Question I think I've worked more....

cool. hope you post some images. 3D printers are closest we are ever likely going to get to the world of Whateley.

They have the potential to change everything.

And bio genetics is at the start of a revolution.

Nanites are a thing.

Pretty sure it's up there and they have printed a test object or two.

I haven't read much about the space station 3D printer, but I imagine that printing in 0g was a bit of an adventure. (Of course, I'm sure they worked out most of the bugs before sending the printer up there, but still)

3D printers are fun tools.

Try combining them with metal casting.

We used 3d-printing to make the forms, that we used to sand-cast new lathe parts from aluminium.

We used this design, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12472 and initially used a jeweller's kiln.

Later we built a Gingery Furnace that could get up to 1500C, https://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Project:GingeryFurnace

If you're ever passing through London on a Tuesday evening, drop by to say hello, https://london.hackspace.org.uk/

L'esprit d'escalier.

one other site that will be worth a look for OSHW projects that are 3d-printable is https://www.wevolver.com/

They have some excellent work there. It's where i host some of my own projects.

Also, i forgot to mention, while Makerbot (who own the Thingiverse website), started out as an Open-Source company, they sold out for a large sum.

When they did so, they also changed the Terms & Conditions for the Thingiverse website, so when you post any design there, you are automatically granting them a licence to commercially exploit your designs without compensating you.

There was a large amount of bad feeling about this, and a large number of people from the OSHW community removed their work from the Thingiverse website.

If you ask around on the RepRap forums, you will find where they have moved them too, http://reprap.org/

And yes, 3d-printers are lots of fun.

One tweak that one friend used, was to wire in a computer fan that was held in place by a 3d-printable bracket that you can integrate into the extrusion system.

You can find examples, as well as printable models on the Reprap forums.

What sort of CNC machine is it?

A few years ago, a friend of mine mooted the idea of running a 3D printing shop, doing contract construction for prototyping. It was a good idea, but a self-limiting one (sooner or later, the prices would come down and people would buy commercial models for themselves), so he decided against it.

I've also seem some videos of the stuff they can do with commercial-grade equipment, the kind that combines extruded composites, injection-molded metals, laser cutting and laser metal deposition (also called laser metal sintering). The video of the multi-path aerated fuel injection systems GE is working on for their newest engines is impressive, to say the least, especially since (as they say in the video) it simply wouldn't be possible to build without LMD.



As for 3D printing in space, Boeing has some ideas on how to do it in a way that can achieve results only possible in micro-gravity, as well as for using magnetic levitation to speed up construction here on Earth: