Making parts from scratch

When I first heard of 3D printers, I thought it was vaporspeak. I'd read about such devices in some good Sci Fi stories, but they seemed at least 50 years off, not something that would occur anytime soon.

Well, step aside and embrace the future! Now, you can fabricate small prototype parts and items (just plastic so far) at home if you want to pony up to do it.

The idea of direct CAD  to Fab is an amazing jump, even if it's just for plastic parts so far. Expect to see some noticeable advances in various industries from the application of this technology.

Some companies producing these machines:

• 3D Systems Corp.
• Hewlett Packard (the HP DesignJet 3D)

Why quality matters

Sort of a silly and obvious subject, but here's a real-life example.

On Jan 27, I received a new notebook from a large off-shore manufacturer. It's a generally satisfying computer, with the exception that I noticed one or two pixel failures on the display. Knowing that most manufacturers will state that one or two pixel failures are within acceptable tolerances and since it wasn't that big of a deal, I let it go.

A few weeks later, I noticed more dead pixels had shown up! Hmm, oh well. Not the best quality display, I suppose. I was mildly disturbed that the issue was growing, but hoped the worst was over.

Of course, it wasn't! There have been a few more pixel failures since then and this morning, when I started the laptop, there's a one-pixel wide vertical line on the left side of the display that's there to stay :-(

OK, that's it! This display clearly has a problem and it's getting worse over time. Now, our IT department will have to replace the unit, lots of people (myself included) will invest time and effort, and a lot of needless expense will occur just because of this issue. I sure hope its limited to my unit and not a larger issue, but I have to admit I suspect that mine might be the tip of an iceberg...

So, by now, it should be obvious that quality does matter!