The next big thing

The ISS printer prints plastic... printing metal (depending on the metal) is a whole different kettle of fish. Also typically requiring a nice supply of high purity argon and a high power laser.

We have a few members who don't believe in American manufacturing, rather they scream and cry about the potential trade collapse between the US and china, BOO HOO.

Its ideas such as this that I embrace and see as a way to circumvent those barriers. We can manufacture our own products, advance manufacturing.

a reply to: scojak

Out of your price range? Just sell your house. You could just print another one.

a reply to: Protector

In the US it's not illegal to make firearms yourself, as much as they wanna make it so!

How do i know?

I do it all the time!

I follow all the laws I'm required to follow, and dont build illegal configurations (to include making sure i include enough ferrous metals to clearly ping metal detectors etc as the law says)

While i can make my own barrels, bolts, and etc (yes I've made my own rifled gun barrels from scratch except i send out for chrome, melonite, or etc) i generally do not do so unless i have to because i need something i can't buy...

I'll be doing some here shortly to test new tools I've been working on designing and building.

Oh and don't listen to tbe other guy btw... There's at least a hundred ways to "print metal" these days and a good 80 of them require no argon or lasers ... But i mean i only have and use like 3 or 4 ways to print metal so i obviously know nothing

As i mentioned earlier i build a large percentage of my tools myself rather than pay tens of thousands of dollars etc per tool...

Because of this i have an array of cnc machines i can configure as a number of tools (more than 3d printing options alone) and i am constantly experimenting researching and learning!

It's the vest time in human history to be a mad scientist!

originally posted by: roguetechie
a reply to: Protector
Oh and don't listen to tbe other guy btw... There's at least a hundred ways to "print metal" these days and a good 80 of them require no argon or lasers ... But i mean i only have and use like 3 or 4 ways to print metal so i obviously know nothing

Citation required , would be interesting

a reply to: roguetechie

I know you can make guns, but publishing the plans is currently illegal... although still in the US courts.

I current live in a state with almost no gun laws, but I've lived in a couple states that have much more restrictive ones. It'd be difficult to describe to outsiders just how varied the US state laws are on guns.

It sounds like you're a machinist (someone who practices subtractive manufacturing). I wouldn't call someone using an actual "printer" (i.e. using additive manufacturing) a machinist. An engineer with no metalworking skills can print out a part, but not be able to make one by hand. But a person with little engineering skill can machine a part, while having limited knowledge of how the parts work together.

I'm currently encouraging people to get their kids interested in 3D printing and get them away from things like website design or mobile development. I believe those tech fields will be more saturated in a decade, but new-age engineers that can rapidly prototype will be BIG. So will hybrid techies, like bioinformaticians (combining computer science, statistics, mathematics, and biology) and the upcoming age of wearables (combining printing, weaving, circuit design, and programming). Both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Alternate Reality (AR) will be hot fields, too.

I also follow anything Bret Victor does--a former engineer at Apple. Here's an example of his vision for the future of "work spaces":
vimeo.com...

A visual:
s3.amazonaws.com...

I agree that the world is shifting from "hacking" to being a "mad scientist". The hardest part of being part of this future is doing things that schools won't offer (because most schools tend to be so far behind tech/manufacturing trends).

For instance, Robotics will be huge, but only countries like Japan have sufficiently invested in robotics to make a robotics education worth wild for most students. In the US, most of our "robotics experts" actually come from overseas because we just don't offer the foundation for it (on the whole).

And, while I don't believe it will happen, having an "Age of Apprenticeships" would do wonders for our world. The apprenticeship is far too underrated. The few people who have apprenticed under me have been able to get far better jobs with their new skillsets. I apprenticed under others who made me much more formidable.

I think I'm getting off subject, though, so I'll end my encomium here.

a reply to: ErosA433

Probably the best one from a diy home kitbash perspective is Cold Spray additive manufacturing...

You can get everything you need to start doing it yourself out of pdfs on the army research lab website at arl.army.mil

I also do a couple other types but that's the good one that's keeping me entertained until i can figure out how to build a whole gang of cheap electron beam guns to collaboratively build stuff up layer by layer...

Most of my software and control stuff etc is stuff I've found through csail.mit.edu mtm.cba.mit.edu cba.mit.edu the fablab stuff from MIT i also go to a couple other universities dissertations and papers i go raiding in hackaday.com 3ders.org archive.org and dtic.mil

Plus i have a bunch of classic diy tooling, machining, fabrication, and other books in pdf and paper form like the machinerys handbook tool and die makers bibles the concrete lathe and multimachine info packages and etc...

(The multimachine pdf's are free and you definitely want a copy since it shows you how to take otherwise junk engine blocks and use them as the precision backbones and basis for quality diy machine tools.... I had an epiphany and am now working with dead engine blocks as a great place to contain potentially hazardous and very energetic fabrication techniques and or stuff that requires vacuum, pressurization, special gases, certain fluid processes and etc)

It's a wild and fun ride whuch has involved a ton of Craigslist adventures, trips to new and interesting scrap yards, and the occasional buys of random lots from government surplus auctions etc online...

Plus I'm the most popular "old guy" for blocks in every direction with the neighborhood kids because of stuff like my Kentucky Fried UAV....

It got it's name originally because the first 2 versions used kfc chicken buckets as magnus effect rotors, and as of the current version (6.2 or so) maintains a sort of kentucky fried chicken themed air racer scheme of "paint" including logos etc...

(The kids like it, sue me LOL)

a reply to: Protector

Publishing the plans is far from illegal... The DOJ made a call WRT ONE MACHINE and ONE BUSINESS MODEL which does nothing to change or restrict what any of the rest of us can do, and that was a weaselly technical argument based on ITAR which is rooted in the unratified and totally constitutionally illegal UN small arms control treaty....

That said, a majority of my gun blueprints etc came directly from US and foreign governments own sources (i have blueprints etc for a majority of military small arms made between 1911 and now including over a dozen flavors of AK most m16 variants, fn fal, g3, pkm, m1918 BAR, M1919 browning, m2 browning, dshk, and easily over 60 more!)

I figured people would catch on when i said i followed all the relevant laws that i really meant ALL OF THEM LOL!

I'm very much working at trying to bash together a new, unified, streamlined, not out of date, and easily kept up to date curriculum and suite of enablers to help kids do just such careers as you speak of...

Because you are 100% correct in noting that right now to even get into that industry you're looking at 9+ years of school, 4 years of school and 5 years of apprenticeship, and or etc almost all of which will be 20 years behind actual industry norms and 25-30 behind cutting edge!

The state of our education system, certification programs, and the realities of the actual workforce/workplace are so drastically out of step with each other it's truly pathetic currently!

Ppl in education and HR bitch about the lack of STEM candidates etc but do nothing to fix that right now you can spend 4-6 years in school mostly learning nothing which wasn't obsolete in industry 20 years ago... Fix that and the students will show up!

a reply to: roguetechie

Cold Spray additive manufacturing

Requires carrier gas, so not exactly fitting the bill of what you said that there are 1 firstly 100s of methods and loads that dont require lasers or gas supplies... You then give me one that, sure doesn't require a laser, but does require a carrier gas.

Also, to do that, in the ISS would be somewhat of a crazy thing to do since the environment would become peppered with what ever material it was that you where using. Not only that but the fundamentals of how it works are quite different to that of a heated deposition of plastic like the more common modes of printing. Sure It can all be done within its own isolated dirty space but regardless... id consider it quite high risk

All interesting information, but not exactly proving me wrong either.

Secondly, I wonder about the purity and strength of the parts being produced as they would be quite honestly saturated in what ever carrier gas was being used. Something which is very critical in high performance parts. Probably fine for normal stuff but not for more specialist applications in which the material has to basically be vacuum baked while it is being poured.

Also great for applying coatings to materials.

a reply to: ErosA433

Oh yeah definitely would NOT WANNA DO COLD SPRAY INSIDE ISS... Orrr outside for that matter... Just don't do it lol!

I list cold spray first with metal because from a practical aspect it's by far the simplest of the breed, not because it doesn't need a gas source... Apologies for the confusion there.

When it comes to "metal 3d printing" it's just plain harder to discuss and more prone to people arguing where the lines are between "real 3d printing" and other stuff that's additive "but not real 3d printing"...

If that makes any sense to you please let me know because it baffles me a little even though i have seen the arguments a bunch of times.

There's also a really lot of metal printing technologies out there basically all of which are more complex more expensive less user friendly much more dangerous and or some combination of some or all of the above with even the really expensive cool ones that are really expensive are nowhere near as point click print friendly as printing many or most other things....

Yes i know that's not an answer to your questions either LOL

For the time being I'm not quite ready to really divulge how i do quite a bit of what i do, especially when it comes to metal stuff where I've had pointed out to me recently that much of what I'm doing is unique and different from other processes etc that i should really look into securing patents and having some patent searches etc done.

I hate even having to do that, but a guy's gotta eat and now that I'm down 70% of one lung and have a heart valve in moderate failure generation of some potentially valuable IP is pretty high on my list of priorities since normal work is really not an option now.

3D printing is good for difficult parts to stamp and machine but will never be cost effective and time effective on a mass producing level.

The real next big thing is already getting its foot in the door and thats AI, augmented reality, virtual reality and neural-electonic cybernetics. The next big thing is the internet in your head and cyborg humans. You think you're in a trap now? The real matrix is right around the mountainside. Youll be sealed in a pod and hooked up to a virtual reality and wont even know it.