Hawker News

3D-printing platform rapidly produces complex electric machines

news.mit.edu

78 pointsby rbanffy49 comments

peter_d_sherman[hidden]
>"They designed their system to process multiple functional materials, including electrically conductive materials and magnetic materials, using four extrusion tools that can handle varied forms of printable material. [...]

The researchers used this system to produce a fully 3D-printed electric linear motor in a matter of hours using five materials."

This is highly interesting!

That is, being able to 3D print things (such as a motor) with electric and magnetic parts...

Circuit printing 3D printers have been around for quite awhile now, but printed magnetic parts of a 3D printed object? That I'm hearing for the first time here!

(It would be interesting (in the future) if one could have a 3D printer that could print with any metal, and if such metals at different micro-thin layers could somehow be combined with one another to make ad-hoc printed metal alloy layers... Well, we do have "metal sputtering" aka "vapor deposition" -- but that requires a vacuum tube, argon gas, and a plasma chamber... but maybe someone in the future will discover some way (electrically, I'm guessing -- an ionic wind of some sort?) to print ad-hoc thin layers of metal alloys at room temperature and in the presence of air by mixing pure elemental metals...)

Anyway, congratulations to the team at MIT for the considerable step forward in 3D printing!

delichon[38 comments hidden]
Twenty first century military supremacy may go to whoever can produce the most best drone printers. Meaning whoever can produce the most best drone printer printers.
bitmasher9[8 comments hidden]
Drones are just one part of the equation. They are a “last mile” solution, which makes them very strong on battle fronts and come with a defender advantage.

We still require logistics to transport the drones into effective range, intelligence to know the most effective targets, and military grade wireless communications to guide the drones.

If the intelligence is good enough long range missiles can kinetically disable drone production or drone stockpiles.

cavoirom[6 comments hidden]
They print the drones at the frontline: https://sensofusion.com/dronefactory/
IsTom[2 comments hidden]
To print a drone you must transport input materials anyway, which weight at least the same.
cwmoore[hidden]
So long aircraft carriers, hello mobile drone assembly supply chains
Aboutplants[hidden]
Geeze, things are getting wild.

Interestingly, I’ve seen this exact drone design from hobbyists attempting record speed runs. Now I’m curious who is copying who on the design.

rightnutwingjob[2 comments hidden]
No, they don’t.

They 3D print a few components and assemble the drones on site.

All the other problems will exist.

A couple of drones can take this bit of plant out. Then you’re left wondering perhaps it would have been better to assemble the drones somewhere safer and ship them to where they’re needed.

And since this thing ships with all the parts, how do they imagine we’re fooled in to thinking it solves the obsolescence issue? Now you can assemble obsolete drones at the frontlines. What an improvement!

cavoirom[hidden]
parts are not easily oudated, it's the tacticle requirements, range, weather, terrain...
micromacrofoot[hidden]
Militaries are already using on-device AI to provide drone targeting, so airdropping a bunch in and letting them wreak havoc is very possible and not complicated as that matures.
lukan[11 comments hidden]
Printing is good for prototyping and if you are making small numbers/need to have a distributed manufacturing (because of bombs falling on them).

But for mass producing a solid design, 3D printing is the worst solution, because it is slow. Injection molding would be the fast (and cheap) way.

georgemcbay[5 comments hidden]
> But for mass producing a solid design, 3D printing is the worst solution, because it is slow. Injection molding would be the fast (and cheap) way.

~10 years ago I was really into designing my own "drones" (but the kind that don't kill people) and I primarily used a CNC machine (Shapeoko 3).

Multirotor vehicles are a good match for designs that are a series of mostly flat plates connected via simple standoffs and you can knock those out really quick with a CNC machine.

Injection molding is certainly much better than 3D printing for scale, but CNC is a nice middle ground that allows for quick manufacture while still having a lot of the same flexibility for iterative design that you get with 3D printing.

mdorazio[4 comments hidden]
CNC is a terrible choice if you’re making flat plates or can modify your design to use flat plates + basic bends and stand offs. Laser or water jet are significantly faster and cheaper.
georgemcbay[3 comments hidden]
> CNC is a terrible choice if you’re making flat plates or can modify your design to use flat plates + basic bends and stand offs. Laser or water jet are significantly faster and cheaper.

Laser cutters and waterjets are CNC machines.

And yeah they are generally faster than using a drill, but cheaper is situation specific (can be, depending upon the scale).

alanbernstein[2 comments hidden]
3d printers are also CNC. My impression is that people often use the term to mean CNC mill. Much like "drone" implies "quadcopter" despite the existence of other very different types of "drone".
rightnutwingjob[hidden]
I suppose since we’re here on HN and not limited to 240 characters, we can be specific. Or risk being misunderstood.
233mhz[5 comments hidden]
Yeah but it's fast enough, light, portable, repairable, can be setup directly in your bunker in the middle of the wood if needed, etc.

You're still thinking like it's 1990

lukan[3 comments hidden]
And where do you get in the woods all the other mass produced parts needed for a drone, like chips, sensors, engine, battery, ..? Unfortunately 3d printers ain't replicators yet.

So yeah, if you have special needs, modifying a special ops drone, or simple part printing, they are great.

Or like I said, distributed manufactoring.

233mhz[2 comments hidden]
idk man ask Ukraine, they're running thousands of 3d printer, looks like it's not working out too bad for them.

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/ukraine-turns-3d-pr...

> Its printers are now used across Ukraine, with frontline print farms producing vital equipment and components where they are needed most.

This is your typical "ackchyually" meme, people facing adversity in real life don't care about your theoretical pros and cons, they just do their things

lukan[hidden]
Yeah, they are printing parts. Not complete drones.
MomsAVoxell[hidden]
3D printing will remain constrained by fragile centralized supply chains for feedstock until someone develops an effective practical decomposer/recomposer that can break down common plastics into their constituent monomers, oligomers, or other reusable chemical building blocks and then reform them into high-quality filament or resin on demand.

And then, the next step for deco/reco will be the metal frontier.

Unless you think you're only going to need a couple spools to get the job done before never using the thing again.

xoxxala[hidden]
3d printers making 3d printers making drones is a key plotline of the Bobiverse novels.
Luker88[6 comments hidden]
3d printers are wonderful for rapid development, but are much slower than industrial serial production.

Quantity has a quality all of it own, and all that.

Ukraine is doing wonders managing tons of different producers and models, but Russia production capabilities have always been a problem.

Ukraine was in the lead with their interceptor drone. Unfortunately now russia has refined their drones to not be multiple pieces sticked together, and has added small jet engines.

The new drones are both too fast for interceptor drones and might even survive a hit thanks to the body made from a single sheet of metal.

Now the new russia drones cost about double, but intercepted rate went down from 90+% to about 55%. Math says the new drones are more than paying for themselves.

rightnutwingjob[3 comments hidden]
Ukraine recently started installing automated machine gun turrets that they claim can take down the jet powered drones.

I suppose the next step then is to fit chemical rockets to give the attacking drones a chance to finish the last mine at a much higher speed.

ted_dunning[2 comments hidden]
These new drones fly at 6000+m (20,000 ft). Machine gun turrets aren't going to touch that.
bluGill[hidden]
They have to come down to hit a target though. Ukraine is installing the turrets near things worth defending.

Though their statements are they are getting 60% of the jet propelled drones with machine guns on F16s.

They also have drone interceptors in development that according to their statements on demonstrations can get jet powered drones and they are also working on things for ballistic missiles. As far as I know none of this is in use outside of demos, but they are working hard and they have incentive to make it work fast.

pizzafeelsright[2 comments hidden]
I see this in AI as well.

I am not sure if there is a name or meme. Using the great thing in the worst way.

AI and 3D Printers are not the solution. They get the solution faster.

The 3d printer isn't going to print drones but it will build a modified attachment that attaches to a lathe that will build a drone faster. The lathe is modified by the part created by the 3d printer. The lathe work is now magnified by the 3d printer.

Same with AI.

I do not need 1,000 3d printers. I need a faster way to build the tool. The 3d printer can do this a thousand times faster than waiting for Engineering Team.

bluGill[hidden]
A skilled machinest can probably make a single part faster than a CNC machine. In part because the skilled machinist will see things not working and fix the part on-the-fly while the CNC will just create a failed part and the engineer will have to redo it.

Of course as CAD/CAM becomes better and better this becomes less and less true. If your CAD process includes modeling the design it can discover problems before you make a part at all and this can be faster yet - maybe...

varispeed[2 comments hidden]
Not just drone printers, but also field soldering robots. Many components are still through hole. Putting tray of PCBs and let robot solder the joints would be game changing.
thenthenthen[hidden]
If through hole, a wave soldering machine would be that robot
MomsAVoxell[7 comments hidden]
True, but twenty first century anarchists might find, on the street, their own use for these things - and in so doing, obviate the need for state/military/supremacy, in the first place.

At least, one might hope.

rightnutwingjob[6 comments hidden]
Am I right in understanding what you’re saying here is that you hope a countries own citizens will weaken it from within to the point it won’t be able to fight?
MomsAVoxell[5 comments hidden]
No I’m hoping that a countries own citizens will excel, flourish and prosper, and remove the motivation for fighting in the first place, i.e. make amazing things and share in abundance.

War is not always the answer. Most of the time, peace is the answer.

ted_dunning[4 comments hidden]
That's nice and probably true. On average.

It is much less true when Russians invade your country planning to assassinate your chief executive.

Disorganized rabble aren't going to be able to stop that.

MomsAVoxell[3 comments hidden]
Its also true when Americans and their allies, the worlds #1 source of war and calamity, invade a country, destroy its infrastructure, murder or kidnaps its leadership, and leave its people tattered in ruins.

The only people who can do anything effective about it, are Americans. Lets hope they get the tools to do it some day and share them with the Russians.

rightnutwingjob[2 comments hidden]
That isn’t an argument against the necessity of war.
MomsAVoxell[hidden]
There is no necessity for war. There is necessity for peace.
rightnutwingjob[hidden]
Twenty first century global hegemony will go to whichever nation’s citizens can be bothered fighting for its own survival.
nilamo[hidden]
This almost reads like something from the Bobiverse series of books.
EA-3167[2 comments hidden]
The actual paper is so much easier to read and much more informative: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17452759.2026.2...

In fact I was skeptical based on the article, but blown away by the paper.

RobotToaster[hidden]
I hope so, the article makes it sound like they just bolted a syringe to an e3d toolchanger.
alexpotato[hidden]
Highly recommend people read the story Autofac by Philip K. Dick [0]

Slight spoiler:

It's a bit "paperclip maximizer" and a bit "grey goo"

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofac

NegativeLatency[7 comments hidden]
Any video or pictures of the motor itself?
jotux[5 comments hidden]
https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/165206/NVPP_A...
MarkusQ[4 comments hidden]
So... no? The paper shows the motors used in the printer, and some of the parts it produced, but not the actual actuator it made.
DoctorOetker[2 comments hidden]
I see it on page 17 (18 including the MIT front page)

It's a linear motor, more like a speaker voice coil without cone.

MarkusQ[hidden]
I'm blind. In my defense, I was looking for a linear-shaped linear motor, and took that for a spinning doodad.
nom[hidden]
fig 17 shows the assembled motor

it's a linear motor.. like a speaker coil assembly

fig23 shows how a radial assembly could be made

moab9[hidden]
Yes, it's the size of a quarter and looks like it was made from PlayDoe,