I wonder when the first machines get into the wild. I'll see if I can get sufficient interest to run a Foresight Exchange claim on the matter.

Karl:

Let us know if you do!

If Bowyer has already assembled a working prototype, I doubt that it will be 2008 before it gets loose "into the wild." It might get out before Bowyer is officially ready - which he hopes to be 2008.

Yeah, If I were a betting man I'd say some version of this will be out by late 2007.

Of course "the wild" will mostly be other university labs and perhaps the workshops of a few hard core engineer geeks.

Actually since the designs are published and open source, it appears that people are already working on them. Always the problem with stuff like this, the claim may already be true.

There's a lot of discussion going on in the Foresight Exchange mailing list over my still vague proposal.

One interesting point is that the lathe not only is a machine that with human labor can make its own parts, but is also "self-building". Ie, you need to start with a "pre-lathe" and add to its capabilities gradually. Even such things as screws are developed as you go. Yes, the original machine need not be held together with screws!

For example, here's an interesting reference, Dave Gingerly wrote a series of seven books (for sale in the link) not only describing how to build a lathe, but also how starting with a charcoal foundry, build (I gather that with a few hundred hours of work) a small machine shop including lathe, drill press, mill, and shaper. If I understand correctly, he describes a way to self-build the lathe given the charcoal foundry and possibly some other tools.

"It might get out before Bowyer is officially ready - which he hopes to be 2008."

The RepRap project already has several more or less working 3D printers operational. Vik Olivier's Zaphod down in Auckland has pride of place as the first. Vik coaxed Zaphod into making a printing a part of itself way back last September at a conference in Vienna. Recently, he printed out a parts set for the Mk 2 FDM extruder, THE critical part of the printer, assembled it and installed it on Zaphod.

Ed Sells', a graduate student of Adrian's, A.R.N.I.E was next to go hot just a few months ago while my own Tommelise went hot just a few weeks back.

Darwin is going to be pretty much the first standard release version of the RepRap project. A lot of people are taking bits and pieces out of the treasure trove of technology documented at the site and trying out different stuff of their own. For example, Vik will soon be trying to make Zaphod print with PLA, a bioplastic instead of the regular polycaprolactone. My own Tommelise prints HDPE and uses shaft-encoded gearmotors for it's positioning system instead of stepper motors.

A.R.N.I.E and Darwin use belt drives for the xy axes while Zaphod and Tommelise both use threaded screw drives. There is a lot of variation in the developer community. Technology development at RepRap is proceeding along a fairly wide front.

In between Gingery and RepRap there's a whole world of homebuilt machinery. Here's a good place to start. Public domain plans for CNC routers buildable for under $500; even less if you have as many scavenged stepper motors as I do.