Have you seen this nifty device

[arrie]

A guy by the name of Dr Adrian Bowyer from Bath uni has designed and built a device called the RepRap.
It is a 3D printer and can be used for personal manufacturing of plastic items, using your home PC.
Brilliant, why...... a similar commercial system, known as a stereo lithography machine can cost you around R3 million..... the RepRap.... R6000.
How cool is that.

The robotics guys should go absolutely ape about this one.

Apparently the design plans can be downloaded free of charge.
You just have to buy/manufacture your own materials.

Quite cool.

 

[Mickster]

Yeah, I've had my eye on that site for quite some time now.

I've already built a DIY CNC mill, so making parts should be easy you say...

...finding the spare time to do so is the hard part.

 

[arrie]

Except, this is not a mill.

It's a printer, it prints heated plastic, 1/3 of a mm thick at a time.
So it does one layer, adds a layer, etc. until you have your final product.

These are also called rapid prototypers, olden day term.

 

[Mickster]

I know it's not a mill.

What I meant to say is that I could use the mill to make the RepRap frame connections, gears, extruder body parts etc. if I had the time to do so.

Sorry for the confusion.



P.S. I've also thought about using the mill as a repstrap machine with an extruder head in place of the router...but haven't got past the thinking stage yet.

 

[arrie]

Okay, that's cool.
It was the one issue I had, because I thought to myself "but you actually would need the machine to make the machine" kinda thought.

So you are already one step ahead.

 

[Mickster]

Well, you don't actually need the machine to make the machine, so to speak.

You need the manual (or even automated) capability to make the basic machine parts, to make the basic machine, which makes more accurate machine parts for the more accurate machine, which will make the more accurate machine parts...ad infinitum. Kinda like the way things have progressed since monkeys utilised the simplest of tools

RepRap is still in the infancy of it's evolution, but certain engineers such as 'nophead', 'Vik' and Dr Adrian Bowyer are making strides toward an affordable platform, attractive to the 'tinkerer' within most of us.

 

[Sceadwian]

If you're a serious tinkerer why not just find out how much it would cost to get the parts made at a precision small job shop and skip the whole middle process? If you're good on the phone or at talking in person you could easily get a decent deal on the parts you need and do assembly and non-precision stuff yourself.

 

[arrie]

I think that is more or less the idea. You build it yourself and have to fabricate some parts, so yes, initially you could make use of a shop somewhere to fabricate some critical components.
As long as they stick closely to the design spec that you have downloaded, you're sure of a good machine when finished.

 

[climber123boy]

that's pretty cool. now I just need to come up with something to make

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

There is another device similar to this one that is one day supposedly going
to be able to make you an iPod right in your own home (years off im sure).
That is, it is a 'fabricator', in that it can or one day will be able to fabricate
any item that is around today.
The main part of the machine is like a 3d milling machine, except it layers
materials in three dimensions instead of cutting to make just about anything,
and it of course is not limited to one type of material so items that require
more than one type of material can be built.
Right now i think they are using syringes filled with different materials to
do the layering.

To find out more about this, look for the Fab'er on the web.