Prototyping formed sheetmetal parts has never been fast…until now. Rather than building the dies to actually form the part, Ford has developed a computer-controlled system that can do this with just the 3D CAD data. Pretty cool!
(via Gizmodo)
Lithium-sulfer battery promises 4X improvement
A new lithium-sulfer battery technology under development promises to prove around four times the energy storage as current lithium ion batteries. Also, since it doesn’t use a liquid electrolyte, it’s expected to be safer (ie, less flammable) than existing technologies. It’s in the prototype phase, which usually (for stuff like this) means a couple years from production.
All in all, it sounds remarkable, but what’s really cool is that announcements like this are becoming pretty common…there’s often another new fantastic battery technology mentioned in the news. It’s an indication that, overall, battery storage is quickly headed to the kind of levels where it’ll be making a big impact on our lives…first with electric cars, and soon with off-the-grid power supplies for houses and the development of ‘micro grids’. Cool stuff.
(via inhabitat)
3D Printed Gun stirs up controversy…and idiocy
Not surprisingly, people are freaking out about the 3D Printed Gun design that was released a few days ago. The US State Department sent a cease and desist letter to the person who posted the plans online, demanding that they be removed. He complied (though has hired a lawyer to fight this), but to even make such a request shows incredible ignorance of the information age we live in. The plans were downloaded around one million times and are available elsewhere online. Governments cannot suppress information…to attempt to do so is futile. Lawmakers in California and other areas of the country are trying to ban 3D printed gun technology. Meanwhile, efforts to implement mandatory background checks for gun purchases have failed in Congress. So, you can’t print your own single-shot gun that might explode in your hands when you try to use it and at has horrible accuracy, but it’s OK to go buy an AR-15 with high capacity magazine, armor piecing rounds, and body armor. Does anyone else see the lunacy in this?
3D printed gun
With all the advances in 3D printing, it was inevitable that someone, someday, would create a 3D printed gun…and that day is here. The only non-plastic parts are the firing pin, and the bullet. Everything else is plastic, printed on a Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer in ABS…a step above the hobbyist grade 3D printers like the Cube.
As far as firearms go, this one is pretty crude – it’s a single shot device which must be manually loaded, and a test with a larger caliber bullet resulted in destruction of the gun (the successful test used a .380 caliber round).
So, this is very much an immature product, but represents a huge milestone for the technology. There are those who believe that our species can create amazing technology and regulate it to the point where it is safe for society, but the reality is that technology can be used for both good and bad, and attempts to regulate that are eventually futile.
If you want to download the models yourself, head to DefCAD. I wouldn’t recommend it though…this is a marginal design and really more of a proof of concept…be careful. Note that in the test firings, a string was used to actuate the trigger.
Read more at ExtremeTech.