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How does a Walker- Carson ticket sound?

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posted on Feb, 19 2015 @ 05:16 PM
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a reply to: nwtrucker

A lot of it is thanks to some very smart material engineers, they're the ones that made 3d printing possible. A 3d printed pipe is stilll made out of steel, it's not cast though, instead it's built up layer by layer using powdered steel that's solidified using a laser and a binding agent.

You're still designing to the traditional method of "what works" but the method of producing that is different. In the past you may have made an object by having an artist create a dye, some foundry workers produce the metal, and someone to put the metal into the mold. Today you're using a completely different process to achieve the same result. The benefit is higher productivity but it also requires a vastly different skillset and a bit more education. The payoff is worth it though.

When I mention bringing back manufacturing this is the sort of stuff I expect to see, it lets us build our products while also leveraging the tech advantage we have in the US. Of course, it does take time to learn.



posted on Feb, 19 2015 @ 05:19 PM
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as a democrat.... to the OP's question......please, oh please, that would be a wonderful ticket...all the republicans should rally behind it.



posted on Feb, 19 2015 @ 05:23 PM
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a reply to: Aazadan

I hadn't seen or heard it that future other than Glocks. LOL

it opens a whole new possibility for the U.S., especially when the original plants are in disuse if not no longer extant.

A perfect time to implement this. If we don't, someone else will. The rest of the world has learned our ways. We need to pick up our game to just stay even, never mind #1.

Any articles/links I can look up to get a better picture of this 'future'?



posted on Feb, 19 2015 @ 05:41 PM
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a reply to: nwtrucker

There's a lot of articles out there on 3d printing. There's one here on ATS about China 3d printing homes. NASA uses 3d printing to build a lot of small complicated parts and the ISS uses 3d printing to create it's own replacement parts these days so that we only have to ship it raw materials. There's always the gun story you mentioned too.

3d printing is the future. There's already desktop 3d printers, Amazon is looking into 3d printing regionally rather than shipping goods, from distribution centers, and it's becoming more and more a valid manufacturing technique. It wouldn't surprise me at all if in 10-15 years all manufacturing is done through 3d printing. Even Staples is starting to deploy industrial grade 3d printers in their stores, a year ago they had them in NYC and LA, they may have them in more places now.

If you're more specific I can give you articles on this. Since I have the skillset I can describe the process in detail a bit as well though it will have to wait until tomorrow, it's shaping up to be a busy night for me.



posted on Feb, 19 2015 @ 06:03 PM
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a reply to: Aazadan

Cool, I'm off work for a few days...under the weather.

We can spread out the printers to different locals, but that also spreads the distribution of the raw materials needed as well. Six of one half a dozen of the other?



posted on Feb, 19 2015 @ 08:30 PM
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Hmm...



posted on Feb, 19 2015 @ 08:45 PM
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originally posted by: TycoonBarnaby
Walker? Wow.

I don't back any of the republicrats, but Walker?

Anyone who supports Walker is either not from Wisconsin and/or is drinking a lot of red Kool-Aid.


So true! I live in Wisconsin. You do not want to vote for Walker. He has screwed us so badly. He has pretty much ruined this state. I'm looking on getting out of here after I retire. He's pathetic.



posted on Feb, 19 2015 @ 08:49 PM
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Fix the two party system. I vote for neither of the two corporate stooges. Vote someone in to change things.



posted on Feb, 20 2015 @ 04:15 AM
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originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: Aazadan

Cool, I'm off work for a few days...under the weather.

We can spread out the printers to different locals, but that also spreads the distribution of the raw materials needed as well. Six of one half a dozen of the other?



It's not really a six of one situation. Under the current manufacturing process raw materials are produced, they get shipped to the manufacturer, then the product is produced and shipped to distribution centers, from there the product goes to regional stores. The same item (albeit in different forms) has to be shipped to three different locations, this creates a lot of overhead. With 3d printing you can ship directly to the point of sale and build the item in the store. This gives you a much more streamlined distribution process.

Lets take an example I did for a buddy of mine a year ago. The company was in LA making a social media game, and one of the rewards for accumulating points in the game was being able to redeem those points for a figurine of the character. So the way this was done, was I took the 3d modeling files and made some adjustments to make them 3d printable (posing them, making stable geometry, a base to stand on, and so on). When this was done I emailed them back to the company. The company took these files to their local Staples with it's 3d printer and made some prototypes so they could get final approvals.

From there, when these points were redeemed, the game would look at the users location data, find the closest 3D printer (I think there were 5 or 6 used in the country) and email an order to the print shop. It would then be delivered to that user through the mail a couple days later. This technology allows for made to order parts with small supply chains.

Another example, a friend of mine that's a little closer to me in Pittsburgh owns a metal shop. He's one of those rare manufacturers still in business these days. They have most of the stuff you would expect and a couple of neat toys like some of the newer machines that can laser cut a sheet of metal. His shop does well. Anyways a couple years back he had a very large and expensive order and needed a prototype for the customer before he went about making it to make sure they were on the same page. He emailed me the blueprints and I created a 3d model from those, this was a couple years ago so 3d printers weren't quite as popular. From the model we sent it to a rapid prototype designer and they created it, then sent it back to him. In the span of about 3 days (1 day work, 2 days transit) he had a physical prototype to show the customer, so that they could make needed alterations.

Another way this technology can be used: As part of a capstone project I had to design an interactive model. I chose to use a house I could get the blueprints for. I went about modeling the entire house, exact down to the inch on the plans. Once the house was built I went about adding features like being able to dynamically change the flooring or the paint, or even some of the wall components like different door styles. When it was done, potential "home buyers" (really just people checking out my project) could wear a virtual reality helmet and physically walk through the home. They could view the rooms in the middle of the day or late at night when the lighting is less. They could change the paint in the rooms to match what they liked, or switch between hardwood floors and carpet. I don't know how much home retailers are taking advantage of this right now but I bet we start seeing more of it, once they realize it can be done. Letting your customers walk through their home before it's finished, and decide on every customization they want means more money for the contractor and happier home buyers.

Back to 3d specific printing, it was back in late december that the ISS first started using its 3d printer, they have begun printing tools for use. It takes them about 4 hours to print something and it costs pennies to do. Compare that to the cost of shipping up materials on a rocket. 3d printing is what gave the ISS it's own machine shop, and it's putting a machine shop in the homes of every single person who wants one.

Printing itself currently uses two competing technologies. There's the cheaper method which extrudes plastic and heats it. Then the machine places this plastic in the appropriate spot with very high precision. The plastic cools, and more is placed on top of it. Over time the object is built up. This form of printing is inexpensive but the only material it can use is plastic so there's a quality issue with certain parts. The other method is to use powered materials combined with a laser activated binding agent. This system uses drums of powder which get laid by a machine, and then a laser activated binding agent fuses the powder together into one item. Doing this millions or billions of times eventually builds up the item. This is how printing metal is possible.

The Chinese 3d printed homes used this method. They printed out of building waste such as concrete that couldn't be used and leftover wood. They turned that into powder for the printer then printed it into prefab sections for homes. Then those home parts were trucked to their destination.

There is even 3d printed food these days. The technology is pretty close to that of a replicator from Star Trek, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that, that was the inspiration behind developing it.

There's going to be a need for traditional manufacturing for a couple decades still, but high tech manufacturing is going to replace it. As a nation we really do need to be involved in both because there are a lot of good paying jobs to be had, which require some skills.



posted on Feb, 20 2015 @ 09:46 AM
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a reply to: Aazadan

In the metal version of the printer, is there a speed difference between traditional manufacturing and 3D?

I'd suspect that mechanical mass production, despite the logics of material, is still faster?

EG. Lets say I want to build a factory that is tooled to building Corvettes. Multiple materials and electrical issues as well. How would 3D printers compete? Multiple printers as opposed one assembly line?

How would you sell the concept over traditional means?



posted on Feb, 21 2015 @ 02:55 AM
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originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: Aazadan

In the metal version of the printer, is there a speed difference between traditional manufacturing and 3D?

I'd suspect that mechanical mass production, despite the logics of material, is still faster?

EG. Lets say I want to build a factory that is tooled to building Corvettes. Multiple materials and electrical issues as well. How would 3D printers compete? Multiple printers as opposed one assembly line?

How would you sell the concept over traditional means?



There is a speed difference but I dont know what it is. 3d printers are also rather compact so you can fit more of them in the same area. An individual machine can be a good deal slower, but in the space that you fit your traditional machinery you can place 50 printers.

That said, mass production is very fast. However, from what I've noticed we've started to reach a point where manufacturing speed is no longer the bottleneck. The latest craze has been in just in time manufacturing which seeks to eliminate overhead by producing orders to meet demand exactly as they happen. 3d printers excel at this type of manufacturing because you can produce slow and steady rather than in bursts that fill inventory for a while. Any overhead that sits in stock with a 3d printer is nothing more than raw material that can be turned into any product.

If I were trying to sell someone on the technology, it would largely depend on their need. 3d printing is very good at certain tasks, but for others I would rather have traditional manufacturing for now. A large part of this has to do with volume and the level of detail of the item. A small piece of a machine that has complicated geometry such as an intricate gear is a great item to 3d print, however a ball bearing that's simple to make and has high demand would be much better using traditional methods.

When building a Corvette, there have been fully 3d printed cars but I think many of the pieces of a Corvette aren't suited to 3d printing. One issue with parts is that 3d printing materials cant hold up to the same stresses. I would not want a 3d printed engine, this is the same reason certain gun parts can't be reliably 3d printed (the 3d printed guns are technically guns by legal definition, but use key non 3d printed parts). I dont know if this will be a permanent limitation of the technology or not, but it's currently an issue. However, printing pieces of the Corvette like the door handles, steering wheel, seats, interior, chassis, rims, exhaust pipe, and so on will work quite well. I'm not overly familiar with cars, I'm lucky I can even turn mine on so I don't know the details of the building process well. But my best guess is that's how you would optimally implement it. The real advantage here would be in the interior, where different models/price points could be easily designed and installed on a per order basis.
edit on 21-2-2015 by Aazadan because: (no reason given)



posted on Feb, 21 2015 @ 03:06 AM
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a reply to: Aazadan

That's one area I could comment on. Inventories are being kept as low as possible pretty well in every consumer-orientated field.

The more inventory, the more money is tied up in that inventory. Many 'deliveries' are timed to arrive just as they are required. Too soon, no floor/storage space. Too late and distribution trucks are leaving without the required product.

This window can be as low as one or two hours!!

It causes much stress on the part of truck companies, especially when the delivery distance is significant or weather related.



posted on Feb, 21 2015 @ 03:29 AM
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a reply to: nwtrucker

And thats one area where 3d printing can greatly alleviate issues. Take a hardware store, they can have a 3d printer in the back. Lets say a customer comes in and wants X screws, and its something of an irregular size or shape. The sort of thing the store would have to buy and sit on for a year before selling. Instead of purchasing it, they can build the screws for the customer in 10 minutes of printing, and they eliminate going through a distributor so there's no middleman fee.

Or lets take another example. Lets say there's a watch repair store and they need some certain gears in order to repair the watch. Rather than have the store sit on hundreds or thousands of gears at a time to cover every make and model, they have a 3d printer and a laptop in the corner. As the gear is needed they select it on the laptop, print it out, and build what they need. There ends up being no money sunk into maintaining inventory and resupply shipments are reduced from random boxes of gears every few days to a drum of raw material every month.



posted on Feb, 21 2015 @ 09:19 AM
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a reply to: Aazadan

Goodness! This really opens the door to interesting possibilities.

Now the politics of it. "One man's bread is another man's poison".

Who'd be against it? Trade unions? Undermining traditional manufacturing? Large retail firms losing a huge portion of their business? Jobs in general?

I'm reminded of the tale of Henry Ford's Model T. It was promoted as a solution to pollution....LOL. Manure etc. in the big east-coast cities. I believe the price was $750 per vehicle. If one was a traditional harness maker, for example, one suffered continued dropping in sales to a point of going out of business. Those that adapted, became versed in the new fangled cars flourished. Those that didn't......



posted on Feb, 21 2015 @ 07:10 PM
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a reply to: nwtrucker

With any technology you eliminate the need for a few jobs. 3d printing does benefit a lot of groups though. The manufacturers can lease 3d models directly to the shops with exclusivity agreements and product suites (think pepsi/coke in restaurants), the shops reduce overhead, the customer gets a wider range of products, and so on.

You lose a few jobs but at the same time you do gain a few. I think that it's an overall net loss in jobs like is the result of all technology but job loss is honestly a pretty minor issue as we can always address it as a society by changing the number of hours in the work week when necessary.



posted on Feb, 24 2015 @ 12:06 PM
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a reply to: Aazadan

Interesting article on Fox today about 3D bioprinting....



posted on Feb, 24 2015 @ 12:35 PM
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a reply to: WeRpeons

THERE you go.
HE has already proven hisself a world class leader in the medical world,let 's see what he does with a country.



posted on Feb, 24 2015 @ 01:39 PM
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originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: Aazadan

Interesting article on Fox today about 3D bioprinting....



I'm not too familiar with it, but that's one of the medical applications that has future potential. My guess is that within 25 years it will be able to completely replace organ donations.

The first 2d printer was the Gutenberg Press and that's in my opinion the second most important invention in the history of mankind (the first being the ability to create fire). 3d printing is probably the third most important invention... that should convey the scale of how this will change our lives. It's greater than the internet, penicillin, and the internal combustion engine combined.

It's applicable to nearly everything, it will cost us a few jobs just as the Gutenberg put scribes out of work but it will create many jobs as well.

Actually, even Microsoft has gotten into the 3d realm, and this is the most telling thing of all to me because this shows just how mainstream 3d is going. In Windows 10 one of the major features is called HoloLens
www.pcworld.com...

As someone who is primarily interested in building games this is of massive interest to me. Suddenly I'm not limited to a persons imagination or a screen. I can change the entire world they see. This has other applications as well such as job training. Lets use a mission to Mars for example, what if we created a 1 year long simulation for the astronauts using this technology? That's something I've thought of doing actually when I'm done with school... working at NASA on Mars simulations, I don't know if they would ever hire me for it but it's certainly something that I would love to do. We could use it in dangerous jobs too and get people realistic training before they're ever in danger.

There's just so much you can do with 3d, printing is one of the big applications but there's a few others like the HoloLens.







 
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