RepRap – OLPC idiocy for the fabrication market
Boing Boing comments on the RepRap “self-replicating fabricator”.
I left a comment:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/04/rep…
I’m hugely interested in self replicating machinery, metalworking, and other forms of constructing items (I launched SmartFlix based on these interests).
…and I’ve done a fair bit of reading on RepRap (I was considering building one a year or so back).
I am dramatically underwhelmed.
The construction is shoddy, the technique (basically hot-glue extrusion of thermoplastics) is hackish and has poor tolerances, the concept of “self replication” is grossly dumbed down (a very very large number of parts are not constructed, even from high quality inputs, but just store bought), etc., etc.
In short, I was fairly embarrassed for the RepRap folks.
Their toy is somewhat cool (although nowhere near as cool as, say, the Gingery lathe that is cast from aluminum melted in a cast iron cookpot, and machines itself as construction progresses), but to claim that it represents any important step forward in self replication …
The RepRap folks and friends fire back at me and others:
God I hate the negativity. It doesn’t seem to matter what it is whenever something cool is posted we get these wankers who come in and shit on it. Just go away and please keep your cynicism to yourself.
Love that leftist outlook: “you’re bringing facts to the debate – go away from my sacred space, mannnn….“.
and
First off reprap isn’t intended to achieve total replication(yet), just replication of the parts not cheaply available everywhere, like nuts, bolts, and threaded rod. Of course reprap can’t build itself, but reprap might be able to build print out parts to build an assembler capable of assembling repraps from printed parts.
Okay, it’s not a replication machine. The syllable “Rep” (for “replication”) just snuck into the name somehow.
Second: “of course it can’t build itself” – which tries to rhetorically undercut the objections of myself and others. Look, if you don’t want to be criticized by folks saying it’s not a self-replicating machine, don’t issue a huge press release / web page / whatever touting the fact that it’s achieved self-replication.
Third: “reprap might be able to build print out parts to build an assembler capable of assembling repraps from printed parts” – uh… whaaaa? It “might” (impressive word, that), be able to build parts to a machine (well, the 5% plastic parts, not the metal parts) to build another machine that has a robotic arm and that can assemble machines.
Well, sure. No one has designed it, no one has tried to build it, and it’s impossible to prove that you can never come up with a design that will work.
Just like the OLPC: these folks are in love with the “ignoring painfully purchased domain wisdom and instead building crap from spare parts, junk, and chewing gum for a (nonexistent? captive?) audience” meme, just like the OLPC folks.
The market will come up with real personal fabricators soon enough – stuff like this is just a sinkhole for brain cycles that will deliver nothing.
(The difference between this, and, say Linux, is that the Linux folks (a) understood the existing tools in the space; (b) never dumbed down the requirements – Linux and others always aimed to deliver a real Unix; they didn’t deliver one quarter of a file system that you’d have to bolt onto the side of Solaris).
June 5th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I got excited when I saw this this morning; that ended when I read their website. Kludge was one word that came to mind in regards to their product and their thinking.
Real rapid prototyping machines are getting pretty inexpensive (how about $18,900 – base models do not cost 30,000 Euros in North America):
http://www.dimensionprinting.com/3d-printers/3d-printing-bst.aspx
I got a WORKING adjustable wrench at a trade show two years ago that was printed on a Dimension machine as one part (worm gear and all). Right now I’m designing a model train car for a friend that I hope to produce on this machine (gotta see what the quotes are first).
In a similar vein, Roland makes some kickass compact scanning/milling machines that start at $3,000:
http://www.rolanddga.com/asd/products/milling/
In two or three years I’ll have some kind of personal fabricating machine at home – it won’t be a RepcRap.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
STL machines have come down dramatically in price (When I just graduated, the School just got one – $125K), but they’re still basically useless from a practical standpoint. The machines can only make fairly flimsy models.
The Roland machines are a joke. The small cheap ones are only good for machining balsa wood, butterboard, machinable wax, etc. The real low end of CNC is now being taken over by SEIG, with the recent(as in last month) introduction of their new CNC mills. The KX-1 has a price of $3500 in GB, and I expect it to debut in America for 3K or less. Unlike the Rolands, it’s perfectly happy machining aluminum or even steel, but speeds and feeds are going to be slow. The cheapest “real use” machine at this point is probably the Tormach 1100, at $6800. One thing you may not know is that the Major CNC machine tool manufacturers have noted the explosion of “garage manufacturing” and are offering appropriate sized machines. Haas led the way in this regard, with the likes of the Minimill(a micro machining center), the Toolroom mill, and toolroom lathe, along with the GT series gangtool lathes. Most of these machines are 220v, single phase, in light of thier intended market, vs. the defacto industrial standard of 220v, 3 phase.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
The first steam engines were almost completely useless…
June 5th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
[quote comment="145377"]The first steam engines were almost completely useless…[/quote]
Presumably that problem was solved through engineers and blacksmiths who were already working on the problem making better steam engines, and dropping the prices over time, and not through enthusiasts and wankers pointing out that if you wired a brick over the top of a tea-kettle, you got something very similar to a steam engine, at just one third the price.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
The Steam engine problem is one of design, not of metallurgy.
The polymerizing liquids used in a typical STL machine have improved somewhat, but are still lightyears away from being useful. They’ve attempted to get around this by using high output lasers sintering a powder containing metal and a binder. The results are far more durable, but make sand casting look like a polished finish.
No matter how you cut it, STL is going to be a niche technique at best for the forseeable future. I cut metal for a living, and I can tell you, Precision machining as a primary method of production isn’t going away anytime soon – there’s a reason why Haas Automation sells over a thousand machines a month, and all of them are Milling, turning or a combination of the two.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:02 am
not through enthusiasts and wankers pointing out that if you wired a brick over the top of a tea-kettle, you got something very similar to a steam engine, at just one third the price.
I wonder if the wankers are just enthusiasts or are really involved with the actual problem?
’cause one thing I’ve noticed about really far-out not-quite here engineering is that there is no end of people who have no clue offering advice, useless speculation and napkin diagrams. Then when you point out that there is some actual pick-and-shovel work to be done they mutter darkly about you and organize another conference heavy on Power Point slides and more speculation.
I’ve only casually followed the RepRap thing – I want a cheap self-replicator in my basement as much as anyone – but it seems like the guys actually working on it have a solid grasp of the limitations of the deal.
Paraphrasing Sturgeon’s Law – Fanboys will give any good idea a bad name.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:28 am
[quote comment="145438"]
’cause one thing I’ve noticed about really far-out not-quite here engineering is that there is no end of people who have no clue offering advice, useless speculation and napkin diagrams.
[/quote]
Not sure if you’re referring to me there. I’m certainly not a MechE, but on the other hand, I do read a lot about machines, machine design, metalworking, casting, properties of materials, etc., so I hope that I’m at least a quarter of a step up from fanboys hanging around in a Star Trek forums talking about the replicators on the Enterprise…
[quote comment="145438"] it seems like the guys actually working on it have a solid grasp of the limitations of the deal.
[/quote]
I think that everyone involved in OLPC is very very smart, and very good at hardware engineering, operating systems, etc. – prob better than me.
I think that their idea on what price point makes sense (as of today), and their approach of “fixing a market failure” (when there has been no failure) are idiotic.
I think that the RR guys are similarly silly.
Fabricators exist, and they are following Moore’s law. The smart thing to do is just sit back and wait for the market to deliver $1,000 fabricators … but that’s not as much fun as cobbling together a piece of crap and issuing a press report calling it a “replicator”.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Not sure if you’re referring to me there.
No, I”m not. Personal frustration with alt.space enthusiasts leaked over into the comment.
that’s not as much fun as cobbling together a piece of crap and issuing a press report calling it a “replicator”.
Fair ’nuff.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I will admit that I’m not a Mech E either. I’m just a plain ole’ CNC machinist, 10 years in the trade, with a degree in ManE, who’s done everything from make precision nozzles for wire wrapping machines, to radar components for Aegis class missile cruisers and B-52 bombers. And oh, I like reading books like “Machine Elements”.
Course, since I don’t have the little piece of paper that says “MechE”, my opinion is completely invalidated. Apparently a decade of hands on experience with actual machine tools doesn’t count. ;)
June 6th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
[quote comment="145351"] The machines can only make fairly flimsy models.[/quote]
Models are what I want to make. I mostly work in styrene and ABS, so the Dimension and Roland machines would be perfect for me.
I know people with water jet and and laser cutters if I need to cut complex metal weights.
[quote comment="145351"] The real low end of CNC is now being taken over by SEIG, with the recent(as in last month) introduction of their new CNC mills. The KX-1 has a price of $3500 in GB, and I expect it to debut in America for 3K or less.[/quote]
Cool! Thank you for the info on the mini milling machines.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Here’s a PDF of the new Siegs.