Printable Starships and gear.

[Rover]

Greetings,
With 3D printing and rapid prototyping currently available at our Tech. What would a TL 14 or 15 offer in the way of large scale "Printed" objects. Would you include such tech IYTU.

I would imagine 3000 years hence very large and complex items made of various materials could be printed rather easily.

What kind of effect would it have on economics is a 1000 ton ship could be printed in a day. Would it effect costs? how about repairs? no need to stock any parts if anything you need could be printed.

I would also guess a ship's engineering shop would have a smaller scale device to print up any needed parts when stranded, or weapons, or other needed items. Forget your handy 10' pole, print up a new one.

We can currently print a crude but functional firearm with today's equipment. Or functional parts for existing firearms. Would a traveller in the future be able to print up a laser carbine or gauss rifle?

 

[Otto Harkaman]

I think the venerable William H. Keith aka Ian Douglas could answer your questions with his several latest sci-fi series. Nanotech would handle most of those things. Which makes me realize I haven't read his latest book, off to the bookstore!

There is a milestone in the evolution of every sentient race, a Tech Singularity Event, when the species achieves transcendence through its technological advances. Now the creatures known as humans are near this momentous turning point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Keith,_Jr.

 

[Rover]

Thanks,
I'll check it out.

 

[mike wightman]

IMTU ship hulls made from crystal iron through to coherent superdense are made by growing the hull in a mould which is injected with the alloy and seeded (check out how turbine blades are made for modern jet engines and think of making a hull out of the stuff).
Gravitic and nuclear damper technology are used at the higher TLs to make the more esoteric materials as they are growing.

Internal equipment could definitely be 3d printed by nano factories - such printers could help explain the repair rules in CT.

 

[CosmicGamer]

While I can conceive of all kinds of advances in so called "3D printing" manufacturing, I still consider it best suited more for custom, specialized, and/or one off type items. For example, for on board a star ship when you never know what part you might need at a moments notice. It is highly inefficient and costly to use a machine that can make anything and needs to be able to accept every possible input and manufacturing process and produce both large and small items vs a machine designed with just the abilities needed to efficiently mass produce a specific item. As all the different types of processes requiring precise and custom heating, cooling, chemical reactions and so on are added to "3D printers" and as some of the "3D printer" technology gets used in more standard manufacturing processes, I think the lines will blur considerably.

I consider the "3D" sidewalk art of the likes of Edgar Mueller, Julian Beever, and Manfred Stader. It's still a 2D drawing AND a 2D result. But it looks 3D and is awesome. I understand utilizing the word 3D with 3D printing but one reason I put "3D printing" in quotes is because while it may become so, at the moment isn't most "3D printing", at best, just printing in multiple 2D layers? Is taking multiple layers of wood and stacking and gluing them real 3D wood manufacturing? one example = plywood

Injection molding would be more of a 3D process to me.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I could have sworn we banged away on this already. I thought it was in the "end access" thread, but I couldn't find it. Folks discussed a 3d printer as part of the machine shop on board a ship.

As to "printing" an entire ship... that would be one mighty big printer! Though it would be possible to do, it would seem to be more trouble than it was worth. With a lot of things, it would be much easier to build component parts, and assemble them. (As to printing a ship in a day, I don't think that would be possible, given the materials and the complexity of various components.)

 

[Rigel Stardin]

You have to start looking at 3-d printing in the same light as replicators from Star Trek.

 

[SpaceBadger]

I could have sworn we banged away on this already. I thought it was in the "end access" thread, but I couldn't find it. Folks discussed a 3d printer as part of the machine shop on board a ship.

There was some discussion in one of my TL 12 Tool Kits threads - maybe the Mechanical Tool Kit?

 

[SpaceBadger]

I could have sworn we banged away on this already. I thought it was in the "end access" thread, but I couldn't find it. Folks discussed a 3d printer as part of the machine shop on board a ship.

Found it: TL 12 Electonics Tool Kit