Comments on: Printing circuits on the RepRap http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/ Fresh hacks every day Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:02:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: dennis http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71440 Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:04:57 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71440 a machine reproducing itself is ok.
If it also had a KI and pursued own interests I’d be scared.

:D

]]> By: Vik Olliver http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71387 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:53:37 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71387 bernt, I’m sure fablab need a reprap :)

]]> By: Bernt http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71386 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:49:59 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71386 @ jack
Some people do not walk very well if they wait for their steps, they need to *take* steps to move. I consider this a valid step. For learners a slow pace can be pleasing.

Now to those of you not waiting, lets iterate some -so we can start “printing the stepper motor and the cpu” already :)

I’m at MIT’s Fablab in Norway right now to play some, and this self-replication idea I’ll have to bring to the foundry…

]]> By: Vik Olliver http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71381 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:05:19 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71381 We’ll need to get the resolution up a fair bit before we can print useful electromagnets. Until then some form of winder might be more practical.

Vik :v)

]]> By: andre http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71377 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:38:44 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71377 actually you can print out motors. the trick is to bond several layers of “pcb coils” together, and use a sheet of iron as the rotor.

seen this trick used in VCR capstan motors..

-A

]]> By: ru http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71335 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:31:34 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71335 Why on earth would you want to wait til someone can print motors and ICs?

I can buy steppers an microcontrollers for a trivial sum of money. If I wanted to buy a rapid prototyper, it will cost me two orders of magnitude more.

Being able to cheaply and easily assemble a capable printer is worth vastly more than being able to print commodity parts that can be made to vastly higher tolerances and at vastly lower expense in a factory.

]]> By: Vik Olliver http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71286 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:14:04 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71286 I think that making the design more available and simpler is probably a better move than working on printing motors and CPUs at this stage. In order to drive design evolution you need the maximum number of people tinkering with it. Currently the cost and complexity are the biggest barrier, followed closely by the availability of some components. So a redesign using simpler, more available components will get the user numbers up. These new developers can then work towards other goals.

Vik :v)

]]> By: jack http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71284 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:59:00 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71284 a small step for a man, and even smaller for mankind.
i agree with stunmonkey
let’s wait for the next step, printing the stepper motor and the cpu.

]]> By: Vik Olliver http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71271 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:03:44 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71271 Stunmonkey missed a step or two. First off, the RepRap already replicates. Been there, done that, got the T Shirt.

It does look a little clunky, which probably has something to do with it being a V1.0

RepRap isn’t just designed to replicate, you see, it is designed to evolve as people make subtle changes to their designs. Some RepRap variants are producing output every bit as good as $40,000 commercial machines, others are designed to be built from scrap, or to print with metal. It’s not an evolutionary dead end, it’s an evolutionary starting point.

Vik :v)

]]> By: The Moogle http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71234 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:57:10 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71234 what was that technology called that was used to make boards. had a robotic arm that laid out wire and glued it down to the board…

]]> By: Oren Beck http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71226 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:45:52 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71226 It was called ECME:

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/10/27/radio-robot-squirts-out-3-a-minute/

Well- Rep’s up to replicating a 1947 or so tech level. And that’s meant as a compliment.

In serious reflection on this milestone we may consider it closer to full auto replication. The simple mundane bits of a RepStrapping project one could make this way are many. Trading cubic volume for other factors has a long history in both directions.

]]> By: morcheeba http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71225 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:37:00 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71225 stunmonkey -the reprap’s goal is to be able to replicate itself. I don’t know of any commercial products that do that. Of course, you can find specialized machines that make all sorts of different parts better than a reprap, but that’s not the point. Just think of the reprap as a challenge in of itself, and not the bestest baddest end-all manufacturing machine evar.

ruben – good idea. I was thinking of silver epoxy, which is pretty conductive enough already (and no-heat), but the electroplating would help. There are things like tinit, which don’t need electricity… but they need copper to bind to.

]]> By: Alan Parekh http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71216 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:45:11 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71216 Interesting comment Stunmonkey. I have been thinking about purchasing a RepRap only because they are inexpensive and have results that I could work with. I have seen amazing results from the commercial machines which can even mix plastic colors on the fly. But I don’t have 10s of thousands to play with this technology… I also would be interested in a list of these devices.

]]> By: Todd Grigsby http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71215 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:35:16 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71215 stunmonkey: like what? I’d love to check out these consumer-level products.

]]> By: stunmonkey http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/comment-page-1/#comment-71212 Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:26:29 +0000 http://hackaday.com/2009/04/19/printing-circuits-on-the-reprap/#comment-71212 This is a “solution” looking for a problem.

The RepRap is an evolutionary dead end and completely not worthy of notice other than the very small group of cultists flogging it.

There are clearly superior and far better evolved solutions to doing what exactly what Reprap started out trying to do and failed. Some of them are almost consuer-level products by now, and Reprap output still looks like a junior high proof-of-concept science project. Let it go.

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