UH-OH- World's First 3-D Printed Bridge

I concur. One of my best jobs when I was a teenager was digging ditches. I could beat everyone on the crew. Of course, they were 20 years older than me!

Then I found about framing houses. Man, that was wonderful. Get up early in the morning, handle 2X4's wet with dew, listen to the birds sing, hammer the studs in place, and one gigantic lift, the wall is in place. Put some braces on, do the next wall, and you can accomplish a lot in a day. If I were young again, I'd do exactly the same things. Then I found out about 6146's. Back to digging ditches.

We prefer brick & concrete as they survive the climate, they moderate temp swings & are safer & much longer lived than stick frame. Brickwork is skill ed manual work. A small house can be 3d printed in a day already. With deve lopment these things should knock out the masonry shell of a bigger nicer h ouse in a day. And 3d printing can do all sorts of details & features that would take ages in brick & be unaffordable for most houses. At some point, a machine once set up could work its way round a whole district of a new to wn building a whole assortment of new houses, shops, commercial places etc.

Wiring could be laid by another 3d printer arm. Maybe further down the road it could be wired up too using spot welding.

Insulation is also 3d placeable.

Roofing probably could be 3d printed, eg in concrete resting on a lightweig ht plastic form that holds it while it sets. Time will tell. Or maybe it co uld be done in hot bitumen & fibres. Perhaps on top of fabric strip the mac hine has placed & stapled as a temporary form. etc etc

Extruding plastic plumbing in situ is likely to happen at some point.

The prime point of 3d printing houses is to make them cheaper. The secondar y point is to add features at no cost that cost money in traditional manual work. Once fully developed I expect this approach to give us better houses for a good bit less cost.

NT

Printing insulated copper wire and boxes and switches and light fixtures would be interesting.

It's already squirted into walls as foam.

Seems inefficient. Valves, faucets, water heaters?

mp swings & are safer & much longer lived than stick frame. Brickwork is sk illed manual work. A small house can be 3d printed in a day already. With d evelopment these things should knock out the masonry shell of a bigger nice r house in a day. And 3d printing can do all sorts of details & features th at would take ages in brick & be unaffordable for most houses. At some poin t, a machine once set up could work its way round a whole district of a new town building a whole assortment of new houses, shops, commercial places e tc.

oad it could be wired up too using spot welding.

Indeed. A lot easier to use a machine to merely lay the cable down for now. Then later to spot weld the wire ends to premade accessories & do the elec trical testing. Then a sparkie's apprentice only need screw the things to t he backboxes. That's most of the labour cost gone.

yes and dry loose fill

eight plastic form that holds it while it sets. Time will tell. Or maybe it could be done in hot bitumen & fibres. Perhaps on top of fabric strip the machine has placed & stapled as a temporary form. etc etc

how is it inefficient to have piping done by a machine, bypassing some skil led labour & factory product lines? It could be done at the same time as concrete is being laid by another arm, cable by another etc.

I don't think anyone's ready to print valves taps & heaters yet.

dary point is to add features at no cost that cost money in traditional man ual work. Once fully developed I expect this approach to give us better hou ses for a good bit less cost.

A lot of fad products are made on them. But for products like houses I can see a lot of labour saving. Also a quicker finished house means it's bringi ng in rent or sale money sooner, giving additional value.

Materials are also much cheaper, sand, cement, admix & water versus manufac tured bricks & blocks.

NT

JL is bringing up reasoned objections to using 3D printing to build exactly the same kind of home that exist now in every suburb and are built day in and day out by the usual methods.

It would indeed be absurd to build a home exactly like that using 3D printing, you have to design a new kind of home amenable to the process.

Here in earthquake country, bricks can kill. In the 1989 quake, most of the deaths were from being crushed by concrete or bricks.

On the West Coast, the climate is mild and wood is cheap.

I shudder to think what would happen if a serious earthquake hit London or Boston. It could happen.

Girlfriend was looking at mid-rise apartments in converted brick mill space in Providence, I wasn't so thrilled. "Why not?" "Earthquakes" then she looks at you like you're crazy.

I don't know exactly what the chances of say a 5.5 or above affecting that area are per yer, 2-3% maybe? Enough to make me think twice, at least. She ended up not going with that type of dwelling.

Lots of structures like this converted into apartments and condos in that area:

Not sure to what standard they were built re: earthquakes, if any.

If and when it happens it will be at the evening rush hour in winter in a blizzard, naturally.

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mp swings & are safer & much longer lived than stick frame. Brickwork is sk illed manual work. A small house can be 3d printed in a day already. With d evelopment these things should knock out the masonry shell of a bigger nice r house in a day. And 3d printing can do all sorts of details & features th at would take ages in brick & be unaffordable for most houses. At some poin t, a machine once set up could work its way round a whole district of a new town building a whole assortment of new houses, shops, commercial places e tc.

I remember seeing the news reports of an English quake years ago - we do ge t them. Total damage was one chimney pot fell. News channels were trying to make out it was a big deal.

IIRC concrete buildings can be made quake-safe & last better than wood.

NT

Takes a bunch of steel though. Good quality wood frame buildings are tough. Most houses round here are wood frame on unreinforced concrete block basement walls, so rot and termites aren't an issue. Some have brick veneer over the block wall, which looks and works fine.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

(Who has been treating his joint with benign neglect very successfully for almost 30 years now, with nary a leak.)

Herold Smials, with a nice big round front door. Are your feet hairy too? ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Hmm, Or maybe I can find a "Mr. Sanders" sign. There's a nice haycorn tree in the woods for my good friend piglet. :^)

George H.

Thanks George ;>

piglet

Wood structures are protty good as far as earthquakes. I was on Kodiak during the Good Friday earth quake. No damage to any of the wood houses by the earthquake even though the island sunk 5 feet. Tidal waves caused all the damage.

Dan

You persist in saying the temperature some 50 cm below the surface lags the temperature by 180 degrees. But it is not true.

Dan

Already been done: Multiwire was the trade name (Kollmorgen, I believe?).

The only multiwire I know is PCBs, which have no connection with that afaik. Is there another one?

NT

Multiwire was a lot like wirewrap but instead of wrapping wire around pins, the machine spot welder wire to pads, then strung the wire point to point and glued it down as it went. The weld penetrated the insulation so multidrop nets were simple. Not at all printed but electrically quite similar (impedance matched, high-speed, etc.).

Of course but why try to convince Slowman of what is obvious to any sane person. It's not possible.