3d printers 5

[cranky108]

How will 3D printers change how we do our designs. And now with conductive plastics, there are fewer parts to assemble.

 

[cranky108]

In a perfect world there would be no need for guns, printed or other wise. However the world is not perfect.

Do you know what they call a bad hunter? Vegetarian.

And yes they can be used by dumb people to kill themselves, just like cars. Both have a ligit purpose and both can be used wrongly. That's why education is important. Too bad we don't have public places where they teach children between right and wrong as well as reading, writing, and math.

Are they really "brass knuckles" if they are not made of brass?

So what is G-code? Another computer language, or more of an instruction list like was used with CNC machines?

 

[MikeHalloran]

Cranky,
most CNC machines today will happily accept the same commands you would have found on a paper tape decades ago.
The 'language' is surprisingly powerful.
A line starting with 'G' gives a coordinate location to 'go to', and do whatever command is active.
A typical file will contain a lot of lines starting with 'G', hence 'G-code'.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[JohnRBaker]

Too bad we don't have public places where they teach children between right and wrong as well as reading, writing, and math.

At least with respect to gun safety, when I was in high school (back in the early 60's in Northern Michigan) we had an option (at least the boys did) to take a gun safety class sponsored by the NRA (when they were still primarily serving actual gun owners and not acting as lobbyists for gun manufactures). And while this was ostensibly NOT a class in morality, it did stress the mechanics behind the safe handling and use of at least shotguns and rifles.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
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Siemens PLM Software Inc.
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[VEBill]

The image posted by JohnRBaker above (6 May 13 14:24) shows that the trigger has snapped off. Compare the unbroken trigger here to the above image with the broken trigger.

I'll get excited about 3D printing when they can print a 3D Printer that can print another 3D Printer.

 

[SnTMan]

OK, so the files themselves will be illegal: thread559-344670

 

[oldfieldguy]

VE1BLL-

Your idea about a 3-D printer printing copies of itself has some very real basis. You might want to Google "Reprap", for example. You can get a file that allows another 3-D printer to print all the plastic parts. You, of course, have to add hardware and electronics.

My own printer has a chassis of laser-cut plywood, but I have printed several parts to replace some of the laser-cut parts, including gears for the extruder drive train.

As I've said before, though, these are not 'plug and play' machines.



old field guy

 

[VEBill]

Re: Reprap "You, of course, have to add hardware and electronics."

Of course, that's my exact point.

 

[beej67]

The files are just bits. Good luck making the files illegal. All you do by doing that is lose any possible paper trail of who's got the files.

My dad has a 12 gauge shotgun pistol manufactured out of steel tube by a guy in a shack in Nigeria. Don't think he's ever fired it. I think I'd probably rather fire that than fire a 3d printed gun, by current 3d printing standards. But the lid's not on that technology, it's only really just begun to innovate. Hell, Wake Forest is printing human kidneys. (great Ted Talk on it) I'm sure someone will be able to print a quality gun fairly soon.

The printing of organs really opens the doors wide for all sorts of William Gibson level stuff. Like, I don't know, organs that are also guns.



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[SomptingGuy]

3D printers making copies of themselves is the start and evolution of physical life. There is a precedent. It's really amazing what the errors can achieve through natural (and other) selection. Carbon-based systems seem more suitable to replication and mutation from experience, but other long chains may work.

And when you look at viruses, any replication mechanism looks viable, so long as its hosts survive and thrive long enough to support the viruses. If the hosts die, so do the viruses (for those who have missed the analogy, computer operating systems).

- Steve

 

[JohnRBaker]

The files are just bits. Good luck making the files illegal.

Tell that to the people who started 'Napster'.

And speaking of what is and what is not illegal 'content', the Supreme Court has just ruled that it's unlawful for a farmer to set aside a portion of his harvest each year for use as seed stock for the following planting season if the original seed stock contained patented genetic material. Considering that 93% of the soybeans and 86% of the corn now being harvested in the US each year originally came from seed stock containing genes that have been patented by Monsanto, this creates a defacto monopoly on where farmers have to now go to get seed stock and what they could be forced to pay for said seed stock in the future. And this applies even if the farmer never actually purchased any seed stock from Monsanto but was unlucky enough to have planted where the guy next door did purchase Monsanto seed stock and his crops were pollenated from his neighbor's fields. As long as a genetic test shows the presence of Monsanto genes in even a single sample, then he could be at risk of losing his entire crop or be forced to pay a royalty to Monsanto.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[CheckerHater]

Forget the Frankenfood.

Your own genes are being patented right now.

 

[cranky108]

I'm sure trying to persue every possible user of illegal seed will happen the same way as trying to persue every illegal copy of music. It may take a little time, but it will get away from them.

The other aspect might happen if a specific bug is created (manmade or natural) that attacks only genes in these seeds. Mass food shortages would soon ruin there good name.

The only ways I know of to protect intelectual property are, make the price cheep so it is not worth black marketing, or keep making the old one obsolete to change ahead of the black market.

Humm, a printer that prints it's own parts, combined with an arm to assemble it's duplicates.

 

[MikeHalloran]

In the Monsanto case, as often in America, justice went to the highest bidder.

There are seed banks charged with storing samples of everything that can be gathered so as to maintain the potential of genetic diversity, but if the monoculture Armageddon hits, it will take a while to propagate those reserve seeds into crops of usable quantity, during which time, er, we will all eat cake.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[berkshire]

Uuuugh Mike, what is cake made from?
B.E.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Precisely.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[beej67]

Tell that to the people who started 'Napster'.

Apparently you aren't aware of The Pirate Bay. Peer to peer file sharing didn't end with Napster, it just evolved past the ability for legal entities to track it, through decentralized magnet links and distributed hash tables. The only thing that really keeps it in check, honestly, is the chance of picking up very nasty viruses.

And speaking of what is and what is not illegal 'content', the Supreme Court has just ruled that it's unlawful for a farmer to set aside a portion of his harvest each year for use as seed stock for the following planting season if the original seed stock contained patented genetic material

Actually, no, they didn't rule that. I'm no Montsanto fan, but the ruling on this case wasn't at all about farmers saving seed, it was about a farmer who intentionally saved Montsanto Roundup Ready seed, in violation of his contractual agreement with Montsanto. The guy had a bunch of seed from different sources all mixed up, some small portion of which was Montsanto Roundup Ready, and he planted it, and ROUNDUPED IT, to kill off all the non-Montsanto plants. Then he stockpiled the resultant seed in a grain elevator, and planted off that. It was intentional, willful, manipulation of his own crop to distill out the Montsanto RR seed so he could plant it without paying Montsanto.

That case, in fact, has quite a lot of bearing to the thread. It could in fact be used as a legal test case for future 3d printing suits. If someone buys a tail light cover that has a US Patent, and copies it exactly, and replicates it with a 3d printer, then he'd be infringing on patent law. That's basically what this particular farmer did.

Now, I have heard of other cases where Montsanto went after farmers who were accidentally replanting Montsanto seed, but I can't seem to find any reference to them recently. Does anyone have a link? Montsanto's website says they only sue ten farmers a year, and only take one a year to court.

Again, no Montsanto fan, but I'd like a better case to ground my dislike of them than the one from a few days ago. That guy was just being an ass.

Mass food shortages would soon ruin there good name.

You are aware that they are also the company that invented Agent Orange and DDT, right? I don't think they really care about their name.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[JohnRBaker]

Might this provide some grounds for your view of Monsanto...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/14/monsanto-gmo-crops-taxpayers-overseas_n_3272136.html

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[VEBill]

The original Roundup Ready patent expires in 2014. Through some dubious legal fast talking, they're claiming that the patent protection might go a couples years beyond the expiration of their patent.

And of course they've made a new variation (RR Mark 2) that comes with a fresh patent.

But the original will be public domain shortly.

 

[cranky108]

Both DDT and agent orange did what they were supose to do. In the case of DDT, I believe much of the side effects were made up in the wrighting of the book "Silent Spring". Agent orange was mainly sold to the military who probally never asked about side effects. It also might not of been approved by the regulatory agencies, after all very few people want to deforrest large areas.

And the point of trying to ban any product, is to see that less of it is produced. In many cases the higher cost of the product (money, time, energy, etc.)will not be enough to completly reduce the number produced to zero. In the case of tail light covers, there are alternitives, although they may not look as nice. Which is the point of paying such high cost for one. But that dosen't stop people from using an alternitive. At one point there were more than a million of any one type of tail light cover made (except for the tail light of the volt), so I would assume the initial cost of designing them would have been paid for.
If the initial design has been paid for, and sales should be declining on each model, so why is the price so high? The cost to manufacture fewer and fewer should start to become prohibitive, and will cease at some point, where if the design could be sold to 3D printer shops, the number of sales could continue to the designer (company), at a lower payback, and lower cost to the consumer.

The whole point is older, and smaller sales items could still be available to consumers, with little fear of mass produced copies because of limited number of consumers desireing them. Sort of like limited coping of 1930's music, but still making it available to consumers.

 

[KENAT]

Not quite the replicator but getting there:

http://now.msn.com/nasa-funded-3-d-food-printing-research-begins-with-chocolate-pizza

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