Yet another Hacker News

RepRapMicron

172 points RobotToaster 2 hours ago 24 comments

godber 2 hours ago | parent

Thank god, in 18 months we can start making our own RAM.

7373737373 1 hour ago | parent

Just need a garden shed: https://youtube.com/watch?v=HfSO-LCKmrA

swiftcoder 1 hour ago | parent

That is proper mental. And extremely cool

generuso 24 minutes ago | parent

The guy with the shed is a founder and a CTO of a semiconductor company, and uses his home lab for business.

thenthenthen 2 hours ago | parent

Very cool, and I understand the off the shelf parts ambition, but what are those usb microscopes used for? These are absolute garbage (but light weight).

idiotsecant 2 hours ago | parent

To see the print? Weird comment.

MobiusHorizons 17 minutes ago | parent

The op asked because a usb microscope is basically unsuitable for seeing something this small with much clarity. From other replies it sounds like the purpose is for automated positioning which makes more sense.

ZiiS 1 hour ago | parent

Phisics dictate they have a small depth of field but they can be absolutely incredible.

wongarsu 1 hour ago | parent

Sounds like they are used for homing. For that they just need to observe a tiny spot at known distance with high resolution

To look at the output they recommend a separate regular microscope

CarVac 2 hours ago | parent

And the channel's preceding few videos covering the development of the prerequisite technologies.

chris_swart 1 hour ago | parent

This video was amazing, thank you for sharing. What are the main applications for this technology with a home setup?

MitPitt 15 minutes ago | parent

affordable housing for everyone. a bit tight but it's a start

carterschonwald 1 hour ago | parent

omg, ive wanted a precision computer controlled flexure motion system for yearssssss. i may also just really love tiny tools and devices.

mlyle 1 hour ago | parent

So that's existed for a long time in the form of OpenFlexure. The microscope is a pretty easy / fun build.

swiftcoder 1 hour ago | parent

I did not expect this would be achievable to such tight tolerances - this is very impressive. Excited to see a new wave of micro-manufacturing in our future

le-mark 1 hour ago | parent

I know it is a preposterous proposition to think this thing could create a 1/1000 version of itself, hence 1/1,000,000 3d printing, but why?

wongarsu 1 hour ago | parent

Calling it a RepRap, with full explanation that that means a printer that can print itself, does make it sound like it could be a goal

But even if you could get a positioning system that small, I'm pretty sure you can't scale resin printing down three orders of magnitude smaller than this printer. Maybe a tiny CNC?

Or more likely they refer to eventually printing the mems devices used in the printer

InsideOutSanta 1 hour ago | parent

None of the reprap 3D printers can fully make themselves. They all still need additional parts that can't be 3D-printed, like motors and controllers.

kadoban 1 hour ago | parent

A mechanism that works at scale X doesn't necessarily work at scale Y.

Different forces and material properties are all at relatively different levels.

The one I know offhand that will mess with stuff is the square-cube law. If you double the linear dimensions of something, it's twice as big, linearly, but 4 times the surface area and 8 times as heavy. The strength of anything that depends on area (like friction) won't scale at the same rate as anything that depends on mass or volume or anything.

Not to mention I'm sure this thing can only print a few different materials. Unless those are also _all_ of the materials it's made out of, it couldn't even make itself.

generuso 14 minutes ago | parent

The history of precision machinery is a steady ladder of using old machines to produce new more accurate components, and then new more accurate machines.

But simply making something smaller is not synonymous with it automatically becoming more accurate or capable of achieving higher resolution. If anything, very high precision machines are typically larger in size than the less accurate ones.

jlawrence6809 1 hour ago | parent

Okay my tinker-lust has been aroused! Can someone tell me what I can make with this thing so I have an excuse to build it?

wongarsu 1 hour ago | parent

If you get this to print conductive resins you could probably build a number of mems devices. Accelerometers, gyroscopes, tiny speakers

Being able to make structures this small could maybe make DIY inkjet printers viable, if you can simplify them enough?

The most exciting are the applications nobody has thought of yet

post-it 1 hour ago | parent

Does this mean we can print vinyl records?