3d printed cameras HAVE ARRIVED

johnielvis · Jul 24, 2013

see zee link. This is GREAT!

http://www.designnews.com/author.as...6,industry_consumer,aid_265687&dfpLayout=blog

AgX · Jul 24, 2013

This is about 3D-printing part of the body. Not about a camera.

VPooler · Jul 24, 2013

Oh, this abomination again...

artonpaper · Jul 24, 2013

Yes this looks like an abomination. However, this technology will improve like most things digital. I've seen 3D printing at Brooklyn College. It could offer ways to fabricate parts for old cameras or custom made cameras. Remember when digital printing was not so good. Now we can create negatives, and get books printed on demand.

PtJudeRI · Jul 24, 2013

The tech is there for this, I just dont like the design, nor the execution. Meh.

E. von Hoegh · Jul 24, 2013

VPooler said:
Oh, this abomination again...

But it's "GREAT"!

( I took a dump this morning that looked better...)

ntenny · Jul 24, 2013

IMHO, it's silly to get hung up on how it looks. Of course it looks awful, it's a prototype design produced using an infant technology. But it works!

There can't be much of a mass market for new, high-quality, professionally-built film cameras in the medium-term future; hell, there isn't much of one now, though evidently there's enough to keep a few manufacturers going. Maybe we can all keep going on used equipment indefinitely and camera availability will never be a serious problem. And then again, maybe "print-your-own" camera bodies (and lens mounts, adapters, fiddly little parts, reducing backs, odd-sized film holders...) eliminate one of the risks to the viability of film. You really want to be more concerned about "but the body is ugly"?

-NT

PtJudeRI · Jul 24, 2013

ntenny said:
IMHO, it's silly to get hung up on how it looks. Of course it looks awful, it's a prototype design produced using an infant technology. But it works!

There can't be much of a mass market for new, high-quality, professionally-built film cameras in the medium-term future; hell, there isn't much of one now, though evidently there's enough to keep a few manufacturers going. Maybe we can all keep going on used equipment indefinitely and camera availability will never be a serious problem. And then again, maybe "print-your-own" camera bodies (and lens mounts, adapters, fiddly little parts, reducing backs, odd-sized film holders...) eliminate one of the risks to the viability of film. You really want to be more concerned about "but the body is ugly"?

-NT

I agree that the reducing backs and parts would be a great thing to have printed. Just like antique, rare car parts, it would be great to "print what you need" if you can't find it any more. I just see this as a poor execution of the technology, with a mediocre design of a part that is already in plentiful supply (35mm camera bodies). But, it's pushing the Tech forward, so thats a plus.

E. von Hoegh · Jul 24, 2013

I think too many get hung up on the novelty value of 3-D printing. Materials are limited, strength is low, and tolerances are wide. Sure it's infant technology. The materials will always be limited, you'll never be able to print a spring of tempered high carbon steel for instance. When it becomes useful "young adult" technology I might be interested, but right now it's still in the gimmick stage and not suitable for anything requiring precision and/or high strength.

Pioneer · Jul 24, 2013

From what I do know about this technology I do believe we are very close to something very useful. Beyond physically printing the parts themselves, combining this with small metal casting technology will result in amazing things. Rather than hope someone else can help us fix something, we may be able to recreate the parts and repair our cameras ourselves.

E. von Hoegh · Jul 24, 2013

PtJudeRI said:
I agree that the reducing backs and parts would be a great thing to have printed. Just like antique, rare car parts, it would be great to "print what you need" if you can't find it any more. I just see this as a poor execution of the technology, with a mediocre design of a part that is already in plentiful supply (35mm camera bodies). But, it's pushing the Tech forward, so thats a plus.

Here's an example. How many parts for say a 1930 Ford can you make out of materials suitable for 3-D printing? I think the distributor cap, maybe, if you can find a way to print insulating material around the four conductors. Perhaps some decorative interior parts.

VPooler · Jul 24, 2013

There are means for printing metal and ceramics now with very small tolerances but the prices of those machines or services are out of this world expensive. It is simpler and cheaper to befriend a CNC Machining Center operator and get some stuff done out of aluminum or steel, i.e. a camera body. I have no problem with printing out some minor details that don't need much precision but there is no reason to reinvent a wheel here. Remember, a job worth doing is a job worth doing well!

E. von Hoegh · Jul 24, 2013

VPooler said:
There are means for printing metal and ceramics now with very small tolerances but the prices of those machines or services are out of this world expensive. It is simpler and cheaper to befriend a CNC Machining Center operator and get some stuff done out of aluminum or steel, i.e. a camera body. I have no problem with printing out some minor details that don't need much precision but there is no reason to reinvent a wheel here. Remember, a job worth doing is a job worth doing well!

The metal printing is done with metal dust, then the part must be sintered. Only suitable for certain purposes; you won't be making even a simple flat spring this way, nor will you be making anything requiring high strength. The tolerances aren't great, a couple thousandths. For some of the things I make, .003" is a dimension not a tolerance.

ntenny · Jul 24, 2013

I happened to be on the inside of some early color-inkjet and color-thermal-wax printer technology, back in the 1980s. At the time it was one of those dancing-bear situations: the impressive part is not how well the bear dances, but that it dances at all. People were amazed by the color prints, of course, but it was because 200 dpi of overly vivid colors that bled quite a bit at the edges was still stunningly different from anything you could get without going to a professional print shop.

Of course, it was obviously never going to cut into the business of those professional print shops, because you needed special paper that was super-expensive and inconvenient to work with, the ink permanence was poor, the wax printers were impossibly expensive (five figures in US dollars, and that was in 1980s dollars!), there were so many obvious inadequacies in the output when you held it up next to a real magazine or a color photo...and we all know what happened in the next few decades.

There might be laws of physics that make it difficult for 3-D printing in metals and/or at high precision to improve hyperbolically, the way 2-D printing did. But there are also a lot of smart and well-financed people looking at the problem, and some of them aren't thinking about thousandths of an inch but about angstroms.

-NT

johnielvis · Jul 29, 2013

there 's going to be all sorts of things now that people are getting access. People will adapt to whatever limitations there are and start producing all kinds of stuff. Here's an update where a guy printed a speaker

http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=265793

The ability to print clear materials will surely lead to new 3d printed experimental lens designs--perhaps those which can be easily finish ground using 3d printed grinding jigs to mate with a 3d printed lens to produce a perfect grind lens very cheaply and at home.

let the haters hate and let the makers MAKE!

PtJudeRI · Jul 29, 2013

I own a dental lab, and in our industry, we currently print a LOT. Resin, chrome cobalt, and even some precious alloys. At the level that I am working on, the tolerances are accurate (usually within 50 microns or so) for us to make it a viable product. So for certain applications, the technology is past its adolescent phase. With larger items, the errors become larger. I would think that cameras and such will not have the needed tolerances for a while now.

ntenny · Jul 29, 2013

PtJudeRI said:
I would think that cameras and such will not have the needed tolerances for a while now.

It seems like it depends largely on the construction and on the definition of "needed". It seems likely to me that you could print yourself a large format camera today, to tolerances at least as good as pre-WWI industrial woodworking (and plenty of people, for values of "plenty" scaled to the size of the LF community, use pre-WWI wooden cameras). The most demanding part would probably be the back, but I don't think we're talking about micron requirements there!

But it'll be a while before anyone is printing their own Leica or F3, I agree, and the technology may never get to where that's a feasible consumer-desktop level of precision. And I don't know if anyone is really looking at 3-D printing of optical glass, which seems like a difficult niche but an enormously fun one if it magically appeared!

-NT

AgX · Jul 30, 2013

ntenny said:
And I don't know if anyone is really looking at 3-D printing of optical glass, which seems like a difficult niche but an enormously fun one if it magically appeared!

This is an important point. My post #2 referred to this.

A camera typically includes optics. And as long as 3-D printing of lenses is still a dream, speaking of 3-D printing of cameras is more than far fetched.

Tom1956 · Jul 30, 2013

Let me know when they are 3D printing replacement hearts, kidneys, livers, etc. Till then it's just more computerized foolishness.

Curt · Jul 31, 2013

First I'd print a 3D hammer to smash the crap out of that camera and the print head it rode in on.

Ok, it going to be a force of new technology that's future bound. In France there is a standalone replacement heart ready for the market. 3D print one an the wilderness and use a robot to put it in. The world is changing, old technologies are being phased out and new ones are emerging. We are at the beginning of a new industrial revolution. It's called the Third Industrial Revolution and recyclability is one part of it, another part is energy conservation and creation. Trees won't be cut down to make cameras and tripods. Instead they'll be made of composite materials; if at all. What we call antiques will become artifacts of curiosity. Next time I'll tell you how and when the world ends! ;-)

Steve Smith · Jul 31, 2013

E. von Hoegh said:
I think too many get hung up on the novelty value of 3-D printing. Materials are limited, strength is low, and tolerances are wide.

Exactly. I prefer CNC cutting materials.

I couldn't believe the link I saw a while ago about a 3D printed gun. I wouldn't even drink out of a 3D printed cup so there's no way I would trust a gun made that way.

Sounds like a recipe for blowing your hand off.

Steve.

lxdude · Jul 31, 2013

3-D printing a camera does not make sense. Cameras aren't some kind of monolith; they have hundreds of individual parts inside them. Also, time is money. It makes little sense to print out a camera chassis, just as it makes little sense to CNC it out of solid material, unless it's a prototype or short run. That's a lot of expensive machine time. For production it makes more sense to create a die for casting them.

For recreating obsolete parts it would be feasible to print some parts. Still, there is the matter of correct material properties, giving the edge to machining for a lot of them.

E. von Hoegh · Jul 31, 2013

Steve Smith said:
Exactly. I prefer CNC cutting materials.

I couldn't believe the link I saw a while ago about a 3D printed gun. I wouldn't even drink out of a 3D printed cup so there's no way I would trust a gun made that way.

Sounds like a recipe for blowing your hand off.

Steve.

That halfwit tried to print (as remember) a lower reciever for an AR-15, which is the civilian (non-auto) verion of the M16 This gun is very popular with idiots who like to dress up like shrubs in attemp to compensate for... something. It's not a very highly stessed part, it supports the upper reciever which contains the barrel, bolt, and locking mechanisms. It lasted 7 shots. It would have been much better had he tried to print the reciever for say a Mauser. Then at least he'd have earned a Darwin award.

Real guns are made of wood - preferably walnut - and steel. Neither of which are, or are ever likely to be printable.

Steve Smith · Jul 31, 2013

lxdude said:
just as it makes little sense to CNC it out of solid material

See 6x12 camera link below.

Steve.

lxdude · Jul 31, 2013

Steve, as I said in the part of the sentence you didn't quote, unless it's a prototype or short run.

3d printed cameras HAVE ARRIVED

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