On 23 December 2010 10:32, Rob Myers <[email protected]> wrote: > On 23/12/10 09:58, James Morris wrote: >> >> I very much doubt that printed ball bearings would work any better >> than ball bearings made from scrunched up sellotape. > > You can currently make things in metal (and glass, and rubber) using > more expensive systems: > > http://www.shapeways.com/materials/ > > Even if the ball bearings example isn't technically convincing at > present it is entirely possible to create objects with moving parts this > way. I have a sample next to me: > > http://www.shapeways.com/model/133452/shapeways_materials_sample_kit.html > > 2D scanning and printing, as it were, are now pretty pervasive even if > not in the way their earliest proponents thought it would be. Not > everyone has a Xerox machine, but camera phones and inkjet printers are > all over the place. > > For me the counter-examples to the 3D printing dream aren't so much > premature technical claims as historical examples of companies like > Sodastream and Polaroid who sold a kind of non-disruptive, > non-self-sufficient last-stage-assembly fantasy of self-production as > just another consumer experience. >
My sellotape bearings example wasn't intended to prove 3D printing is nothing more than a dream. Bringing ball bearings up as an example for why consumer 3D printing is a threat to industry is nonsense. Without knowing how they're made, I do know bearings don't work well once they've worn! Once they've lost their shape they stick and grind. They need to be perfect spheres (or cylinders etc) and the race needs to be perfectly smooth too. The point being that 3D printing no matter how good is not going to be the process for creating reliable ball bearings (unreliable ball bearings aren't worth bothering with). What about arc welders? S*** now I've burnt my sausages :( _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
