Solid Freeform Fabrication or Rapid Prototyping has
been around for quite a long time now. Many commercial companies offer
various type of machines that can manufacture high precision parts out
of both plastic or metal to exating tolerances. The downside, they cost
anywhere between $15,000 and upwards of $90,000. Some machines can even
run up to $500,000.
The Fabber is a joint project started in the
Computational Synthesis Lab at Cornell by Dr. Hod Lipson. He initially
visualized the Fabber as a tool to reproduce lost Lego pieces. It is a
low cost reasonable detail sold freeform modelling or fabrication tool
with a build volume of about 512 cubic inches. or an 8" cube.
What
the Fabber really represents is a grass-roots approach to what has been
a niche product for more than 20 years. As they explain, they are
comparing the Fabber to the Altair 8000, one of the first
microcomputers and one of the things that triggered the home computer
boom back in the mid 1970's. The Fabber even costs about the same with
inflation, at about $2300 for parts, whereas the old Altair would have
cost about $2000 in today's dollars.
What the Fabber is
specifically, is a Solid Free Form Fabrication tool. It uses a lifting
table combined with a XY axis stepper motor that guides a print head or
engine that contains a number of syringes. Each syringe can hold a
different fluid material, and depending on the size of the nozzle, you
can potentially use the Fabber to build very small and detailed objects.
The
real beauty of the tool is that it is all made from off-the-shelf
components. For a little over $2,000 you can buy the complete kit and
put it together, or buy a fully assembled unit from a company called
Koba Industries, which has partnered with Fab @ Home to build and sell
the product at only a little bit above assembly prices.
The
Fabber will take a standard STL file format used by any of the 3D
design applications and produce an actual model based on that file.
They have used the Fabber to produce a watch with embedded electronics,
a working flashlight with circuitry injected, as well as some other
really cool things.
This is a brand new technology and certainly
not as refined as the high end production machines that can be bought
for multi-thousands of dollars. But as a concept, it's something that
can be developed and evolved. All it takes is ingenuity and a desire to
see how far you can go.
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