January 9th, 2007 Slashdotting
From Fab @ Home
On January 9th, 2007 there was a posting on Slashdot with 245 comments (13 modded up to 5) about Fab@Home.
Summary of Slashdot's Collective Take
Write here with links to specific posts...
Q&A With Slashdotters
Q. If I wanted to get involved in this project what would be the best place to go or way to start?
A. It somewhat depends on what you're interested in and what your skills are. Here are some interesting "first places" if you want to actually do something:
- If want to see what it take to actually personally build a fabber, try to the Model 1 Overview.
- If you're into software development, download the code from SourceForge and help develop. Most challenges will require you to have a working fabber, but some issues are purely software (like improved path planning, objects intersection check, or a port to Linux/Mac, etc.)
- If you're more of a scientist, explore different materials, compounds, and deposition paremeters to find the perfect combination for accuracy, speed, and quality.
- If your're a designer, design something cool that can be printed. See the Design Library for working examples.
- If you're an engineer, download the CAD file and improve the machine - make it perform better or look better. Larger build space, higher precision, multiple nozzles design?
- If you want to collaborate or ask something, there's no mailing list yet, but there is a Guest Book that includes contact info for about 26 people.
Q. What kind of precision and materials can this handle? How far away are we from fabbing a LEGO block(which require about 0.005mm precision according to a comment)?
A. The precision depends on the material being used because for very viscous materials, a larger diameter nozzle must be used. For a material like silicone rubber, the Model 1 can reliably deposit 250 micrometer (0.25mm) diameter strands of material. We have not yet measured the accuracy with which complete parts can be made, as this depends on the size and shape of the part, as well as the material being used. I would estimate the accuracy for silicone parts at +/- 500 micrometers. The Model 1 has a positioning resolution of 15 micrometers.
Almost any fluid or paste material can be used with the syringe tool of the Model 1, and with the minor modification of adding a heater to the syringe, some materials that melt above room temperature can be used as well. We have tested it with silicone rubber, gypsum, cake frosting, epoxy, electrically conductive ink, chocolate, lead-tin solder, and clay. The free time and creativity of the user are the main limitations to what materials can be used. Evan 13:02, 10 January 2007 (EST)
Q. Another comment brought up environmental/waste issues. Are any of the materials this works with recycleable? Can you think of any materials that might work in the fabber that could be melted down and used a second time?
A. While not exactly recyclable, food is one class of material with little environmental waste implication that is very well suited to the Fab@Home. Wax, clay, and solder alloy are recyclable. With some modifications to the design of the deposition tool (for instance to a screw-extruder tool as is used by the RepRap Project), materials such as polycaprolactone, polypropylene, ABS, and other thermoplastic materials can be used. Evan 13:02, 10 January 2007 (EST)
Q. Another article on fabbing contained a proposal to design something that could substantially fabricate all its own parts. Is this a direction Fab@Home is interested in moving? Could it work incrementally, so a future design goal could include that "your second fabricator" would cost less in labor and/or money than your first?
A. The RepRap Project has the stated goal of achieving self-replication of fabbers. This is a fascinating challenge, but unfortunately this requires a more complicated design for the fabber. The Fab@Home project is trying to make building and operating a fabber a simple and affordable as possible so that anyone who is interested in fabbing can use and explore this amazing technology. It is our hope that the more technically advanced users of Fab@Home (or RepRap) will modify the hardware and software to achieve more ambitious goals such as full or partial self-replication. Evan 13:02, 10 January 2007 (EST)
Q. EMC2 [1] is machine control software that can be used to control a CNC machine. Have you considered this software to run your machine?
A. We developed Fab@Home with the intent of getting fabbers into the hands of the largest possible number of interested users, and providing the simplest possible user experience so that the experience of fabbing is not destroyed by the complications of operating the fabber. For this reason, we chose to write our own software, and to focus on the MS Windows operating system as the target. We hope that with the help of interested individuals, we can develop future versions of the Fab@Home application which have more desired functionality and support for additional operating systems. Evan 13:02, 10 January 2007 (EST)
Q. Where is the source code for the Model 1 Software? What is the license?
A. We are in the process of setting up a SourceForge project for the source code. You can view the project page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/fabathome. All hardware, software for Fab@Home is covered by the BSD Open Source License. Evan 13:02, 10 January 2007 (EST)
