A Self-replicating Factory in Every Home

[johnny861]

A Self-replicating Factory in Every Home

Plan aims to drop cost of industrial prototype machines to same level as computer printers



If a UK professor is successful, homes of the future will have fridge-sized factories that can crank out everything from cups to digital cameras.
The household factories are based on rapid prototype machines used now to produce plastic components such as vehicle parts from computer designs.

Such machines cost tens of thousands of dollars, making them prohibitively expensive for most families.

But Adrian Bowyer of the University of Bath has come up with an idea for dropping their price: put them to work making copies of themselves.

The copies can then produce more copies until the machines are cheap enough for home use, reminiscent of the Universal Constructor proposed by mathematician John von Neumann in the 1950s.

Making copies

Bowyer is working to create the 3D models needed for rapid prototype machines to make copies of themselves.

He plans to put the models on a Website so that people who own existing machines can download the models and start making copies.

The copies could be sold to other people who in turn can make more copies.

As the self-replication continues, the price should fall to a few hundred pounds.

"People have been talking for years about the cost of these machines dropping to be about the same as a computer printer," says Bowyer. "But it hasn't happened. Maybe my idea will allow this to occur."

Some assembly required

The machines currently cannot produce glass items, complex parts such as microchips or items such as toasters that will experience intense heat.

However, they can produce most of the parts for such things as digital cameras, and other parts can be bought separately and added later.

Machine owners would only need to supply the machines with plastic and low-temperature alloys, which are relatively cheap, and then perform any assembly required.

Bowyer aims to publish the 3D designs and computer code for self-replication over the next four years, and doesn't intend to take out a patent or charge for the design.

"The most interesting part of this is that we're going to give it away," he says. "At the moment an industrial company consists of hundreds of people building and making things. If these machines take off, it will give individual people the chance to do this themselves, and we are talking about making a lot of our consumer goods—the effect this has on industry and society could be dramatic."

[Xodiac]

I can already see new business models based on this. For example, instead of buying a new digital camera or vase or turntable, you just pay to download the program or plans that tells your machine how to create it. It would be much cheaper and more effective since it eliminates the middleman and is all profit for the creator. However, people start turning to file sharing networks and get these plans for free, getting tons and tons of cool stuff without having to pay a cent and we have a major economic crisis.

[johnny861]

Originally Posted by Xodiac

I can already see new business models based on this. For example, instead of buying a new digital camera or vase or turntable, you just pay to download the program or plans that tells your machine how to create it. It would be much cheaper and more effective since it eliminates the middleman and is all profit for the creator. However, people start turning to file sharing networks and get these plans for free, getting tons and tons of cool stuff without having to pay a cent and we have a major economic crisis.

Either way you look at it, it would turn the global economy as we know it, upside down... Software developers could become the "guildsmen" of the future, slowly taking back some of the corporate domination in the market.

Especially if these machines hit the consumer market, They will only get better with what they can produce.

[zerojunkie]

ehhh, I thought that rapid prototyping was less advanced than this. Granted the last thing I heard on it was about 6mo ago, but even then it was still only using a laser to harden a special plastic to make only plastic parts. Not things like digital camera's which have integrated circuitry and other various non-plastic parts. I'm still waiting for my replicator... =D narf.

[Edwin Watson]

i think that is dope as hell!!! I can wait.

[Element4040]

Still a long way off, I remember reading about the technology in Wired Magazine, maybe 2 years ago. Good stuff!

[ChunkyAcidReflux]

even if the machines gets cheap your still gong to have to buy plastics, resins, and low density metals to make it work. If your not a manufacturer purchasing thousands of pounds of materials its going to cost a fortune to keep the machine stocked.

[Edwin Watson]

Originally Posted by uselesknowledge

even if the machines gets cheap your still gong to have to buy plastics, resins, and low density metals to make it work. If your not a manufacturer purchasing thousands of pounds of materials its going to cost a fortune to keep the machine stocked.

true, but the more people that own one of these machines, the higher the demand for the supplies, the more supplies made and the better the distribution, the lower the price, etc.

good the the US is turning into a service economy as opposed to a manufacturing economy is all i gotta say....