National Lab Working To Mix Metals and Polymers For 3D Printing 65
Lucas123 writes "Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab are trying to expand 3D printing to include mixed materials at the same time, such as polymers and metals. With those advances, a company could build, for example, body armor for soldiers that are stronger and lighter. If their work pans out, they'll create materials that have properties that simply don't exist today."
Re:But why 3D printing? (Score:4, Informative)
Next you'll be telling us that there's nothing to that microprocessor fad, because a Sinclair/Timex ZX80 can't really be used to control a nuclear power station.
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Notice how they never build medical devices or something to help poor people in Africa. It's always something military? Yeah, that...
Re:But why 3D printing? (Score:5, Funny)
Notice how they never build medical devices or something to help poor people in Africa. It's always something military? Yeah, that...
Hey now! Military tech very much can be used to help poor people in Africa!
Help them not be alive anymore, for instance.
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weapons in the hands of the right poor people is what will help the poor people in africa. everything else will just be broken/taken by the wrong people with guns in africa.
I disagree, as a gun-owner myself (Score:1)
What Africa needs is less violence, and adding more firearms to the mix is not going to lead to peace.
that's rich (Score:2)
says the hypocrite who already has a firearm to protect himself and his family.
i'd post AC as well if i were such a judgmental, holier then thou, racist prick. africans have the right to protect themselves whether you like guns or not.
people like you are the reason they continue to wallow in death. rich 1st worlders telling them what they can and can't do with this weapon or this chemical, or this technology.
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What Africa needs is less violence, and adding more firearms to the mix is not going to lead to peace.
True. Peace will come much faster if we just let the people who currently have guns murder all the ones who don't.
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I was just thinking, you know what would be sweet?
A version of the Iron Dome [wikipedia.org] system, scaled down for small arms fire.
Granted, it would be a lot harder to implement without barbequing the innards of every living thing within range, but it sure would do a lot to end petty conflicts. We really don't put enough effort into finding new and novel ways to keep people from being killed.
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Didn't we just have an article about people fabricating arms for poor people in Africa?
Oh wait... that was legs. Nevermind.
Re:But why 3D printing? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://3dprintingindustry.com/medical/ [3dprintingindustry.com]
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/robohand-how-cheap-3d-printers-built-a-replacement-hand-for-a-five-year-old-boy/ [arstechnica.com]
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Seems to me if you're building body armor, you'd want to target a technology that can pump out a bit more than one piece a week, no? And let me guess, "if" means "totally already exists and we're colonizing the universe now"?
Because body armor is meant to be worn by a human, and every human has a different body shape (sometimes significantly different) from everyone else. Since poorly-fitted body armor can severely impair maneuverability (which is often extremely important in situations where you'd want to wear body armor in the first place), being able to easily create a suit of armor that exactly matches a given body shape is incredibly useful.
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poorly-fitted body armor can severely impair maneuverability ...
That is one problem, but there are two bigger problems: weight, and heat.
Body armor fitted to an individual can be no bigger than necessary, thus reducing weight. It can also be fitted to provide air circulation to help keep the wearer cool. Big guys already have a hard time shedding heat, and an overly tight flack jacket makes it even worse.
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Different model for scaling production. You start by 3D printing a whole mess of 3D printers...
and if it doesn't work out... (Score:3)
... I'm sure the soldiers of the First Army will personally come over and "discuss" the matter...
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I think maybe you miss the point. The 3D printing vision is not that manufacturing will go away (at least not for now), it is that I can get the one off item even if I don't have access to the marketplace, or the item is no longer being made, or the price is higher than if I just made it myself or I want to customize it. For instance, I broke one of the clip-on shelves in my refrigerator. They make the part but they want $65.00 dollars for it. Now I have four more just like it, so if I 3d scan one of t
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3D Printing doesn't scale. It will never be a viable manufacturing technology. It doesn't matter if you make one or one million pieces, the per-unit cost never goes down because the raw materials for 3D printing have a static price.
That's right, we have perfected the first manufacturing process since the pyramids that has no economies of scale.
Oh, come now. It's not the only such manufacturing process. For example, xerographic and ink-jet printing are both the same way, and that's why neither of them have ever become viable for "manufacturing".
That's why all the large-format photographic film suppliers are still thriving -- if inkjet or xerographic printing weren't so slow and expensive, print shops would probably have moved over to that technology long since. In fact, in an alternate reality I like to call "ours", that's exactly what happened.
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I'm sorry. I had hoped my last sentence would serve as a "sarcasm" flag.
Inkjet and xerographic technology have massively changed the face of printing, even though presses are still used for large-scale runs (and probably will be for the foreseeable future). Arguing that "3D Printing doesn't scale" is probably exactly as silly as arguing that inkjet or xerographic printing doesn't scale. If the manufacturing and operating costs of the printers drop by orders of magnitude, and the quality of output rises by o
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3D Printing doesn't scale.
Neither does knitting or sewing. Too bad garments which are anything but blankets will always be priced out of reach.
It will never be a viable manufacturing technology.
Right, just like knitting or sewing.
Weapons, armor (Score:3, Insightful)
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Because humans are a war like species. They're most happy when blowing shit up.
I'd be so down with a nice set of powered armor peiced together in my own garage with a printer and a dremil tool. :D
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Because humans are a war like species. They're most happy when blowing shit up.
I'd be so down with a nice set of powered armor peiced together in my own garage with a printer and a drem[e]l tool. :D
I do admit, being able to build one's own, personal mech-suit does have its appeal...
Anyone up for a game of Real Life Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robots?
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Oh yeah! Or making your own knock off one of those Japanese Kuratas robots that were floating around a year or so back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iZ0WuNvHr8
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Why does every discussion of 3D printing seem to devolve into how it could make better weapons or armor?
Human nature.
As much as we try to deny it, at our base we're still extremely violent, hate-filled, xenophobic tribalists. As a species, anyway.
How about using metal and plastic to make elaborate layered circuit boards we can drop inexpensive chips into and make even cooler stuff? And I don't mean detonators.
Oooh, detonators! What a clever idea!
Your government will now thank you for your contribution to their military-industrial complex in the only way they know how.
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By taxing you until you can't afford what you need, needing the government to supply you that (because of their taxes), then taxing you more because they can't afford to provide it for you?
Re:Weapons, armor (Score:5, Funny)
How about the most obvious application of being able to mix metals and plastics together: Converting yourself a whale tank using transparent aluminum!
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Look at rebuilding your 3D printer into a CNC router. Then mill your circuit boards.
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Why does every discussion of 3D printing seem to devolve into how it could make better weapons or armor?
It doesn't. MIT Technology Review has an article [technologyreview.com] in the current issue on 3-D printing lithium-ion batteries.
Re:Weapons, armor (Score:5, Interesting)
The ironic thing is that the first time I heard about 3D printing, over 10 years ago (it was called stereolithography), was to produce prototype parts for IV roller valves for hospitals. After that, it was used for short runs of parts, replacements for things that have long since stopped being made, and other niche markets.
The pursuit of guns came a lot later when the technology came out of the factories.
With accurate 3D printing, we can make circuit boards as an integral part of a product. It might not be useful for large-scale production, but there are likely some objects where having the ability to not have to assemble something and have no weak seams or welds might be of great use. A seamless Faraday cage comes to mind. Perhaps a bottle for highly compressed gas?
I think part of adopting a technology is how it appeals to some peoples' banal nature. A lot of people love pr0n, so it propelled the Internet into homes. Printing out a firearm of questionable use got 3D printing on the map. Paranoia got solar adopted by both the right wing and left wing in the US.
There are a lot of uses for 3D printing. I'm probably going to wind up with a Makerbot so I can prototype a few lock mechanisms. If they actually work, then I will moved to sintered Iconel for the key and the lock. After that, hand some of the locks to the local locksport group and Youtube SPP people and see if the lock passes the real world muster. That way, if it actually is something pick resistant, I can always state an average time a pro can open the lock, rather making vague "unpickable" claims.
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Simple: humans are violent by nature, its in our DNA. War and competition are what drives the world. Peace and submission does not.
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Then why didn't you produce it if it was so obvious to you?
From TFS (Score:2)
" body armor for soldiers that are stronger and lighter"
But where do we get the soldiers that are stronger and lighter?
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" body armor for soldiers that are stronger and lighter"
But where do we get the soldiers that are stronger and lighter?
First you 3D scan them.
Then you run them through a CAD program to remove the non-essential parts, and replace the remaining parts with lighter and stronger materials.
Then you 3D print them.
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sigh... (Score:1)
> body armor for soldiers that are stronger and lighter.
Is you sure?
Impact on manufacturing? (Score:2)
My wife, who is an exec in company which produces very high end precision components from both milling and molding has told me that the owner of the firm is very afraid for the future of the business because of 3D metal printing.
I, however have told her I do not agree at all. Rather, I see 3D printing as a great opportunity for her firm to make even more complex components which today cannot be made. Her point is that anyone will be able to do it though.
Sure, maybe they could, but I think they won't. Of cou
Huh? (Score:2)
Current materials have properties like their melting point, resistivity and density.
Will these future ones have a quognon modulus, voctitude and pluness?
How About This (Score:2)