“Centralized Manufacturing Must Die…”

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The revolution we forecast in 2005 with the appearance of desktop 3D printers is now here.  Open source 3D has gone very mainstream. We just waiting for the killer app (print files) that will make it all a must-have.

Today, a look back at some of our work from the period and review how that forecast (and our back-when website on topic, www.nationaldesignlibrary.org, worked out and who’s in that space today.

All because we have hit the “watershed price point” so yeah, a lot of “Manufacturing Must Die.”

Funeral plans after some headlines and charts. The world of custom mass manufacturing (done at home) beckons.

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13 thoughts on ““Centralized Manufacturing Must Die…””

  1. a nuclear weapon.. is a threat or control over people, the FED is losing control of their means of control,,SHTF stuff,,, just a dream (eye roll here). Tin foil hats for everyone

    • The Fed never really had the level of control they claimed, and IS losing what little bit of control they ever had, or maybe they’re just giving up on their smoke and mirrors dog and pony act, because it’s costing them too much money to be pretenders, and they keep having to reverse themselves anyway.
      Tin foil hat wearers are an oppressed minority. Get a shielded cap from these guys and flaunt your paranoia:

      https://lessemf.com/personal.html

      Note that just because you aren’t paranoid doesn’t mean there aren’t Federales, leftists and nuclear stuff out to get you. Now that Mark has come back into the light over the Google election tampering debacle, he may need to get one of those caps too.

  2. Wow! Lots to comment on here, but first, the colors of blue and black appear reversed on your daily aggregate – 1 year view chart. Just FYI. Of course, it might just be my screen.

    I’m totally disgusted with the democrat lines about “obstruction” when that’s all they’ve been doing in plain sight for the last three years! They all need to be impeached, starting with the speaker. Sadly, only they can do it to themselves legally.

    My beloved daughter and her husband own the next larger 3D printer to yours. Same brand. Even though it looks like something made with an erector set, it’s been heroic for the last 18 months or so, and created real economic value in their lives. It’s surprisingly reliable, though slow. They do both PLA and ABS. I need to get one when I have time for yet another project. BTW, hairspray on the glass can help the first layer adhere where it belongs, yet it’s still easy to remove the end product. Of course, YMMV. If you’re proficient with AutoCad or 3DStudioMax, it helps. And yes, a real 3D scanner is essential to fully utilize the device. The original King of Tools was and still is the lathe, and the subtractive machining process will probably remain dominant for while. For those of us who’s cars and all other machinery were made in the last millennium, knowing how to source or make parts becomes increasingly important. I have no intention of buying anything newer unless I get it for free or am somehow forced to. So much for the velocity of MY money!

  3. G – 3-D printers & scanners – great time savers and pretty cool in their own right – still fall way short of what I saw in the movie 5th Element ..that cool food replicator that looks like a microwave.

    U put the fuel/protein cube in bowl into the replicator, punch the Start button and 2 mins later out pops a whole roasted chicken w/ roasted veggies! Where the hell is that technology ?

    the word from the anon community is vonn mueller was “flipped” – convinced during his 5 plus hr meeting w/the Donald back in 2016, to work for POTUS in investigating Obummer Admin regards coup actions – he worked AROUND embedded DOJ/FBI obamites/demonrats. They could not look at and or monitor his investigation – a stealth bomber.. how was he flipped ?..think Uranium 1& Clinton email scandal, trying to literally save his ass.
    2 short range missiles fired from NK same time as hearing..ChiCom F.F. to help
    another nasty dot that needs connecting.. Jeff & Leslie rumored Gay lovers, jeffery really hurt by news of faghag marraige..NYC mansion was a gift..

    Maxwell, Bronfmen, Wexner..hmm wonder what the connection (S) ..Zionazi’s?

    Gold and Silver Mining stock options R working with great success, taking 33% of ALL profitable trades and Cashing OUT! Like transfer Cash out of brokerage to Bank..into Digital Tulips and Physical – if you can’t hold it or touch it right Now – U don’t/wont own it .

  4. “Off Topic” is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it…

    FBI Rocked By Public Suicide of TOP FBI Agent Who Investigated Clinton Foundation

    Salvatore “Sal” Cincinelli, a former Wall Street broker who joined the FBI in 2010, died last week during a night out after an FBI training session, sources said.

    Cincinelli was reportedly out partying with FBI colleagues at the Container Bar, a trendy watering hole in Austin, TX. The group had been drinking and dancing, according to sources. Later in the evening Cincinelli reportedly turned the gun on himself on a crowded dance floor.

    Bar owner Bridget Dunlap did not respond to phone calls seeking details on the incident.

    FBI agents on site and police instructed witnesses to delete any video and photographs of the event and cleared out the bar, according to reports. Likewise, FBI officials instructed Austin Police to not release any details of the death to the media, sources confirmed. Witnesses at the nite club were also told to “stay offline” and “keep quiet” about the shooting, sources said.

    The FBI has not commented on Cincinelli’s death.

    Entire article may be found here:
    https://truepundit.com/fbi-rocked-by-public-suicide-of-top-fbi-agent-who-investigated-clinton-foundation/

    • In a related Twitter storm:

      Dear Bureau of Prisons: Please get Jeffrey Epstein to a super Max prison pronto, or the people who want him dead will make sure we never know the truth. ACT NOW!

      — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) July 25, 2019

      I’m not saying the Clinton body count is real.

      I’m also not going to say that a lot of people with damaging information about the Clintons don’t commit suicide.

      — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) July 25, 2019

      Epstein was found after having attempted suicide by shooting himself twice in the back, according to reports from Bill Clinton’s Twitter account.

      — Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) July 25, 2019

      It IS funny, but not really, and it’s a sad commentary on contemporary American life…

    • YUP, they have to be the swellest people on the planet.. to affect someone that much that the sadness they feel of having to give any testimony or be questioned about what they have found out about them leaves them with the only option of suicide as a way to not have to say anything negative…
      the same with anyone investigating their friends actions as well as them.. not only do the alphabets decide it needs to be permanently erased because they are so special and nice.. but those investigating it are either in such a state of depression that they might have to tell anyone that they get so sad they cannot bear it and tell what they find that it leads them to only one option for themselves… .. or they travel to some unsavory areas checking things out and get mugged and killed..

      they truly have to be very special people…

      no wonder the alphabets want to protect them completely.. its better to go after some despicable salesman than to question the ethics of someone as nice as they are….

  5. A few days ago George posted this headline:

    Swedish prosecutor wants rapper A$AP Rocky’s detention extended.

    It spawned multiple threads. This is a reply I forgot to post to one (or the other) of them. Occasionally, doing WordPress, Forum, and survey posts in a text app before posting, actually DOES have a downside, and I apologize for my laxity. I can’t post to that thread now, because it’s locked, so I am going to “off-topic” it here…
    _____________________________

    I’m quite aware of what is going on in Sweden, and have been watching that nation go down the crapper for 16 years now. IMO the problem is neither ethnic nor religious, but terminal political correctness. You can’t fix a problem until you acknowledge it exists, and (as ludicrous as it sounds) Sweden has criminalized any form of acknowledgement.

    The assholes in the Riksdag have, over the past few years, made it a crime for Swedish citizens who are victims of violent (non-domestic) crimes to identify a perpetrator if the perp is either Muslim or featuring a darker skin pigment than an average Swede. Become the central figure in a Syrian gang-rape? Better not report it. If you do, you will go to prison…

    I have no respect for Löfven, or for Reinfeldt or Persson before him. Among many other places, my ancestry traces to Göteborg. What that city, and Malmö have become, is a level of “disgusting” which defies description. What Sweden on the whole has become, defies all sanity and reason. That the Riksdag is bent on national suicide saddens me. That Charlie still carries the banner of the House of Bernadotte and pretends to the valor of his ancestors, angers me. Yes, he’s a “figurehead” king, but he’s a popular figurehead, and wealthy enough to buy Bill Gates, give him away, and never miss what it cost. I’m pretty sure he could make “adjustments” to both the personnel and policy of the Riksdag if he chose to do so…

    I don’t blame the Muslim/African invasion for Sweden’s issues. Dead perps have a zero recidivism rate. I blame a “parliamentary body” and PM which collectively have less testosterone than a single, average teenage girl from ‘most any other country…

  6. There is a small list of things you want that a 3D printer can make, relative to what you need. How is a 3D printer going to make a drip coffee maker?

    What they can do really well is enable all kinds of larger projects by allowing you to make small custom parts that otherwise would require CNC machining. *that* is the magic sauce they provide.

    Need to weld a tube frame for something, print the fixtures. Need a special bracket or connecting piece, print it. A case for an Arduino project? And so on. Simple small things that otherwise are hard to acquire.

    There is a price. You must use a relatively powerful CAD tool to make anything more useful than widgets. Something like Fusion 360, which is free for hobbyists and comes with a deep library of on boarding training exercises, would be perfect. It requires you to learn a new language (the UI and workflows of a CAD tool). If you are down for that investment, the sky is the limit, or rather the print envelope is the limit.

    The only people with the money to run machines that make manufacturing obsolete are… manufacturers. Hate to break it to you. Real replicator sintered metal printing is not a hobby nor available for small job shops.

    What you really need G is a plasma table ($1500 or so, depending on how clever you are) a pocket CNC (good ones can cut aluminum), and a CNC table router. There are kit versions of all these that a real maker can put in their garage for pretty cheap. Learn the CAD and start making really useful stuff not only out of printed plastic but aluminum, sheet metal and wood too. The key is learning how to talk to these machines, not the cost of the machine. CAD in everyman’s hands is the ticket.

    • All really good points, Phil.

      But let’s break it down, starting with the coffeemaker. Instead of getting a large (fragile) box in the mail, you could receive, let’s say, a pot, a special heating elements, and a SDHC card which contains the rest of your item. Cost of shipping is a fraction, and other benefits. Not to mention the “kitness” of it – people like to make their own things.

      As to the cad program? Not really. Once something has been sliced in Cura, those files do not require a PC or anything net-connected to print. The card/files (g-code) drop into the 3D printer and off you go.

      On “hard to make at home” parts, like steel that is welded and so forth, a couple of options here including redesign to get rid of the welding, but even these complex pieces weigh less than the whole shebang would.

      And, depending on size of plasma table you want, there are those of us with Creality printers already who have gone to UV-setting plastic heads (where UV light is used to cure) and if we can go this far, how tougdh will it be to put a p0lasma cutting head on the same unit? Or, take something like my 1/2-inch clean-cut Lotus plasma machine and just clamp the cutting end into a jig on the pricer gantry?

      Sure, there are obstacles, but in engineering, these are better seen as “creativity opportunities!”

      • George and Phil
        Referring only to the Coffey Maker
        Many, Many years ago in a Tuscaloosa research lab, a drip coffe maker was a Coors funnel, a filter, coffee, and a beaker of hot water.
        This dripped into an E-flask.
        I watched the Breaking Bad series with mild interest, but my eyes focused and my ears perked up when they were discussing the lab setup to make coffee.
        Who needed drugs with supercharged coffee?

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