, basically had free speech that any American would recognize.
Cue (Score:3)
Re:Guns...Lots Of Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Either the US government rapidly steps in to quash or severely-restrict this technology in the US or their plans to disarm the US population will die stillborn.
If you knew anything about guns, you'd know it only takes a few basic tools and materials to make a functional gun that goes bang without killing its user. You don't need a 3D printer. There's no way to disarm anybody in any circumstances.
I love the smell of dying government tyranny in the morning.
Wishful thinking... It's not the lack of guns that keeps your tyrannical government in place, it's the lack of courage in a population that has turned bovine, uneducated, and more interested in shopping and watching reality shows on TV than in fighting for liberty and moral principles.
Re:Guns...Lots Of Guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Either the US government rapidly steps in to quash or severely-restrict this technology in the US or their plans to disarm the US population will die stillborn.
If you knew anything about guns, you'd know it only takes a few basic tools and materials to make a functional gun that goes bang without killing its user. You don't need a 3D printer. There's no way to disarm anybody in any circumstances.
I love the smell of dying government tyranny in the morning.
Wishful thinking... It's not the lack of guns that keeps your tyrannical government in place, it's the lack of courage in a population that has turned bovine, uneducated, and more interested in shopping and watching reality shows on TV than in fighting for liberty and moral principles.
It's kind of funny that Americans with all their guns seems to have a more tyrannical government than countries with fewer guns but a lot more political engagement from the population.
Re:Guns...Lots Of Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of funny that Americans with all their guns seems to have a more tyrannical government than countries with fewer guns but a lot more political engagement from the population.
That's because most Americans have added two boxes to the four boxes of liberty [wikipedia.org]: the ice box and the idiot box. And they seem to have stopped using the four others.
Re:Guns...Lots Of Guns (Score:5, Interesting)
It's kind of funny that Americans with all their guns seems to have a more tyrannical government than countries with fewer guns but a lot more political engagement from the population.
There are times when I think the whole 2nd Amendment thing may be doing us more harm than good. We don't take political action when we should because if things get too bad we can just haul out our guns.
Except that by the time guns are the best or only solution, we've already lost pretty much everything anyhow. And who (aside from fantasists) really want a life that's basically nothing but guerilla warfare against tanks and drones?
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Re:Guns...Lots Of Guns (Score:5, Insightful)
(But I can cite several events where voting ballots in the hands of little people made the U.S. government to either change policies or itself.)
Re:Guns...Lots Of Guns (Score:4, Insightful)
It worked precisely once - when the US government was the British government.
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I can't remember one event in the history of the U.S. where guns in the hand of little people made the U.S. government rethink their policies and withdraw some legislation, measures or orders.
You are onto something. Just read exactly what you wrote a couple of times, and it might just click.
But if it doesn't, I give you a hint by setting the bold on a couple words.
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You are asking why you need to have a polio shot when there was not even one single case of polio in the US since 1979 [cdc.gov]. I mean you are right, it's hard to explain if it's not obvious.
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He's talking about the American Revolution. His coy act is obnoxious, but your deliberate obtuseness is annoying, too.
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He's talking about the American Revolution. His coy act is obnoxious, but your deliberate obtuseness is annoying, too.
I am not an American, so if there is some American cultural reference linking "one single event" and the American Revolution, you'll have to forgive me for not picking up on the hint. Besides, the American revolution is not an example of the US government changing its policies because the US population is armed because there was no US, or US government, or US population (armed or otherwise) at the time.
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Oh, I agree with you there. I just foresaw this thread continuing on in that manner forever and I wanted to make it stop!
Re:Guns...Lots Of Guns (Score:4, Funny)
I can't remember one event in the history of the U.S. where guns in the hand of little people made the U.S. government rethink their policies and withdraw some legislation, measures or orders. Care to elaborate?
Here you go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_(1946) [wikipedia.org]
"The Battle of Athens (sometimes called the McMinn County War) was a rebellion led by citizens in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee, United States, against the local government in August 1946. The citizens, including some World War II veterans, accused the local officials of political corruption and voter intimidation."
You're welcome.
Strat
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There were no US government forces involved, nor was the national guard mobilized by the Governor of Tennessee.
Re:Guns...Lots Of Guns (Score:5, Interesting)
If you knew anything about guns, you'd know it only takes a few basic tools and materials to make a functional gun that goes bang without killing its user. You don't need a 3D printer. There's no way to disarm anybody in any circumstances.
I do know something about guns and about metal machining and fabrication work. Making a Sten is dead-simple. Heck, I've got the plans.
You're correct that between the staggering number of guns that already exist in the US (and the majority of rifles & shotguns never having been registered) combined with the ease with which a gun that's at least good enough to get an enemy's gun is to make conventionally, it seems pretty impractical in the short term.
However, there's "simple" for some people and then there's "simple" for everybody else. It's dead-simple *IF* you have a lathe, drill press, sheet metal brake, and maybe a mill depending, along with multiple other ancillary tools and pieces of equipment like an arbor press.
*AND* you *also* have the requisite training, skills, & experience to operate that fabricating equipment well enough to produce more than a modern-art piece or a way to assure that you never need worry if you lose one of your mittens and/or your sunglasses. It's not a trivial skill set in the least.
The difference here is that you basically only need the printer instead of a pole-barn full of expensive machine tools, plus you don't need any advanced machining & metal fabrication skills or training to fabricate high-quality components.
The printer/software and the plan file supplies the majority of the training, experience, and skills otherwise necessary, while replacing multiple expensive pieces of metal working & fabrication equipment while also requiring less space. More like residential garage/shed/basement-size instead of pole-barn size.
A metal printer would also be a much more practical solution in the city. The printer is also far more portable than a bunch of machine shop equipment. It can be relatively quickly moved between locations and concealed compared to normal tooling.
Wishful thinking... It's not the lack of guns that keeps your tyrannical government in place, it's the lack of courage in a population that has turned bovine, uneducated, and more interested in shopping and watching reality shows on TV than in fighting for liberty and moral principles.
I agree. However, I'm hopeful that people are beginning to wake the hell up. I haven't seen the current levels and breadth of dissatisfaction and anger with government since the '60s/'70s, nor anywhere near the current numbers of people who seriously think the government needs to spend less and have fewer powers, and are actively getting involved and doing something about it.
When was the last time you remember *this* happening?
http://conventionofstates.com/ [conventionofstates.com]
There may yet still be hope. Especially if you consider it was only about 10% of the colonists at the time who were actively for the US Revolutionary War and independence from England.
Can we scrape up 10% with a brain and a spine these days? Who knows. We'll find out, I guess.
Maybe the concept of free men governing themselves by common agreement dies here forever, technology guaranteeing the jackboot continues forever grinding the human face underfoot.
Maybe humans need another few 10, 20, or 100s of thousands...maybe even millions...of years of evolutionary advancement before mankind is ready to leave kings, dictators, tyranny, and authoritarianism behind us.
Strat
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Shed size? (Score:2)
If these things come down to smaller CNC size, anyone could stick it in the back of a box truck with a generator on top and make guns anywhere.
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You do realize that the site you're recommending is financed by the koch brothers right? Not trying to stir things up, just an FYI. I can't support any movement that's back by large corporations asking for more deregulation. I think People need less regulation, not the corporations. I'm tired of living in a country that's on the brink of fascism.
"Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power."
-Benito Mussolini -
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If you knew anything about guns, you'd know it only takes a few basic tools and materials to make a functional gun that goes bang without killing its user. You don't need a 3D printer.
The scary/interesting part about 3d printed guns is that you don't have to know anything about guns or metalworking to produce one. Download a good design, print, assemble, charge, and fire.
Of course there's still a few issues, such as: accurate printing in metal still isn't widely available for consumers, operating a 3d printer requires some skill, parts still need finishing, need for ammo, printed guns are prone to failing and/or blowing up when fired, etc. But all of these are problems that can (and
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When this thing can print hellfire missles and reaper drones to carry them, then maybe the government will get worried.
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dying government tyranny? did it die when full auto weapons were legal to buy in USA? no?
you really think it's just a matter of weapons? fuck no it isn't. not at all. most people just don't want to revolt, stopping government tyranny is first and foremost a political problem of mobilizing people to your cause, arming them is easy.
you think they're going to ban bicycle shops and hotrod shops full of 5 axis cnc's and cnc lathes? ban vocational colleges? ban drills and metal stock? but why the fuck would you b
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Making guns is easy. Getting hold of the ammo is a lot more difficult and you can't print bullets yet.
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It's not like loading ammo is hard [fleetfarm.com], and bullets are probably the easiest things for these machines to print.
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This device is slated to cost about £1000 (roughly $1650). For the same price, you can already buy a half-decent CNC machine, and that machine will be able to make a far better firearm than the 3D printer can.
I don't understand why gun nuts have this obsession with 3D printing. Making a weapon by fusing tiny bits of plastic or metal together will always generate an inferior product compared to milling the parts from solid blocks. Probably even inferior to stamping them from sheet metal.
People ha
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Now what the hell am I supposed to do with these bear arms?
I'm thinking maybe I should have just put on the wife-beater shirt instead...education wasn't so good back then, maybe they misspelled a word...
This! It's so obvious that the founding fathers were enshrining the right to wear short sleeved shirts: the right to bare arms.