14 Jul
2009
14 Jul
'09
8:36 a.m.
On Jul 14, 2009, at 5:40 AM, Dave Woyciesjes wrote:
Yeah, I know, it's about cars, but it would be
great for replacing
switches & such on our babies....
A lot of the geeks around these parts (Portland, Oregon) are building
and running variations of the "reprap" plastic printer hardware. If
you have a mind to, the machines can be built pretty cheaply (well
under $1,000) and the plastic material is stupid cheap: $50 buys five
pounds of plastic, which can make a lifetime of small parts.
I've already started making replacement IMSAI switch toggles with one
(although they aren't exactly right yet, I'm still working on the
design).
The downsides to 3D printed objects (especially the ones generated by
the homebrew machines) is they are far from perfect and often require
a little TLC to look nice. The upside is: if you can draw it in
Blender, you can create it.
Check out http://thingiverse.com for an idea of what people are doing
with home-brew CNC and their ilk.
As a personal note: watching the local geekerati playing with these
machines feels a lot like watching early home computer hobbyists in
the late-1970's playing with Imsais and their ilk. There's the
potential for something huge here, you can almost taste it.. once the
bugs get worked out. And they're certainly working them out.