digger
Experienced Member
It's funny how 3D printers are now becoming affordable to hobbyists in the form of DIY homebrew kits, such as the the RepRap and the MakerBot Cupcake CNC. It's just so reminiscent of building an Altair back in the early homebrew computing era. (Even though that was before my time.) 
The MakerBot can be seen in action in this interview with the CEO of MakerBot Industries on the Colbert Report: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/388966/june-08-2011/bre-pettis
According to that interview, objects printed with such a 3D printer are pretty sturdy ("the same material that lego is made out of"), and the printing resolution is less than a third of a (cubic?) millimeter, which seems pretty good to me.
With such sturdiness and precision, I believe that a DIY 3D printer could be able (or with the rate of development should really soon become able) to print certain replacement parts for vintage computers that could otherwise not be obtained (easily). I'm thinking of missing or broken keys, buttons, knobs, and lids, but perhaps also even complete replacements for cracked casings and such.
How feasible do you think 3D printing would be for repairing and maintaining vintage hardware? And would it perhaps also be an idea to create an open source database of commonly required replacement parts that cannot be obtained through other means? Having helpful forum users "saving" the shapes of still intact components with a 3D scanner (which can easily be done with a webcam and the right software), and sharing them with people who need to print them as replacements? And could that perhaps pose certain legal problems? And why would something like that be illegal if the original manufacturer wasn't selling and making money on such replacement parts anyway? It's funny how old questions that have always applied to the software world now suddenly begin to apply to the hardware world as well.
I'm sure I'm not the first person in this forum to have toyed with this idea, right? Any thoughts or experiences?
The MakerBot can be seen in action in this interview with the CEO of MakerBot Industries on the Colbert Report: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/388966/june-08-2011/bre-pettis
According to that interview, objects printed with such a 3D printer are pretty sturdy ("the same material that lego is made out of"), and the printing resolution is less than a third of a (cubic?) millimeter, which seems pretty good to me.
With such sturdiness and precision, I believe that a DIY 3D printer could be able (or with the rate of development should really soon become able) to print certain replacement parts for vintage computers that could otherwise not be obtained (easily). I'm thinking of missing or broken keys, buttons, knobs, and lids, but perhaps also even complete replacements for cracked casings and such.
How feasible do you think 3D printing would be for repairing and maintaining vintage hardware? And would it perhaps also be an idea to create an open source database of commonly required replacement parts that cannot be obtained through other means? Having helpful forum users "saving" the shapes of still intact components with a 3D scanner (which can easily be done with a webcam and the right software), and sharing them with people who need to print them as replacements? And could that perhaps pose certain legal problems? And why would something like that be illegal if the original manufacturer wasn't selling and making money on such replacement parts anyway? It's funny how old questions that have always applied to the software world now suddenly begin to apply to the hardware world as well.
I'm sure I'm not the first person in this forum to have toyed with this idea, right? Any thoughts or experiences?
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