I wrote a bit about this and it's implications some years back - http://www.ciocookbook.com/philosophy/thecodeisthedesign.htm..., and the Times has reported on a group working on concrete printing - but as is pointed out here, it's very hard - but on e the basics are in, well software eats another industry
A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
41–50 of 89 posts
Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
#42Sigh, if this guy had an actual 3D printer he would realize those doors and windows are a no-go :-) More seriously, there are unsolved issues in printing unsupported structures, the current best solution is a second 'support' material that can be dissolved/blown away once the part is completed but that rules out voids which are part of what you hope to make with this sort of thing. Also as others point out this is ju…
if this guy had an actual 3D printer he would realize those doors and windows are a no-go Is easily solvable though by having the robot drop a plank across the gap before printing the lintel, so I don't think that is a showstopper.
No doubt, if you are into carpentry however you would call it a "header" rather than a plank :-) The more salient bit though is that the header has to be able to support the weight that the missing wall underneath it would have supported, had that wall been there. Since we're building with concrete (in this hypothetical example) you're looking at a lot of weight. That puts you in the 4 x 12 category of header, maybe two if you are doing a longer space. But that has an issue that concrete doesn't adhere to wood (which is why they make forms out of it) and so now you're looking at a more engineered beam that you can have concrete form around. Except that isn't really very strong unless it is prestressed (which is what they do with the concrete under bridges and roadways, and for that you really want to pull some iron through it which you release after it solidifies (the iron trys to contract and it keeps pressure (aka stress) on the concrete). So now you are 3D printing part of the building, then pausing so that your ironworkers can set up some rebar for the door and window headers, and then you put that concrete in and they come back and trim those. (this looks better than the threaded rod through the concrete with nuts on both sides to add the compression.
My point is not that the problems are not addressable, they are, rather its that "3D Printing" and "Homes" isn't a good fit yet given what we know. This neither invalidates 3D printing as a pretty revolutionary way to manufacture, nor the notion that there might be better ways to build homes, just that this particular thought experiment is a pre-mature at best, and potentially forever impractical.
Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
if this guy had an actual 3D printer he would realize those doors and windows are a no-go Is easily solvable though by having the robot drop a plank across the gap before printing the lintel, so I don't think that is a showstopper.
No doubt, if you are into carpentry however you would call it a "header" rather than a plank :-) The more salient bit though is that the header has to be able to support the weight that the missing wall underneath it would have supported, had that wall been there. Since we're building with concrete (in this hypothetical example) you're looking at a lot of weight. That puts you in the 4 x 12 category of header, maybe…
They do show in the video the robot putting down steel beams for those lintels to be fair, so they have obviously planned for it.
Along the same lines I have been sketching designs for a robot to lay down 2-part foam, wire mesh and shotcrete, though I have been trying to work out if I can get it to climb its own wall, rather than needing a giant crane.
Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prefab needs a factory to make the prefab sections. Also, you can lay down multiple materials by making the head swappable. I would also say plumbing and electrics are nowhere near as complex as they used to be. Everything is available as clip-on fittings these days, which is perfect for automation.
You don't even need to be a plumber to do plumbing; PVC the whole thing.
Correct slopes and various other things to meet code are a lot harder than joints.
Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't even need to be a plumber to do plumbing; PVC the whole thing.
Correct slopes and various other things to meet code are a lot harder than joints.
Still, its pretty trivial. Slopes with your level, traps in the right spots. I admit there is knowledge required, but not as much skill.
Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Right, because that cost is a bigger imposition on the family than dying. As my dad has had cancer twice and beat cancer twice so far, I am very thankful for those expensive cancer treatments. Keep them coming please.
Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
#47Sigh, if this guy had an actual 3D printer he would realize those doors and windows are a no-go :-) More seriously, there are unsolved issues in printing unsupported structures, the current best solution is a second 'support' material that can be dissolved/blown away once the part is completed but that rules out voids which are part of what you hope to make with this sort of thing. Also as others point out this is ju…
(Disclaimer: I'm just an amateur 3d printer and just hack with my printer and what I can get my hands on)
The thing that intrigues me about fiberous ceramics for deposition printing is that no printers currently take advantage of the (albeit tiny) tensile strength of the deposited filament.
For plastic printing, this isn't very useful, but potentially for this new construction compound you could effectively (or nearly so) bridge gaps with little droop or sag.
I do think from an engineering perspective that placing blanks underneath is the best bet, but on the order of a 20-hr print, I don't think its unreasonable to have someone walking around with the machine placing single layer "blanks" at each opening at each level.
Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't even need to be a plumber to do plumbing; PVC the whole thing.
Correct slopes and various other things to meet code are a lot harder than joints.
Getting the angle right is easy if all the plumbing is specified as a parametric model then machine cut, getting it wrong would be more tricky.
Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Right, because that cost is a bigger imposition on the family than dying. As my dad has had cancer twice and beat cancer twice so far, I am very thankful for those expensive cancer treatments. Keep them coming please.
How does your dad afford it, if I may ask? People buying your apps?
Can't you see that these miracles may as well not exist for many families, or that by pursuing them at all costs they set themselves up for poverty?
I don't deny your experience, but I don't think you should assume it is automatically applicable to anyone else.
Re: A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours
#50Interesting, but this still has the classic issue where the "printer has to be larger than the object printed." A few weeks back I got a tour of MIT's media lab, where they have a robot arm they're strapping to a bucket truck, in which case they have a mobile, 3D printer with a 100 foot wingspan.
This arm has an attachment for a polyurethane foam sprayer, a milling device, and a paint sprayer. In which case they can spray out a concrete form, mill it to get more precise (urethane foam is a bit imprecise), and paint it.
Then they want to get a series of these trucks to work together in a "hive" format... crazy kids.