The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge • Hacker News Board

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#21

Post by jstanley » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #20

mikenew wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experience for me. I bought a cheap printer from eBay and slowly started re-designing and replacing existing parts by printing them out on the printer itself. Nearly 100% of the printer has been replaced, and I’m finalizing the design for a second printer. I’ve started making contributions to the firmware, slicers, and host software to get features I want, learned to model in Blender, learned about programming m…

I want to offer additional context for other people who read this and may not be familiar with how 3D printers work. The core components of a 3D printer are not currently printable. These components are: power supply, control board, steppers, rails, bearings, belts, hotend, and the bed. When people talk about printing parts for their printer, they are almost always referring to the secondary parts like the carriage a…

If you operate 50 printers you're presumably doing some sort of business. Nobody operates 50 printers for a laugh.

It sounds interesting. Are you printing arbitrary parts that other people send you, printing parts of your own design for your own products, or something else?

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#22

Post by karmicthreat » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #8

karmicthreat wrote: post #7

What was the new type of steel they used?

I took that to mean that it is not hot-rolled steel, cold-rolled steel, cast iron, or any other traditional method of converting a lump of iron ore into a usable piece of steel. It's 1000 km of welding wire welded together. It counts as a new "type" of steel depending on how flexible you are with what counts as different "types".

That is a good point though. Since its just mig wire you could change out the wire at various points to change the properties of the steel.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#23

Post by hathawsh » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 10:20 PM UTC

wheelie_boy wrote: post #15

eloff wrote: post #4

Just beautiful. The ability of 3D printing, not just to automate a traditional construction process, but to enable radically different designs is going to create a whole new style of architecture. Many of the old constraints don't apply and the human imagination is given a freer reign. There's still that pesky law of gravity that must be respected, but otherwise this offers a remarkable freedom.

An interesting thing that's happening alongside 3d printing is the emergence of visual programming languages specialized for geometry, the most popular being Grasshopper.

This is the first time I've heard of Grasshopper. Are you referring to this?

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/

How would you recommend a 3D printer operator could learn more about Grasshopper? Are the tutorials good?

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#24

Post by jstanley » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 10:53 PM UTC

karmicthreat wrote: post #22

jstanley wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took that to mean that it is not hot-rolled steel, cold-rolled steel, cast iron, or any other traditional method of converting a lump of iron ore into a usable piece of steel. It's 1000 km of welding wire welded together. It counts as a new "type" of steel depending on how flexible you are with what counts as different "types".

That is a good point though. Since its just mig wire you could change out the wire at various points to change the properties of the steel.

You could use a combination of stainless and mild steel to write some text on the surface of the bridge.

The surface of the mild steel would rust and the stainless wouldn't!

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#25

Post by sterlind » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 11:07 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #20

mikenew wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experience for me. I bought a cheap printer from eBay and slowly started re-designing and replacing existing parts by printing them out on the printer itself. Nearly 100% of the printer has been replaced, and I’m finalizing the design for a second printer. I’ve started making contributions to the firmware, slicers, and host software to get features I want, learned to model in Blender, learned about programming m…

I want to offer additional context for other people who read this and may not be familiar with how 3D printers work. The core components of a 3D printer are not currently printable. These components are: power supply, control board, steppers, rails, bearings, belts, hotend, and the bed. When people talk about printing parts for their printer, they are almost always referring to the secondary parts like the carriage a…

How far away are we from 3D printer + CNC mill/laser cutter + robot arm for assembly?

Incremental deposition may not yield a working 3D printer, but couldn't a small ensemble of machines construct all their parts? (Minus the chips, for now)

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#26

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 11:21 PM UTC

mikenew wrote: post #17

grownseed wrote: post #11

Commenting on this while my 3D printer is making parts for my new 3D printer, with parts I designed from the comfort of my own home. 3D printing and the RepRap movement have managed to get me truly excited about something for the first time since I took up programming 20 something years ago. We're not quite at the fully consumer-ready stage yet, there is a lot of tinkering and know-how that would be too much for the…

Same experience for me. I bought a cheap printer from eBay and slowly started re-designing and replacing existing parts by printing them out on the printer itself. Nearly 100% of the printer has been replaced, and I’m finalizing the design for a second printer. I’ve started making contributions to the firmware, slicers, and host software to get features I want, learned to model in Blender, learned about programming m…

Agreed. One of the reasons I've enjoyed robotics so much is that it presses on all three of mechanics, software, and electronics. Since there is rarely someone who is good enough at all three it gets a huge boost by community involvement by folks with complementary skill sets. The problem with robotics was that once you did the basics, obstacle avoidance, line following, balancing perhaps. You Were sort of stuck on the next thing to work on. But 3D printers are robots that can make more interesting things so they are useful in their own right.

My current favorite application is to make holding fixtures for things like breakout boards so that I can fabricate systems out of a bunch of separate boards easily.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#27

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 11:45 PM UTC

Wasn't this the first?

https://www.tudelft.nl/en/2015/io/the-first-3d-printed-bridg...

Ah, it is the same project only a bit delayed and they've redesigned the bridge itself and moved the project indoors during the printing phase (which makes good sense).

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#28

Post by skookumchuck » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 11:56 PM UTC

While an amazing new technique, I'm a bit disappointed that it was used to create an "art" bridge. As an engineer, I'd be more interested in what a bridge would look like if it was pure utilitarian - the only material on it is what must be on it, not what is required by machining costs and stock material shapes.

Before anyone scoffs that this must result in nerdy and ugly shapes, airplanes are beautiful shapes and none of that is for aesthetics or artistic purposes. It's simply the best shape for flying. As manufacturing techniques improve, the airplane shapes get more subtly flowing forms, and get even more beautiful.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#29

Post by mdorazio » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 12:29 AM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #21

mdorazio wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to offer additional context for other people who read this and may not be familiar with how 3D printers work. The core components of a 3D printer are not currently printable. These components are: power supply, control board, steppers, rails, bearings, belts, hotend, and the bed. When people talk about printing parts for their printer, they are almost always referring to the secondary parts like the carriage a…

If you operate 50 printers you're presumably doing some sort of business. Nobody operates 50 printers for a laugh. It sounds interesting. Are you printing arbitrary parts that other people send you, printing parts of your own design for your own products, or something else?

Yes to all of those. It's a micro manufacturing shop (we also have laser cutters, a CNC mill, woodworking equipment, casting materials, etc.). We mostly sell products that we design and build on Etsy & Amazon, but also do small batch runs for people who need 50+ pieces of something and the economics of injection molding don't make sense. It actually started as a makerspace, but the economics of that model were not sustainable, so we scaled into small-run product manufacturing.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#30

Post by mdorazio » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

sterlind wrote: post #25

mdorazio wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to offer additional context for other people who read this and may not be familiar with how 3D printers work. The core components of a 3D printer are not currently printable. These components are: power supply, control board, steppers, rails, bearings, belts, hotend, and the bed. When people talk about printing parts for their printer, they are almost always referring to the secondary parts like the carriage a…

How far away are we from 3D printer + CNC mill/laser cutter + robot arm for assembly? Incremental deposition may not yield a working 3D printer, but couldn't a small ensemble of machines construct all their parts? (Minus the chips, for now)

Great question, and the answer is probably "it depends". I've got all of those except the robot arm/part picker and even if you had really expensive tools like metal sintering printers and a 5-axis CNC mill, you would still have to buy a lot of the components that are produced with specialized machinery. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that maybe in 20 years we'll be able to self-replicate machinery with raw materials inputs and a lot of work. It wouldn't be even close to economically viable to do so, but it might be possible.

It's important to remember that the majority of the core technology in 3D printing today actually dates back to the late 1980s. We're starting to see some interesting developments in materials and capabilities, but there are still plenty of limitations that need to be overcome.