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A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

industrytap.com

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Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

#21

Post by fudged71 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #15
oilytheotter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the video, he proposes that the printer would have a second pick and place type arm that would be able to install plumbing and electrical systems. He claims that it could be used to do finishing work too, but there are no animations to suggest how that might work.

So, wave a wand and say "a robot will do it". That doesn't count as "A printer that can print a 2500 sq ft house". Even imagine the robot exists: how exactly does it just 'plug in' the plumbinb and electrical systems? Currently it takes a person to scramble all over the house, drilling and fitting and connecting. There is nothing being solved here. Just a blue-sky story about an imaginary printer.

I can imagine someone saying something similar in the early days of the computer.

Could you watch the video? He already addresses these issues, and they are clearly researching how to do this. This is just a giant pick-and-place machine working with larger components. They already show that some human effort will be required in the assembly process, but hopefully will be much safer than what is done today.

Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

#22

Post by jlgreco »

angersock wrote: post #6
JonSkeptic wrote: post #4

"Construction is the most hazardous job. It is more dangerous than mining and agriculture." Interesting if true. I had no idea.

Yep. Even for just houses: consider framing, or doing roof work--walking around on joists is not really safe.

Is it more dangerous in terms of injuries, or in terms of deaths? I would expect injuries to be very frequent, but frequent deaths would surprise me.

Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

#23

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

angersock wrote: post #7
hnriot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"sub-optimal use of that money for the common good?" -- isn't that how communism started?

Hey, I didn't claim that it was morally repugnant, that the folks should be cast out in streets to live with the other homeless in SF and have their Teslas and iJiggers auctioned off to feed the poor. I just would appreciate some acknowledgement that, "Yeah, we don't fund things like this that could help the average person because it doesn't give us money." It's the same thing behind making money off of war, off of c…

The companies making money "off of cancer" (http://www.texmed.org/template.aspx?id=16518) have saved and improved the lives of quite a few people. Why do you have a problem with that?

Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

#24

Post by diydsp »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #15
oilytheotter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the video, he proposes that the printer would have a second pick and place type arm that would be able to install plumbing and electrical systems. He claims that it could be used to do finishing work too, but there are no animations to suggest how that might work.

So, wave a wand and say "a robot will do it". That doesn't count as "A printer that can print a 2500 sq ft house". Even imagine the robot exists: how exactly does it just 'plug in' the plumbinb and electrical systems? Currently it takes a person to scramble all over the house, drilling and fitting and connecting. There is nothing being solved here. Just a blue-sky story about an imaginary printer.

I am glad to see your justified skepticism of 3-d printer mania.

The real breakthroughs will come when people stop fixating on "printing" (extrusion) and realize it's the 3-d (4-d, 5-d, etc.) gantry that's the super-useful part. Fitted with different tools, such as painting, gluing and sanding tools, a 3-d gantry can be extremely useful.

There will however continue to be a "last mile" problem in Computer-Assisted Manufacturing (CAM) applications. These are the details, such as stripping wires, screwing in electrical boxes, etc. where the robot to perform these tasks is prohibitively expensive. The breakthrough is the 3-d gantry form, due largely to the reduction in prices of microcontrollers and power transistors, but it does not extend to all robotics, such as detail work.

For example, I've been watching videos on building guitars. I would love to see a 3-d printer friend explain to me how it's going to build a guitar from scratch. The economy of 3-d printing doesn't extend to the large number of distinct tasks, requiring different tools, techniques, process and forces in most objects that are useful in the real world.

This entropic mixture of difficult processes, I would argue, is the very reason WHY particular artifacts, such as a guitar, television set, couch, etc. are valuable in the first place. It is because no quantity of single, unskilled process (like shoveling coal) can produce them.

Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

#26

Post by angersock »

mh- wrote: post #11
angersock wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I didn't claim that it was morally repugnant, that the folks should be cast out in streets to live with the other homeless in SF and have their Teslas and iJiggers auctioned off to feed the poor. I just would appreciate some acknowledgement that, "Yeah, we don't fund things like this that could help the average person because it doesn't give us money." It's the same thing behind making money off of war, off of c…

why don't you, personally, fund the things you want to see funded?

Ah, but I do, by offering up my time and sometimes money.

Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

#27

Post by angersock »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #23
angersock wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I didn't claim that it was morally repugnant, that the folks should be cast out in streets to live with the other homeless in SF and have their Teslas and iJiggers auctioned off to feed the poor. I just would appreciate some acknowledgement that, "Yeah, we don't fund things like this that could help the average person because it doesn't give us money." It's the same thing behind making money off of war, off of c…

The companies making money "off of cancer" ( http://www.texmed.org/template.aspx?id=16518 ) have saved and improved the lives of quite a few people. Why do you have a problem with that?

Because those cures are quite expensive, and because they are prescribed by doctors who have no real feeling about what that cost does to a family.

Perhaps most importantly, because the war on cancer has sidetracked the development of utilitarian things like anti-biotics, of which we are about to run out (depending on what you read, we've already run out).

The folks that manufacture Lexus SUVs have saved and improved the lives of quite a few people, but one does wonder just how much good that has done everyone else who can't afford it.

Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

#28

Post by jerf »

angersock wrote: post #7
hnriot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"sub-optimal use of that money for the common good?" -- isn't that how communism started?

Hey, I didn't claim that it was morally repugnant, that the folks should be cast out in streets to live with the other homeless in SF and have their Teslas and iJiggers auctioned off to feed the poor. I just would appreciate some acknowledgement that, "Yeah, we don't fund things like this that could help the average person because it doesn't give us money." It's the same thing behind making money off of war, off of c…

If nobody is buying into this, the most likely reason is precisely that it doesn't make any money because it doesn't provide enough excess value vs. what we already have to support any profit.

A guy can get up on stage and promise to save the world pretty easily. Investors, however, have to live in the real world where they actually have to manifest the promised tech. If they don't think they can, well, odds are they are correct.

Incidentally, cancer researchers aren't profiting off of human misery... they're profiting off of reducing human misery. Is there a better thing to profit off of? The ones you have to watch out for are the ones who wish to extend your misery for their own gains, but that's not required for profit, and in fact is often against their own long-term interests anyhow.

Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

#29

Post by StandardFuture »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #9

Hm. A whole house, except the flooring, walls, wiring, plumbing, windows, roofing, lighting, heck anything but the bare frame and walls. You can already do that, prefab, in a few hours. This is custom, but so is prefab. The problem is the usual: a single material isn't enough to make anything but the simple constructs. Almost everything is complex these days. Materials Science hasn't been a science for a century for…

You did not watch the accompanying YouTube video where these things are mentioned as being needed and could be accomplished using auxiliary automation techniques.

EDIT: They also show visual demonstrations of techniques as to HOW this would be accomplished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdbJP8Gxqog

Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

#30

Post by 6d0debc071 »

angersock wrote: post #3

So, I realize that the return on investment for VCs in something like this is probably pretty low--the AEC industry is terrible (though real estate is alright). That said, can we at least be honest that having that much capital locked up in stupid consumer and enterprise gambles is actually a pretty obviously sub-optimal use of that money for the common good?

So, you, as venture-capital-extraordinaire, spend all your money on helping the poor. Maybe you do better in the short term. But what do you do once that money's gone? There's no long-term in that picture and charity for developing nations is not a short-term endeavour.

Meanwhile, trivial enterprise and consumer products may not be going to uplift a country any time soon, but they can be recursed upon, and the technologies involved in those industries - which have a wide range of potential applications, including some charitable potential - continue to advance.

It doesn't make any sense to build a system based on what you would like people to be rather than what they are. And for better or worse people's relatively direct purchasing of utilions for others tends to be both fairly rare and inefficient.

#

I'd be interested to hear how you think CAM and computing technology would have evolved without funding for 'stupid consumer gambles,' and the need to compete with other manufacturers in that regard.

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