3D printed houses coming here soon?

**Shrek** · #21 04/30/14, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FarmboyBill

Jay, does yours have a gold circle 1/2 way inside the pull out door handle and 1/2 way out? The Ice box is on top, and the bottom drawers, crispers, or something like that aren't full bins but have a hump at the bottom back? Mom got one around that time, 52 to say 56. I sat around 2ft from it at the table for a decade and a half I imagine.

This one has no bottom drawers only two wire shelves and a 12 by 12 inch freezer box on the upper right inside of the fridge.

My father said he remembered when his aunt got it and was so happy the compressor wasn't on top.

It has enough space that with the racks removed it can hold a pony draft beer keg with a hose tap.

60 plus years old and it still runs with a quiet hum and only needs to be unplugged so the freezer defrosts into a hospital pan once a year or so.

**highlands** · #22 05/01/14, 07:59 AM

This is something I envisioned 30 years ago and it's already here. We 3D printed our cottage and butcher shop. We setup forms and then used pump truck and concrete. With ultra fast curing concrete we did some things where there weren't even forms, we just built right up on top of what we had placed an hour before. Very much like using a little desktop 3D printer. This will only get better.

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/

Skamp · #23 05/01/14, 08:41 AM

To the point of 3-D printers in general;

They give the layman an incredible opportunity. Anyone reading this is viewing on some form of computer. Most that are reading this have access to free CAD software, Google Sketchup to be explicit. With that and a 3-D printer, if you can dream it, you can likely make it happen.

The overwhelming majority of jobs lost, at least initially, will be in Asia. Why import a cup, or bowl, when you can print it? The same holds for the barn door hinges, the door knobs, that 3/4" street ell that you are fresh out of. And, where the heck did I put those baler shear pins?

To the point of 3-D printed housing;

Scale has to be considered when thinking of that one. The layman could certainly print one brick-by-brick/block-by-block/panel-by-panel. I envision the Lowes, Home Depots, and even Wallyworld in the modular business.

My personal hang ups at the moment;

How large of an "ink" silo do I build?

And, how do we get the sticky side on to the Duck Tape?

**highlands** · #24 05/01/14, 01:50 PM

Speaking of 3D printers there is an amazing project on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...inter?ref=card

Wish I had the money and time to play with it right now. I've wanted one of these for years, decades. Long ago I designed toner chemistries and played with this sort of stuff back in the 1980's and 1990's. It's exciting stuff just in its infancy. Right now we're about where we were when we got our first laser printers in the mid-1980's and then color inkjets about a decade later. In ten years this should be mainstreaming.

Joshie · #25 05/03/14, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FarmboyBill

They'll have to transition into trash haulers I guess.

They could also seek Walmart jobs, leading to a glut of people seeking such jobs. If more people seek these jobs, wages will stay low. My point wasn't that outdated technology misplaces jobs. It has always happened and it always will. As you mentioned, buggy manufacturing jobs don't exist anymore (except in some Amish communities, of course). Those jobs were replaced by car manufacturing jobs. When robots started working the line, many vehicle manufacturing positions were eliminated.

The spread of big ag and the reduction of family farming could be likened to this same sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularity like it. I have family in IL whose farms don't make them a living wage. I also have family in MO who, over the last 40 years, have purchased enough land to consider them as big ag. Both groups have been farmers for generations.

My initial point was that the construction workers of today could end up as the Walmart and McDonald's jobs of tomorrow, which won't solve housing problems.

I don't understand how 3D printing works.

**highlands** · #26 05/04/14, 06:09 AM

3D Printing is like decorating a cake with frosting, building up the decorations with little blobs. But instead of 1/4" blobs the ink is veddy, veddy tiny blobs of plastic, metal, etc. Once they're all stuck together and cooled it becomes a solid object. Conductors for electricity can be built right in. Pipes for water. Different colored blobs. The ideal 3D Printing setup would have an input hopper where you dump stuff and it would disassemble the 'trash' (a.k.a. raw materials) into their component molecules and atoms so they could be then used to fabricate new things. I aim to have one in every home.

As to the jobs, well, people have always adapted. They'll figure out new things to do. Maybe take up farming. We already live like kings and queens compared with people in the past. Now we'll be emperors. Watch for the new cloth's styles...

Freeholder · #27 05/04/14, 07:06 PM

Just looked at the article -- those little houses aren't too bad, all things considered. Give it a few years, and they can be made a little more attractive, I'm sure. Plus, a coat of paint or stucco would help.

Kathleen