What is coming for manufacturing.

John Baker

John Baker

Final Approach
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This is an e-mail I just received. It's pretty fascinating in it's concepts. Not only that, I have recently retired and as a way of picking up extra money, have ordered a CNC woodcarving machine, a large one, 4'X 8' capacity that will be able to make products out of wood, any wood, MDF, or plastics.

It will even carve granite. I am currently working on learning the software program to operate it.

This article actually describes what I will be doing in about a week, if all goes well. What I have coming is not as sophisticated as a 3-D printer, but it is running a close second, in that whatever it makes will come from a 3-D digital program.

-John

More stuff on 3D printers: This is the future....and it's here now. I didn't realize how far they have come with this until I read, about a month ago, that they can now replicate human bones, complete with channels for veins and arteries. The only current drawback is the inability to use hard metals, but that problems should be solved within 5 years.
Three D printers will change the world we live in. Most labs and manufacturing facilities already have invested in these machines with astounding results.


This is hard to believe, but it’s already a reality!

http://www.economist.com/node/21553017














 
If it pans out as described in the article, it certainly gives me a much brighter feeling about our country's financial future. It also makes me feel a whole lot better about the huge money gamble (at least for me) that I am embarking on.

-John
 
Can you imagine printing all the components of a plane like a snap together plastic model kit?
 
Here is a possible use.

You are on the International Space Station and an important widget breaks. You don't have the tool to repair or replace it... and it is a long and expensive process to visit your toolbox!

Your ground support staff emails you a 3-D blueprint (for lack of a better word) of the tool, and you just print one with your on-board 3-D printer.

The technology is here, excepting the structural hardness of the final product. But that is rapidly coming! This technology is amazing!

-Skip
 
Have a friend who recently embarked on a new job in the dental supply business. It appears that he represents a company that provides machines to dentists that actually "print" [layers] dental prosthesis in the dentist's office. It requires 3D input from digital [xray?] images taken from the patient [This takes a whole industrial segment out of the equation, as these prosthesis were produced mechanically, by hand]
 
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I went to a FAAST seminar a coupla weeks at at the community college of Baltimore in Catonville. After the presentation, the college opened the ATC training facility and sims, which were pretty impressive in and of themselves. But in the same building were the cad labs for machine tools. They had lathes, milling machines, 2d router tables like John is talking about, a 3d scanner as well as a 3D printer that could manufacture prototypes of ball bearings inside closed races which actually turn smoothly. Plastic, not metal, but still...About the only cad/cam machine not available was a waterjet.

At a community college no less. Some of the student projects were incredible pieces which a few years ago would have challeged a master machinist. All available for the cost of a lab fee.

I'm tempted to sign up for the sake of owner manufactured parts.
 
Chip, the machine I have coming will carve 3-D parts in relief. You can also turn the part over, carve the back, and you have full 3-D.

That of course is dependent on my ability to learn to program it.

-John
 
With this technology, maybe we'll be able to start making things here again.

I've really been impressed with the knife industry here in the U.S. We still manufacturere a lot of very high quality fixed blades and folders using this technology. The fit and finish is incredible for the price. Metallurgy is also fantastic, with new steel alloys, powdered metals, etc. People actually making stuff instead of people passing emails endlessly to each other and going to meeting about setting up more meetings.
 
Anthony said:
With this technology, maybe we'll be able to start making things here again.
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With this technology (when prices drop) we will have huge intellectual property issues. If one can simply download reverse engineered blueprints for a car and assemble a copy then how will the actual manufacturer compete? We will see the whole Napster issue all over again especially since the real article and the counterfeit will be virtually identical.
 
John Baker said:
Chip, the machine I have coming will carve 3-D parts in relief. You can also turn the part over, carve the back, and you have full 3-D.

That of course is dependent on my ability to learn to program it.

-John
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You'll be able to do some mighty fancy custom frame and memento work with that!
 
Three years ago, Mary and I stopped at a little woodworking shop in Wisconsin. It was just a whim kind of stop, on our way to somewhere else, in an utterly forgettable small town.

Inside, the owner -- a young guy maybe 25 years old -- had a 3D printer that had a laser strong enough to cut oak. He was designing pieces on his computer, and then creating them, instantly.

We had him make utterly amazing keychains for our old Oshkosh Suite (at the hotel in IA we sold last year) in about 4 minutes. I watched the "printer" work, and it was really neat. The laser went back and forth, like an old dot-matrix printer, and burnt away the wood until our 3D design was all that was left.

And this was in a small, mom & pop shop in Nowhere, Wisconsin! I can't imagine what the cutting edge, high-dollar stuff must be able to do.
 
Chip Sylverne said:
I went to a FAAST seminar a coupla weeks at at the community college of Baltimore in Catonville. After the presentation, the college opened the ATC training facility and sims, which were pretty impressive in and of themselves. But in the same building were the cad labs for machine tools. They had lathes, milling machines, 2d router tables like John is talking about, a 3d scanner as well as a 3D printer that could manufacture prototypes of ball bearings inside closed races which actually turn smoothly. Plastic, not metal, but still...About the only cad/cam machine not available was a waterjet.

At a community college no less. Some of the student projects were incredible pieces which a few years ago would have challeged a master machinist. All available for the cost of a lab fee.

I'm tempted to sign up for the sake of owner manufactured parts.
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First - Hi! I was one of the facilitators for the Safety Standdown. Wish I'd stayed for the college tour but I had to do the same seminar again in the evening elsewhere.

This stuff truly is amazing. Combine it with nanotech and... wow.
 
It is not just the new technology, it's the fact that any bozo who can afford it, will be able to set up a manufacturing business in his garage, or even a spare bedroom. Manufacturing things that up until now, required years of experience, skill, numerous employees, and industrial space.

This is going to completely change how Americans earn their livings, and not just Americans. This is not something that is going to happen, maybe, someday. It is actually happening right now. I'll be a member of that club in just a few days.

It is no longer just computer connected office workers working or employed at home, it is now manufacturing as well.

Exciting things are taking place here in "The Homeland".

(Am I the only one who hates that? We used to call it America.)

-John
 
Another concern will be that of regulation and taxation. Millions of products are going to be produced in bedrooms, basements, and garages. How will government get their piece of that pie? What will "they" do in order to control it all?

What about withholding taxes? As factories and office time clocks go the way of the dinosaurs, how will government replace that guaranteed monthly cash flow?

Think about it, you need a new whatever for your car or airplane, you simply go to your next door neighbor and buy it, cash.

-John
 
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Herman vanOoijen said:
Have a friend who recently embarked on a new job in the dental supply business. It appears that he represents a company that provides machines to dentists that actually "print" [layers] dental prosthesis in the dentist's office. It requires 3D input from digital [xray?] images taken from the patient [This takes a whole industrial segment out of the equation, as these prosthesis were produced mechanically, by hand]
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More skilled craftsmen go from feeding their families to feeding yours...at McDonalds, "Would you like fries with that?
 
John Baker said:
It is not just the new technology, it's the fact that any bozo who can afford it, will be able to set up a manufacturing business in his garage, or even a spare bedroom. Manufacturing things that up until now, required years of experience, skill, numerous employees, and industrial space.
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Hey, watch who you're calling a "bozo". I use a small CNC machine to do custom modifications to off-the-shelf plastic boxes to fit my own products. The manufacturer can do it, if I'm willing to shell out a few thousand dollars for design and tooling, then pay a hefty additional fee per box - in minimum lots of a few thousand, thanks. Need a hole moved for a new product or a change? Start over again.

So what was impossible for me to do before, I now do in small batches. I have 3 different boxes for 3 different products. It's allowed me to greatly increase sales and profitability.

Another concern will be that of regulation and taxation. Millions of products are going to be produced in bedrooms, basements, and garages. How will government get their piece of that pie? What will "they" do in order to control it all?

Think about it, you need a new whatever for your car or airplane, you simply go to your next door neighbor and buy it, cash.
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Already in process. The tax man has taken notice of the explosion of cottage industries, from garage sales to manufacturing, and is already doing what he can to get his share. For instance, if you use PayPal or have a credit card merchant account that now gets reported to the IRS. It would be very difficult to drum up enough cash business to make a difference. If you're going to do it you're going to need a way to get paid, and the IRS is already on that like white on rice. For the strictly cash businesses, there have always been and (I hope) always will be. I'm sure the IRS would love to abolish the use of cash altogether, but we're not there yet.
 
Skip Miller said:
Here is a possible use.

You are on the International Space Station and an important widget breaks. You don't have the tool to repair or replace it... and it is a long and expensive process to visit your toolbox!

Your ground support staff emails you a 3-D blueprint (for lack of a better word) of the tool, and you just print one with your on-board 3-D printer.

The technology is here, excepting the structural hardness of the final product. But that is rapidly coming! This technology is amazing!

-Skip
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I work at a major 3D printer manufacturer. We flew one of our smaller machines on the "vomit comet" and in zero-G, and our machine works fine.

This tech is the future of manufacturing, at least to a certain extent. There are a lot of projects I can't tell you about, but they are mind blowing.

I've actually made some parts for an RV builder (heater duct) out of Ultem, which is an FST rated plastic (low flame, smoke, toxicity), as well as panel cutout mockups.
 
Henning said:
More skilled craftsmen go from feeding their families to feeding yours...at McDonalds, "Would you like fries with that?
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Not really.

We have machines that take stock in one side and spit finished parts out the other side. Pretty impressive to see fairly complex parts, or even optically perfect mirrors, come out the other side. This lets us build the lab equipment we sell here in the USA, and reduce the number of people needing to take McD or TSA jobs.
 
John,

Since you're retired and have some time on your hands, a quick web search turned up several, affordable "roll your own" kit solutions for x,y,z cnc routers. A couple even had demo's on you tube. Maybe an option that could save several thousand bucks.

You got me thinkin'....
 
So far, what I've seen of these 3-D printers, at least the inexpensive ones, it seems most of what they are creating is primarily fodder for landfills.

The expensive (which so far, I haven't heard a price) ones look like they are creating actual useful products.

Either way, the whole concept is exciting, especially when you envision twenty or thirty years down the road. This is brand new technology, waiting for a metal hard medium.

-John
 
John Baker said:
So far, what I've seen of these 3-D printers, at least the inexpensive ones, it seems most of what they are creating is primarily fodder for landfills.

The expensive (which so far, I haven't heard a price) ones look like they are creating actual useful products.

Either way, the whole concept is exciting, especially when you envision twenty or thirty years down the road. This is brand new technology, waiting for a metal hard medium.

-John
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I am interested in what the better units cost. But for what I'm after the maker bot would actually work.

Molds for a friends ceramics business, switch brackets for the race car, even quite a few firearm accessories that could be made with a machine of that capability.

Not to mention I like to make things.

SWMBO has approved to boot.
 
John Baker said:
So far, what I've seen of these 3-D printers, at least the inexpensive ones, it seems most of what they are creating is primarily fodder for landfills.

The expensive (which so far, I haven't heard a price) ones look like they are creating actual useful products.

Either way, the whole concept is exciting, especially when you envision twenty or thirty years down the road. This is brand new technology, waiting for a metal hard medium.

-John
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I doubt that's far off using fine arc methods. When it can work at the atomic scale is when things will get really interesting.
 
alaskaflyer said:
Yes, then as a nation we can climb from number 1 in terms of manufacturing output, to...number 1.:nono: :D
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Though we just slipped slightly in that lead. There's not enough manufacturing investment going on because all the money is tied up in gold vaults (or so we hope).
 
Skylane81E said:
I am interested in what the better units cost. But for what I'm after the maker bot would actually work.

Molds for a friends ceramics business, switch brackets for the race car, even quite a few firearm accessories that could be made with a machine of that capability.

Not to mention I like to make things.

SWMBO has approved to boot.
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I looked at the MakerBot for a while before looking elsewhere. To me it looked OK for rough modeling, but not finished products. It's difficult to find detailed, close-up pictures of the finished product, but from what i can see there's no way to get a halfway smooth finish. Maybe it's better now, I don't know. I was also not wild about being limited to spit things out in ABS.

I ended up with a 3-axis CNC mill from a place that, sadly, has since gone TU. I was one of the lucky ones who got their machine and it's been doing a great job. I use it to mill plastic, wood and aluminum with a pretty fair degree of precision -- I'd say within a thousandth of an inch, give or take. I haven't gotten really anal with a dial indicator because the precision and repeatability is at least as good as I need. I'd love to have a 4-axis machine, but for now I live within the limits of what I can do -- about 19" x 19" XY with a 3.75" Z axis.

I come up with new uses for the thing all the time. My daughter and her husband bought a house with some missing and damaged cold air return vent covers; of course they're not a size you can buy anywhere. I'll be making them a set of custom fit wood covers that will be perfect. I want to replace a couple of plastic bushings on the motorcycle with aluminum ones -- I'll be able to exactly duplicate the dimensions. Nobody makes the parts I want, so I can make them myself. A lathe would work a lot better for those, I just don't have room for one. I could be making signs with it, and may do a few some day. For now it's making me money and saving me a lot of work.
 
DaleB said:
I ended up with a 3-axis CNC mill from a place that, sadly, has since gone TU. I was one of the lucky ones who got their machine and it's been doing a great job. I use it to mill plastic, wood and aluminum with a pretty fair degree of precision -- I'd say within a thousandth of an inch, give or take. I haven't gotten really anal with a dial indicator because the precision and repeatability is at least as good as I need. I'd love to have a 4-axis machine, but for now I live within the limits of what I can do -- about 19" x 19" XY with a 3.75" Z axis.
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The link I posted to the MIT website has a number of this kind of machine you can build yourself from off the shelf components.

Even building the tools has left the realm of big manufacturing houses, not just using the tools.
 
What are you current users using for design software?
Windows or unix?
 
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