Impressive video from Lulzbot: I was shocked by the scale of their bot farm!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_jUObUGLTA#t=48
Published on Apr 4, 2014
At Aleph Objects, Inc, we believe we hold the world record for most 3D printers running simultaneously. On April 3rd, 2014 we recorded 109 LulzBot 3D printers running simultaneously. If you know anyone who has done more, let us know!
We will be contacting the Guinness World Records to submit our claim for the record.
Cheers,
Drew
I applaud attempts to engage the masses in demonstrations like this to raise awareness of the potential in additive manufacturing, and love to take part in community-based fabrication like Project Egg and the work we did to fabricate individual scales for the Peer2Print artistic display (above). I do have some concerns at letting anyone else input objects that my printers would fabricate for them apart from my personally-controlled production. A "borrow" system has too many risks to me and my property.
Until the technology makes a few more steps towards maturity, I would certainly be concerned at the idea of production responsibility and potential entanglements in how the produced items are used, that they are free of defects, and the myriad of legal concerns that could be levied against the producers of items for use by others instead of by themselves. Producing my own items, IP issues and many other concerns relating to fabrication and its quality are my concern alone - making something for others in both the IP used as well as the materials involved and the quality of the end product (layer adhesion, inclusions, percentage fill, etc) all open the possibility for responsibility and legal vulnerability. Very different laws apply to things you make for yourself and those you provide to others, or worse that you sell or lease service access in provision.
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Solutions like "leasing" or "loaning" the production capacity of your printer to someone else creates many new problems for the owner of a 3D printer. If their output is used by someone else and judged at fault in an accident (example: 3D printed automotive brake components, etc) then the manufacturer (you) may be held responsible for the injury or death. Failing to meet the rigid standards for fabricated items, even down to a small plastic toy that someone's child could bite and choke on broken bits, or which could be contaminated by other materials in your fabrication environment that are illegal in production facilities (carcinogens, solvents, poisons, etc) mean that in the current state of technological maturity, use of someone else's 3D printed objects may involve many aspects of new risk which are already taken into account under traditional mass manufacturing and so not present there in acquired toys, etc.
Even IP control over Hollywood props ("Super 8"-themed cubes have already been an issue) or small military game play pieces (see Games Workshop suits over 3D printed tanks) and the like are already presenting threats to fabrication of IP provided by someone else, since you do not know the provenance of the design nor the claims made against it.
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Some designs, like the Liberator 3D printable firearm, are illegal to possess in some parts of the world for political or legal reasons. If someone were to fabricate their own 3D printable firearm using your printer, law enforcement could choose to imprison you and seize your prints over something which you had no control over. Worse, someone could create what appears to be a purely ornamental object that could be fashioned into a weapon (firearm, bomb, etc) for concealed purpose and then used to cause harm to others. The fabricator could be held accountable for their part in criminal or terrorist activity as a result. Even designs such as high-security keys can be fabricated using 3D printing, or embedded within another object as it is being fabricated, so the resulting apparently-innocuous object could be shipped to the destination party and then used to bypass high-security locks, hand-cuffs, and similar protective measures. The fabricator could easily be charged as an accessory to many different types of crimes by their creation of the tools involved.
Fabrication by additive manufacturing conceals many things from a void within a plastic toy kitty that could be used to conceal drugs, or which could be "snapped apart" to reveal a functional firearm, etc. Simply too many devious and illegal uses possible for this principal of manufacturing if you simply allow someone else's designs to run on your printer and then send them what comes out.
Kirk
Shapeways are challenged by the potential that their clients may input controlled deigns (like the Games Workshop-banned wargaming miniature tanks uploaded by their designer, but later removed due to legal challenge on the basis of their style and GW's copyright content), while other content like the high-security keys for handcuffs and such can be embedded in designs that do not reveal their concealed qualities to the manufacturer.
This high-security handcuff key was produced using a low-resolution FFF/FDM printer, and worked after very minimal preparation and filing. It was embedded in an egg-shaped outer casing and handed around several classes of officers without triggering any recognition of its concerning potential until I finally shattered its housing. Until that time, it was simply another Easter-themed plastic toy. The potential emerging from common business systems like cameras and computers is rapidly creating all new concerns over protecting physical models from duplication.
This is an example of a duplicated original (at the right) and two low-resolution smaller copies, each created from the larger using nothing more than photographs of the original and photogrammetric processing software that creates a copy of the physical model. With this software and sufficient photographs of a high-security key, its outer structure can be replicated without ever requiring access to the original model. This brings up new concerns with regards to protecting IP-controlled designs like next year's models of car fairings and similar structures.
Kirk
