Re: Bloody wonderful, dont idiots ever think first?

3D but yeah

Re: Bloody wonderful, dont idiots ever think first?

While I see your point, I find it unlikely that this, by itself, will lead to calls on 3D printers. After all, if it's possible to buy RAL guns with little oversight, it makes little sense to ban a machine that can (among other things) be used to make just one bit of one.

I would find it a lot more likely that the government will start calling for a ban on 3D printers as soon as someone figures out a way to use one to make, say, a copy of a vinyl LP that the Recording Industry Ass. of America has a copyright on. Does that make me cynical?

Re: Bloody wonderful, dont idiots ever think first?

Or Disney Mickey Mouse toys.

Re: Bloody wonderful, dont idiots ever think first?

> Or Disney Mickey Mouse toys.

Or Barbies, or (if the hair is too hard to attach) barbie's horse, car, happy meal toys, or Olympic rings.

Then all hell will break loose.

Re: Bloody wonderful, dont idiots ever think first?

I wonder how viable it is to mandate unique-to-printer markers be added to anything produced by a 3D printer? For a time, printers secretly put a small pattern of dots on the foot of any page they printed so that the police could identify which specific printer (not model of printer) the page was from. I don't know if they still do. Similarly there was a system built into some image software and many scanners which recognized the pattern of dots on a bank note and stopped working if found. So I wonder what might be proposed for 3D printers.

Re: Bloody wonderful, dont idiots ever think first?

It's just as likely that microdots or similar will be added to the plastic, so that an item can be traced through the purchasing system to the person who bought it.

And if he didn't do this then someone else would have, and maybe not been so public about it.

ttfn

Re: Metalwork class

one way that this is different is that I don't have to know how to use equipment or CAD software. I can d-load the CAD files and have my 3D printer start cranking out parts.

Re: Metalwork class

You mean the 3D printer you can't buy off the shelf for less than $25k, but have to build out of a half-dozen gutted inkjets and some custom-fabricated parts which aren't easy to make without already having access to a working 3D printer? It'd be cheaper just to buy an AR-15...

Re: Metalwork class

The skills needed to make a basic automatic weapon are not that hard. Building a sten gun from WW2 factory plans is comparatively easy.

And don't put down the skills needed to get a 3d printer to print a part this large with the right dimensions and without warping. It takes quite some time to set the printer up. It's not as easy as assemble, d-load files and press go.

Re: Metalwork class

You're right about the Sten gun.

It was even manufactured in bicycle repairshops in Oslo during WWII, and the Germans were none the wiser.

Re: Metalwork class

No, more likely the 3D printer that my wife's school bought for £3k last year - and the prices are tumbling all the time.

Wait for it, and the biggest growth in torrented data will be *.sta (think that's what they're called) files that can be pointed straight to the printer. Once these relate to illegal items or those with copyright, this shit's going to get interesting.

Re: Metalwork class

The only dodgy aspect of this is that you don't need skill to print a 3D model, beyond making the CAD file in the first place (oh, have this email attachment good sir).

Stick a lathe or CNC (I don't even know what that stands for) in front of me and I wouldn't have a clue how to use it.

File->Print. Now that's the life.

Re: Metalwork class

Lathes and milling machines are computer-controlled these days. Have been for quite a while (since before 3D printers arrived).

I expect that a keen hobbyist could pick up an old manual milling machine and convert it to computer operation in his garage. You'd just have to replace the wheels that are turned by hand with appropriate stepper motors and sensors and controllers. The rest is programming.

BTW learning to use a manual lathe or milling machine is not at all hard. (Learning to use it well, that's quite another matter).

Re: Metalwork class

Why Bother: http://www.emachineshop.com/ and similar services are coming on-line in volume. The result is that the internet can crank out those special parts that the Chinese are not making already.

I have been doing electronics with PCB-pool for at least a decade. Now the mechanical engineers can do the same with their projects. I wonder whether there is any restrictions on what can be made, actually. Theoretically, one could spread the parts over a wide range of suppliers so the suppliers can always deny that they knew the purpose of the assembly; OTOH maybe GCHQ collects all the files!?

Re: when they stop trying to make it look like a traditional weapon

"...and adapt the design to the materials"

Ah, I was getting ahead of you there. In my mind, I was finishing your sentence with something like: ...and start disguising guns as random household objects that don't arouse suspicion in airport X-ray machines. 3D printers could presumably make most of Q-branch obsolete.

Just as well there are no terrorists reading this.

Re: Metalwork class

@Dan 10

Like the majority of equipment the cost of the kit isn't going to be the expensive part. If you try doing any sort of volume production you'll find the running costs far outweigh the price of the machine. Just like a regular 2D printer the annual supplies and utility costs is going to dwarf that £3k and I can guarantee you that machine doesn't have anywhere near the accuracy needed to build parts requiring even moderate tolerances. Also don't forget that most firearms manufacturers are making guns with a variety of plastic parts including frames but none of them use a 3D printer for production, even though they likely have one for prototype work, because the cost is prohibitive. Recycling plastic helps a little but it still needs to be fairly high purity stock with a consistent melt temperature to get decent structural properties out of it.

If someone wants an AR-15 there are easier ways to get one. Granted, it might be wise to get rid of it fairly quickly to keep from being caught.

Re: Damn

If you work for a 3D printing company, then yes, you are. They'll all be banned shortly, just you wait.

Re: Damn

"Once replicators are truly perfected, everyone will be out of a job. But in a world where you can just replicate everything you need, there'll be no need for jobs. Or money. Or any of that related bullshit that makes our present civilisation so unbearable... speed the day!"

I await with interest the method by which one will pay for the supplies to run the replicator, the parts to repair it when it breaks down or indeed the replicator itself if we have sent money the way of the wire recorder.

*I* predict coin in the slot replicators and legislation limiting private ownership of replicator tech.

Re: Damn

"Once replicators are truly perfected, everyone will be out of a job. But in a world where you can just replicate everything you need, there'll be no need for jobs. Or money. Or any of that related bullshit that makes our present civilisation so unbearable... speed the day!"

Except someone still has to DESIGN the item in the first place before you can replicate it, plus the costs of power and materials... Transportation. Refining. Ad nauseum...

I don't think replicators will be the turnkey solution to a communist panacea. By the way, our present civilisation is only unbearable to people who are too lazy to take care of themselves. The rest of us are getting along just fine.

Re: So they didn't build a gun with a 3D printer at all

No the article is more important than that. It's not about making a gun at home - that's easily down out of metal.

It's that the government decided that this particular component is impossible to make (it's a complex shaped cast+machined part) so this is the component that they would serial number/track/register etc - this is the licence key to the gun. The poster has shown that this isn't a valid assumption with 3D printers.

Re: more to the point...

If he didn't get his hands on original plans, the part could have been reverse-engineered, either by a man with ruler and mouse (working for your choice of foreign powers or just for fun), optically (laser scanner or MS Kinnect), or by a touch-probe as made by Renishaws.

It does not appear to be the most complicated of parts, so I would image it is the former case.

Re: more to the point...

If one were motivated enough you could probably knock one up in a CAD package by finding gun strip down pictures on the internet and using a pair of calipers, plus physical parts of an existing gun such as the barrel, trigger etc. to figure out the correct scale of things. A few prototypes later and you have your receiver.

FAIL indeed: Holmes passed his background check

He had no criminal record prior to the Aurora shooting, and he doesn't seem to have been under psychiatric care either. Whether or not he should've been is an open question, but the fact of the matter is that he passed FBI/ATF clearance requirements to buy the firearms he did.

Also, his AR-15-alike was semi-auto, not automatic. There are conversion kits, but -- guess what? -- they're not legal to purchase.

Re: FAIL indeed: Holmes passed his background check

As someone who has been in the military, and fired plenty of these, I can say for a FACT that the M16A2 has the following settings:

1. Safe

2. Single

3. 3 round burst

4. Full auto (aka Kiss your ass goodbye )

Re: For those w/o time to read the paper

Well, he hasn't been certified loony yet, but it's entirely possible he is. Personally, I don't think so, but my opinion doesn't count (yet; I haven't been called for jury duty).

The AR-15 he used was a SEMI-automatic, which may not seem like much of a distinction, but it is.

Finally, he was charged with two counts of murder ("murder after deliberation" and "murder with extreme indifference") for each death, and two counts of attempted murder for each of the wounded. The prosecutors know very well what they're doing. This douchebag is going down, one way or the other.

Re: FAIL indeed: Holmes passed his background check

"4. Full auto (aka Kiss your ass goodbye )"

IIRC that's about 3 secs of fire (from a full magazine) until you run out.

At which point either all your opponents are dead or the survivors will kill you while you reload.

I think this is one of those things that looks cool in movies but IRL will get you killed very quickly.

Re: FAIL indeed: Holmes passed his background check

"The entire reason the 3 round burst mode replaced the full auto setting was that too many 'John Wayne' types would spray and pray and deplete their ammo supply. By restricting the weapon to 3 round burst only, both the logistics of supplying ammunition to a battlefront soldier, and the soldier's own accuracy was improved."

In the British Army we have something called Fire Discipline :-)

Re: FAIL indeed: Holmes passed his background check

Before that you had the SA80 jamming every three rounds to enforce discipline ;-)

Re: FAIL indeed: Holmes passed his background check

thease days Full auto is used to win the initail phase of a firefight and supress your oposition - you then switch to aimed fire.