EdV
8/7/2012 1:40:54 PM
User Rank Guru
3D Printers and Polymer Semiconductors
I was at an art and 3D printing expo in June as part of a larger city wide all night art event in Minneapolis. Anders (no last name) from Cubify said that they were working on ways to incorporated semiconducting polymers into 3D printing systems. LED type devices incorporated into "water clear" materials for instance would allow a sculpture's supporitng structure to "pipe light" selectively and in response physical inputs (bending, squeezing, etc). No HW as of yet but I think the future looks bright.
Re: It's got to get a little more sophistocated than a printer to do an FPGA's worth of logic
@Duane: "Is there such a thing as a field programmable analog array?"
Several companies tried to create FPAAs ... some of the technologies were interesting, but all the ones I knwo crashed and burned.
Actel (now Microsemi) has some programmable analog on their SmartFusion mixed-signal FPGA devices (programmable analog, programmable FPGA fabric, and a hard core ARM Cortex-MC MCU).
Xilinx has Agile Mixed Signal (AMS) capabilities on all their new Series 7 All Programmable Devices, including the Zynq with it's dual ARM Cortex-A9 MCU. I'm going to do a blog on this in the next couple of days.
Re: It's got to get a little more sophistocated than a printer to do an FPGA's worth of logic
On the other hand, it just depends on what you consider to be building blocks. The printers take spools of plastic. Not the raw materials used to make plastic. Perhaps some sort of product printer could use FPGAs as the electronics building blocks. The device could print copper on a PCB substrate, printing connections wherever connections would need to go and then plop down some FPGAs.
You might need some analog circuitry though. Is there such a thing as a field programmable analog array?
Re: 3D Printing another leap for mankind
Adam - that makes more sense. I could see everything except the barrel and springs being 3D printed. It would be sad if that kind of theoretical capability cause 3D printers to be classified under arms trafficking regulations.
Re: 3D Printing another leap for mankind
@KenwickVS: Sounds like fun
Re: It's got to get a little more sophistocated than a printer to do an FPGA's worth of logic
@William: Party Pooper :-)
Re: Homebrew NMOS Transistor Step by Step
@Duane: "For chips, you just need..."
LOL
Re: 3D Printing another leap for mankind
I think he printed the lower receiver which is the part classified in federal law as the firearm (i might be wrong) . The lower does not experience much in the way of pressure etc
KenwickVS
8/6/2012 9:54:56 PM
User Rank Blogger
Re: 3D Printing another leap for mankind
Max, When we do get together, I'll treat you to a round of Sporting Clays, it's great fun - billed as "Golf with a Shotgun".
Brian
8/6/2012 9:42:42 PM
User Rank Guru
Re: 3D Printing another leap for mankind
@William: Re: Epoxy on transfer case in the field...
I sure hope that was a company truck! :-) That is not something I would want to do to my T-case - someone would have to grind the epoxy residue off when repairing correctly and that could cause new problems. Although, I have to say, that's a pretty impressive quick-field-fix to get back home!
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One of the things I've been wondering is whether or not the "okWireOR" module is really just a giant OR, or if the order in which things are attached matters.
I am shocked and horrified. It appears that those little scamps at Planet Analog are writing blogs pertaining to field-programmable issues.
This week's live online chat takes place on Thursday, May 23, 2013, at 1:00 p.m. ET.
Duane has decided that the time is ripe to get his ZedBoard bolted onto his robot with a Linux distribution up and running. That was the ultimate plan anyway, so why wait?
Would you class these as adages, aphorisms, axioms, dictums, epigrams, maxims, precepts, saws, truisms, or... well, what?
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