From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Thu Jan 09 2003 - 16:02:29 MST
>> The interesting thing (at least to me) is that if something
>> built this way breaks, there is no way in hell you are going
>> to be able to fix it.
>>
>> Interesting, it means you could run the printer all night
>> printing out palm-pilots and then go out the next day
>> and use them for skeet practice.
Not unless you're wealthy enough to be a sporting clays enthusiast
(for those unfamiliar: "sporting clays" has been described as "golf with
shotguns" and it's a pricy hobby for, e.g., well-to-do plastic surgeons).
A little homiletic anecdote:
My ink cassettes for an ALPS 2010 cost $9 retail; the full complement
costs me $36 (incrementally, of course).
Why don't I buy reloading supplies? Because the cartridges are dye-sub tape,
not inkjet liquid. I didn't want my printouts to run in the rain, and I
gambled that there'd be second sources for the ink. I lost that bet.
So... let's see what the cost-per-cc for these items turns out to be... :\
Now, over in Shenzhen, where they can run city-block-sized floors of
such machines, fed by big rooftop vats of noxious monomer brew--that might
show some economy of scale.
> This is an old idea that I have been following for a while.
Me too (at least 10 years).
> Its about time rapid prototyping machines and polytronic printing
> were merged. I wonder how long it will be before you can print a
> Lambourghini Diablo? <G> Does anyone know of a suitably strong, heat
> proof polymer that could be printed into an engine?
The best temp performance polymers I know of are high-temp liquid crystals
used to mold, e.g., the connector housings for thermocouples. They spec out
at something well under 500F.
You're up against a pretty fundamental limit of materials, I suspect: any
hydrocarbon polymer is going to poop out somewhere around the flash point of paper.
Conceivable that, after forming, you could heat-drive the hydrogen off
(as they do today with some Santa Claus casing forming tech) to get carbon
matrix x y and z, but those are not very strong compared to bulk solid materials.
Now, if you consider _diamond_ a polymer... :)
Sintering metals or ceramics seems superficially plausible, but I'd guess
it loses a lot in strength without very special manufacturing tech.
For me, that leaves hypotech such as [s]elf-assembling ([Sic], given the monicker
"Santa Claus Machine", plus the hypothetical nature) nano"crystals" in a slurry.
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