Fab@Home: The Personal Desktop Fabricator Kit

摘要

Solid freeform fabrication has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing, perhaps even to allow consumers to customize and manufacture goods cost-effectively in their own home. At present, the florescence of the technology is limited by a "chicken and egg" paradox. There is insufficient consumer demand and too narrow a range of applications for SFF systems to allow mass production to reduce their cost and complexity. At the same time, consumer applications for, demand for, and indeed awareness of SFF technology is limited by its high cost and complexity. We posit that just as the personal computer revolution was spurred by development of computer kits, getting SFF technology into the hands of hobbyists and hackers will simultaneously generate applications for, and improvements to it. To this end, we have developed the Fab@Home personal SFF kit, and are developing a user-group website to promote exchange of ideas and improvements. The designs and software for Fab@Home will be freely distributed, and constructing a first generation kit should cost roughly $2000. The kit design and a working unit will be presented, along with our experience deploying a unit for public use.