Build a Fabricator at Home

From Boingboing

These machines typically cost from $20,000 to $1.5 million, says Hod Lipson from Carnegie Mellon University, US, who launched the Fab@Home project with PhD student Evan Malone in October 2006.

The standard version of their Freeform fabricator – or "fabber" – is about the size of a microwave oven and can be assembled for around $2400 (£1200). It can generate 3D objects from plastic and various other materials. Full documentation on how to build and operate the machine, along with all the software required, are available on the Fab@Home website, and all designs, documents and software have been released for free.

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Veery interesting. SO far this only is capable of using playdoh and chocolate ink. At 2400 bucks it a bit pricey too, but one can't help but draw a comparison to the first DIY computer that was released several years prior to the first true PC being released onto the consumer market.

What's that sound? It sounds like the shudder of dread from a million Chinese sweatshop owners as they see their doom looming ahead of them. This could save the manufacturing sector. It has already reshaped product engineering and design. Walmart will of course find a way to grow even bigger as will Google and Apple while all the rest, except for a few innovative companies will go the way of the dodo. It's the way things have always been.

Fab@Home Wiki Home Page

Reprap

Rapid prototyping

A Giant leap for Nano-Dip Pen Lithography

This could evolve into something as sophisticated as the device below.

Nano Assembly

Nanotech Assembler Concept Video(Youtube)



[edit on 10-1-2007 by sardion2000]

Here is some information on this projects bigger and older brother the FabLab.

fab.cba.mit.edu...

fab.cba.mit.edu...

fabracadabra.org...

www.media.mit.edu...

Some useful wiki links.

Laser Cutter

Plasma Cutter

Computer Numerical Control

Rapid Prototyping

Printed Circuit Board Milling

In a related move, Sears has begun selling a home owner version of a CNC machine. For about $1900 you can now own a CNC router complete with the necessary software and a variety of pre planned designs.

More and more of these types of capabilities will become common as hi tech machining enters the small shop.

Thanks for posting that info. I'm going to try and create one. Sounds like it would come in quite handy at parties

hmmm now… 3-D Printing??

This is truly a revolution and could be the precursor to a very new way of purchasing products.

If this technology were to increase in resolution for want of a better word, we could see shops selling stuff online… downloading the product program to your computer where it is stored and wham… your 3D printer, produces the goods.

There would be several benefits to this.

Imagine being able to buy the rights to the program of the object you downloaded. Then if the object were to ever break, you could simple recycle the material and print a fresh one.

The economic case for this seems clear, and the environmental case for this tech has never been clearer.

I seem to remember reading somewhere about the potential for this tech to self replicate, and print circuitry.

Anyway an exciting future we have.. Excellent find.

All the best,

NeoN HaZe.

[edit on 11-1-2007 by Neon Haze]

Good job sardion2000!

As you know the 3D printers have been out in the larger industrial marketplace for a few years now. Recently they have really picked up the pace for rapid prototyping of everything that is relatively small.

The idea from the begining was getting this equipment into the hands of the smaller businesses, and then to the homeowners. It looks like that is finally begining to happen.

Currently however, these machines are not "production" ready. The industrial ones do a great job at creating a prototype, but a full scale production product has yet to hit the market in full.

One of the biggest problems is speed. While the 3D printers will take a specialized 3D model directly from a CAD program with a simple "print" command, and the material used to "build" the prototype is relatively cheap, the time it takes the printer to "print" the prototype is not conductive to "production". For example, the 3D printer that we use takes 12 to 18 hours to make one 6 inch x 3 inch part.

Your not going to make very many easy bake ovens to sell at this speed.

However, (as noted), now that the capability for small businesses and individuals to build their own printer has finally arrived, I fully expect some bright individuals to take the existing model and find ways to "print" at a continually accellerated pace, and with larger size capabilities over the course of the next few years.

Once the capability to "print" at true production speeds exist, it will spell and end to the sweatshops and the traditional corporate monarchy.

As you said: an exciting future indeed!

Taking Shrek the Movie and make my own "action figures"...I can see this becoming next next big fad...

- Make my own custom Built Beer Glass
- custom pc case
- for the ladies custom companionship when lonely

Make a 3d format of your avatar..... your own coins

nice find

My father in law has made custom steel structures using a plasma cutter that he uses during lunchtime.... at times he's sold a few sculptures for big$$ once selling an steel alligator weighting close to 70 pounds ... if you are artistic I can see the rewards !

[edit on 1/11/2007 by a1ex]

So we call the Bigger version Fablabs, what about this? Homefab? Desktop Fabricator? DF? HF? Those are all horrible I admit, that's why I'm into engineering and not branding

Thanks for posting that info. I'm going to try and create one. Sounds like it would come in quite handy at parties

Wow. I wish I had the cash for that. I hope to have one purchased by this summer.

OK, so there are home DIY kits...

but looking at it, reprap costs about $400 to build, but needs a lot of self modification and programming..I don't mind having to design a case, but the rest is beyond my knowledge and time at the present moment...

fab@home seems easier to build, with less self fabrication required, but the cost is around $2400 - that's an extra $2000!!

I hope that one day (soon), these will become easier/cheaper to build, be able to use multiple material sources without having to stop to change the nozzle (ie. red vs. blue vs. green - and also not needing to refill every few minutes), and come in kit form, if not fully assembled already~

I have a great business idea that will hit it off here in Taiwan for sure, but I don't have the technical knowhow or the spare cash at the moment to try it out. Not to mention that the slow printing speed as mentioned above would kill that idea at the moment too. I'd need it down to at least 1 hour per product (say up to 8" x8" x8")

Yeah, I have a few ideas of my own but I'm patient. Don't despair on what it can't do, but think on what it may do with a decade or two of development.

Originally posted by a1ex
Taking Shrek the Movie and make my own "action figures"...I can see this becoming next next big fad...

- Make my own custom Built Beer Glass
- custom pc case
- for the ladies custom companionship when lonely

Make a 3d format of your avatar..... your own coins

nice find

Hmm, this an interesting idea. Imagine Disney releasing DVD's with CAD files of the various characters for the buyer to either print a doll at home or at the mall. Very interesting indeed.

Holy cow! Can anyone say replicator? I just love Star Trek.

I must also make clear one thing. It can print a whole lot more then just "playdoh and chocolate". Kind of a weak attempt at a joke that no one got so might as well set that straight less anyone get the false impression.

3D printer to churn out copies of itself

If this were the case, couldnt you see in the near future, them printing up organs, and just "BAM!" creating them without the hastle of cloning them? just a thought.
.:Kiliker.:

Ink-jet printing creates tubes of living tissue

Thanks for bringing up the issue I meant to raise earlier but forgot. This will eliminate organ donation as we know it and could even do away with animal farming for food and other things. Imagine using cloned animal parts in products again without all the uppity Pita folks getting up in a huff about. Real fur coats without the need to actually skin a beast.

Another thing this device may eventually do is completely redefine our economic system. Capitalism as we know it could be dead. Globalism for manufacturing surely is gonna die as a result of this.

[edit on 12-1-2007 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by sardion2000
I must also make clear one thing. It can print a whole lot more then just "playdoh and chocolate". Kind of a weak attempt at a joke that no one got so might as well set that straight less anyone get the false impression.

3D printer to churn out copies of itself

Nice one Sardion

That was the article I read sometime last year.

What's more interesting about self replication is the ability to alter or mutate a programme autonomously… To evolve…

Nano Law: The Legal Implications of Self-Replicating Nanotechnology

NASA and Self-Replicating Systems: Implications for Nanotechnology

This kind of self replication was taken to an extreme when it was related to nano tech with the idea of a Grey Goo...

The media enraged Prince Charles - Prince of Wales by miss quoting him on his interest on the effects of emerging technologies..

Prince Charles Said....

"I do not believe that self-replicating robots, smaller than viruses, will one day multiply uncontrollably and devour our planet.

"Such beliefs should be left where they belong, in the realms of science fiction."

The Prince acknowledges nanotechnology is a "triumph of human ingenuity".

"Some of the work may have fundamental benefits to society, such as enabling the construction of much cheaper fuel-cells, or new ways of combating ill-health," he says.

But he adds: "How are we going to ensure that proper attention is given to the risks that may... ensue?

Source: Prince warns of science 'risks'

Personally, I think a convergiance of 3D printing and Nano technologies is likely in the next 10 to 20 years.... Replicators indeed!!

I also think that well into the future, it would be possible even to create with this type of tech a kind of planet Terraforming Pandora’s box.

You send a probe with the 'Pandora’s box' to a planet you want to terraform and when it arrives it starts to learn by a process of controlled accelerated nano evolution.

You could programme the nano bots to self replicate to do certain tasks such as preparing the atmosphere or building a city with a star port etc...

Perhaps this is certainly in the realms of science fiction at this stage... but the possibilities are literally endless.

Always thinking positive but never ignoring the negatives.

All the best,

NeoN HaZe.

[edit on 12-1-2007 by Neon Haze]

Well, people, considering this is not new technology - since it has been around in larger formats, why would it suddenly become a way of creating organs etc just because you can make one and use it at home???

There are some huge ones so why is there no concern that THEY can be used to create organs, replicate etc etc etc??

I think we should fear more the larger ones than those which use chocolate unless we replicate our members from chocolate so our otherhalf can "eat" us while we are away? hmmmm...

Or have I misunderstood and totally missed the boat?

Chocolate avatars . . . ummmmmmmm . . .

Guess mine would be dark chocolate.

Originally posted by darkelf
Chocolate avatars . . . ummmmmmmm . . .

Guess mine would be dark chocolate.

GOOD one! Yeah imagine! I would make one like Alyssa M - you know - LOL Man and i would munch my way to heaven!