
3D-Printed Flute Is Here - jamesjyu
http://www.pcworld.com/article/215148/3dprinted_flute_is_here_3dprinted_stradivarius_next.html
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jrockway
Pretty nice. It looked weird when Seth was playing it, but I realized that's
because the keys that you would normally close with your right hand did not
seal. So he was restricted to the three or so notes that you can play with
your left hand.

Also, the article says: _the flute itself sounds beautiful acoustically when
played by player Seth Hunter_.

Personally, I think it sounds like those plastic recorders that you got in 3rd
grade music class. But that's not the point; it shows that 3d printing can
produce something that used to take a skilled craftsperson days.

This will be great for applications like elementary school band, though,
because kids can lose interest quickly, and a $5 mass-produced instrument is
perfect for learning. Once you know you are going to stick with it, then you
can pay the $2000 for the real thing :)

(And yes, I do play the flute!)

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pbhjpbhj
>because kids can lose interest quickly, and a $5 mass-produced instrument is
perfect for learning

It took 15 hours to print and had to be manually cleaned. Sure the process
will improve but then how much does it currently cost to make a basic flute?
The cheapest retail I found after a very brief search was $70,
<http://amzn.to/dQGdzI> (aff link); so I'm going to guess $35 direct
manufacture costs. Mind you it gets very poor reviews whilst $100 gets you a
Hisonic one with pretty good reviews (<http://amzn.to/eV9a6q>).

The only price I found was $50,000 USD for the printer - even if it ran
everyday for 5 years without breaking or needing materials or maintenance
that's $20 or so of your $5.

It is awesome though how it prints composite pieces and the way the removable
scaffold materials are used, love the concept of these things.

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jrockway
It's not $5 today. It will be $5 tomorrow.

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jonah
I don't think 3D printers will ever beat molding for mass production. Where
they win is short-run and prototyping.

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kragen
You're probably right, but keep in mind that mass production imposes some
costs of its own. There are the up-front costs you allude to when you say
"short-run" --- even if you're cutting your mold from aluminum, that's an
expensive way to make five instances --- but there are also costs associated
with the "mass" nature of the production.

First, mass production must be geographically centralized. This means you have
shipping costs. For fragile or bulky objects, the shipping cost can sometimes
exceed the material cost.

Second, mass production involves inventory at every stage of the supply chain,
although you can cut inventory down quite a lot from what we used to do 60
years ago. Maintaining inventory is expensive.

So it's possible that 3-D printers will beat molding for mass production. It's
just not likely in the foreseeable future.

Molecular nanotechnology will, of course, make 3-D printers beat molding.

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jacquesm
> Molecular nanotechnology will, of course, make 3-D printers beat molding.

It will?

Fiction and facts don't mix in the same discussion, molecular nanotechnology
_if_ it will ever be a reality will _possibly_ make 3-D printers beat molding.

Injection molding is very fast, extremely cheap and can be used for very large
runs. We do not know any of those parameters for nanotech yet assuming that we
can can actually implement it.

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kragen
Well, I didn't mean to imply that it was a certainty that MNT would exist, and
of course it's possible for it to exist but only in some limited form, with
limits we can't easily predict today. So you are correct: everything about it
is uncertain.

On the other hand, it seems very likely that at some point we'll have flexibly
programmable universal assemblers capable of relatively rapid self-
reproduction (say, less than three months) and of making materials at least as
strong as the cheap thermoplastics we use in injection molding out of
relatively common elements. There are a lot of different avenues that could
get us to that goal.

The intrinsic cost of making something consists, as I understand it, of
amortized capital costs, marginal raw material costs, marginal energy costs,
and marginal labor. Self-reproducing assemblers eliminate the physical part of
the capital costs; automated manufacturing of any kind eliminates marginal
labor, leaving only the labor component of the capital costs; and the raw
material and energy costs probably will be about the same for artificial
molecular assemblers as they are for natural ones such as potatoes.

The labor component of the capital cost is simply the R&D required to automate
the making of the thing. It seems very likely to me that this will be similar
to what we do today for injection molding, a guy building 3-D models in a
CAD/CAM system, but with much less in the way of concerns about taper and the
like.

I recognize that you know a great deal more about modern manufacturing than I
do, so if I am wrong about something, please do not hesitate to correct me.

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jberryman
That is awesome, the flute looks like the gun from the toon-world in "Who
Framed Roger Rabbit".

They gave themselves quite a challenge trying to 3d-print a playable
instrument: as you can see from the video, on the modern flute most keys
depress one or more other keys when pressed, so the mechanism has to be
adjusted _just so_ in order for all of the pads involved in a key press to
seal at the same time (in fact thin pieces of paper are used to shim pads to
get a good seal, so it's quite a precise thing).

I really, really hope they fabricate some new and amazing Dr. Seuss
instruments and commision some student composers to write pieces for them.

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colomon
Cool, but it seems like they missed a bit of a chance by not printing a simple
system keyless flute. Less impressive looking, I suppose, but as long as they
were careful with their CAD model design, it probably would have worked
perfectly on the first try.

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jacquesm
It's nice to see this development, but replicating existing designs is not
where this technology is at its best, prototyping is.

That said it's an extremely impressive piece of work, and just like with the
pig, the fact that it dances at all is what makes it amazing, the quality of
the dance is secondary for now.

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iwwr
I take it this design uses UV-curing materials, like in the manufacture of
PCBs.

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steveklabnik
Yes, Objet's process involves spraying down resin, then curing it with UV.

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iwwr
Do you know of a cheaper UV-curing material for applications like RepRap?

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nickpinkston
Although really - the jetting issues are pretty big with this process. The
materials and print heads are tuned with much effort. You could get around the
jetting issues by using one material and do the EnvisionTec process (i.e. DLP
projecting on a bath of UV cured plastic) - but it'll be more expensive
materials wise - though you will be able to print hundreds of things at one
time...

For now the FDM (MakerBot / RepRap) process are the best start for accessible
printing.

