3d printing

[toddmaci]

Thought you would find this interesting

http://www.fastcompany.com/1579263/3-d-printing-whole-buildings-in-stonein-space-this-printer-rocks

Todd

[navigator7]

As an owner of a concrete pump biz and a 3D printing biz....
I feel qualified to offer a little perspective on this.

Working with concrete is unlike any other product. It's perishable. It waits for no man! On one hand, it can kick your a$$ or it can be used to do wonderful things. It is abundant and relatively cheap for the service it provides.

There was a scientist type guy in California who was trying to build housing with a machine like this. The concept is great and all but people like him miss all the independent "fingers" that have a hand in making aggregate. I think he expected the cement and aggregate and the conditions to be spot on like plywood, laminate or a rolls of vinyl? It is not!

As a former concrete pumper I've pumped coffee cups, a woman's bra, a length of chain, watched a deer head come out of a mixer, pumped a forgotten broom handle down a length of hose and plugged by a mind boggling amount of over size rock and bad conditions. ... Like waiting.
The best concrete inspector on a jobsite is a concrete pump. If it doesn't pump something is wrong. And there is lots of things wrong with concrete all the time!

The rock crusher and the loader operator introduce all sorts of contamination. Changes in the pit stratum , rain storms, droughts, quality of portland, highway traffic, human error and computer glitches, and an infinite number of possibilities that can happen to the mix along the way that combine into the perfect storm of major frustrations when this age old product gets confined to a pipe that is misconstrued as a "Print Head"?

You haven't lived until your $300K machine has a hiccup and is full of concrete on a hot day. Imagine doing this on the moon?

Yet...the idea has merit! When money starts exchanging hands for this service....look out! What is needed is a cementitious product with the PSI rating of conventional concrete, the set up time of of a product like JB Weld and the consistency of flour, ball bearings or some method of elimination Cracker Jack Surprises in the mix.

Large aggregate and rebar give concrete it's strength. Sand and Portland is not very strong.
A well-paid, experienced crew who are motivated for production are a rock solid bargain.

Every year new products come to the home construction arena. My take on all this is...If you are taking a product off a truck and putting it in the hole in the ground --- And leaving it there .... great! Styrofoam forms for example. Great product!
I'm no fan of throwing plywood and 2x4's in a hole to build a wall only to pull them back out, clean um, stack em, provide a trailer for 'em and replace all the busted ones.

A CNC framework that stays with the house as is is built would make sense to me. Sounds silly but just remember how all you SB owners tweak your car rollers and check the rails and fight for parallel?

Installing concrete walls in is just not that big of deal....unless you are building homes to resist fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes or government.

What is needed before CNC machines build homes or buildings is a cheaper product that conforms to the needs of high tech machinery better than aggregate. Waste plastic?

[chiloquinruss]

Just imagine a ShopBot for sand and running the latest version of Aspire! Mind boggling! :) It would be great at the beach ehhh! :) Russ