h a l f b a k e r yThe phrase 'crumpled heap' comes to mind.
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When I was a kid, before the world sucked like it does
now, you could go to certain amusement parks such as
Sea World or Disneyland and buy a freshly injection
molded souvenir. You'd put the money in, watch the
whole process through a clear lucite cover and out
popped a little plasic astronaut,
octopus or other toy
themed to the park where the machine was located. It
was quite simply the coolest thing in the world. Lawyers
probably outlawed these things because lawyers are evil
scum intent on destroying civilization and it only takes
one moron kid trying to eat the plastic dolphin to close
the whole industry down.
So doing a little research I see these things were called
"Mold-O-Rama" machines, created in the 50s of course,
when people saw the future as something to be positive
about as opposed to now where a pussified world full of
whiney little bitches curl up in the fetal position sucking
on a bottle of anti-depressants waiting for the world to
end because of global warming, the Mayan calendar,
nuclear apocalypse etc.
Anyway, the idea would be to have a store full of these
machines for as many household products as possible.
Most would be injection molded but products made by
other automated means would be featured as well. The
food court would serve fresh donuts from that Crispy
Cream donut machine. Watching the automated donut
making process is like foreplay. "Ohhh baby! I'm gonna
dunk you in that milk and get it aaaall over you!"
Everything made fresh, every product you buy puts on a
show as well. It might cost more or would it? The raw
materials would cost the same and if a store where you
watched the thing actually being made was more popular
than the drug store where the products are boringly lined
up on shelves, who knows? Maybe this could sell more
products by doing it in an entertaining fashion.
ADDENDUM: One section of the store would have the
custom made one of a kind plastic product machine
where you'd make your... whatever, with a simplified 3d
program and it would make the mold to make the part
for you. Yes, you could simply do a one off 3d printed
version but that wouldn't be as cool as making 1 mold for
1 piece, molding the piece and watching the whole
process. (Hat tip to Max for that part of the idea)
The coolest thing on Earth
http://replicatorin...ng-vending-machine/
A store full of these would be very, very fun to shop at. [doctorremulac3, Apr 22 2012]
World's greatest commercial parody
http://www.hulu.com...ive-cluckin-chicken
[doctorremulac3, Apr 23 2012]
The Toymaker 3000
http://www.msichica.../exhibits/toymaker/
At Chicago's Science and Industry Museum [RayfordSteele, Apr 23 2012]
[link]
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Can it be a vending machine? I dunno, maybe a GIANT Robot Chicken... |
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For foodstuffs, this might work. A lot of stores (at
least here) have in-store bakeries already, and it
might be attractive to make these "bake-to-
order", or at least let customers see them in
operation. On the other hand, customers might
be disappointed to see that the "in-store baking"
involves putting the final touches onto frozen
part-baked items. |
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For injection moulding of goods, there is a huge
problem of tooling costs. The store would have to
keep a thousands-of-dollars mould set for each
item it wanted to sell; and all stores would have
to be re-equipped with new moulds when the
product was revised. |
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Finally, I don't know how quickly and easily an
injection moulder can be switched between
moulds. My guess is that the switch can be done
fairly quickly but that, in a factory, they probably
spend a while adjusting temperatures and cooling
times whenever they switch to a new product. |
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Bottom line: making a million plastic orange
juicers is going to be a lot cheaper than making
one of them a million times over. |
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Compromise: have a single HUGE machine with
hissing steam, flashing lights and a component
that goes "Sproinnnnggg!" every so often; also a
control panel with many bakelite knobs. Plastic
pellets are poured into one end of the machine by
merry workers and, after much hissing, flashing
and sproinnnnging, a perfect product emerges
from the chute at the other end. At the end of
the day, the merry workers recover the plastic
pellets from inside the machine, and reload it
with finished products ready to be "made" the
next day. |
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So, I ordered a computer recently. On the
manufacturer's website I clicked buttons &
selected from menus to configure it, and then,
once the credit card got approved, probably the
next human to see those specs was some
assembly-line worker plugging in components
according to a computer display. |
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Point a camera at this person's workspace, and
that of other workers who assemble & pack the
product, and at the loading dock, and the air-
freight facility, and so on. Many of these cameras
are probably in place anyway, for employee
performance monitoring and security. Considering
what the ordering/assembling/shipping software's
already doing, and considering the trend among
Fedex, DHL, UPS, etc. to provide up-to-the-
minute tracking information to customers, it
doesn't seem like much of a stretch for their
software to splice together video clips of my
particular purchase being assembled & shipped, so
that I can watch. |
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Oh no Max, let me clarify. Each product would have not only it's own mold set, but it's own machine. You'd go to the wastepaper basket machine, get your basket made. The screwdriver machine would cut and form a screwdriver out of the bar stock and mold a handle around it. A store with a thousand products would have a thousand different machines. It would be about the size of an aircraft hanger. |
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True, you'd probably have to sell a lot of orange juicers for that orange juicer machine to pay for itself, but you'd be charging full retail as opposed to wholesale. |
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But yea, it being a profitable business model was kind of a hopeful afterthought. To really make money you'd probably have to charge admission. |
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What's needed, clearly, is a master-machine which
produces, on demand, the moulds from the which
the product is to be made. A large CNC, fed with
huge billets of metal, ought to be able to turn out a
mould for an orange juicer in a while-you-wait kind
of way. |
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Custom designed one of a kind plastic product made to your specifications? |
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Easily done. Practical? Who cares? That takes my idea one step further into the cool impractical idea stratosphere. |
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I like it. I'm going to add it to the original idea. |
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Why not use additive manufacturing? Cuts a whole lot of steps out the loop. |
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I think you're talking about 3d printing which is also amazingly cool. |
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Only problem is it's only slightly more interesting that watching paint dry. Even very small parts can take hours to make. |
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No, no. 3D printing is following a very close approximation to Moore's Law, ito print speeds and accuracy/tolerance. And the laser sintering stuff will be superfast. Soon the turn around time from CAD file to albatross's stomach will be acceptable for commercial porpoises. |
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A commemorative "birth video" of your stapler? Sure, why not. |
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You can even have the mold sprue bronzed and made into
a keychain. [+] |
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A bit on the fence re: manufacturing one-offs of assembly-line products, but I like the idea of having a video of everything right from the mines on outward. Very expensive putting video cameras everywhere in the world though: you'd want to include not only the mining operations for the plastic, but the corporate decision-making process to produce that product line, and the intermediary clerks shuffling the paperwork. |
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Actually it's "claircque", but we'll let it go. |
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Additive manufacturing in materials that are as
durable as production grade molded plastics are
far, far, far more expensive than said plastics. A
small (palm size or smaller) plastic part will run
$30-50. The same injection or vacuum formed
part will run less than a dollar. |
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As for the original idea, even the cheapest tooling
for a vacuum molded plastic part (low quality
surface, low durability, low detail) is going to run
several hundred to several thousand. The same
grade of tooling for an injection molded
part is going to run $5-20k. |
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A production machine/line to produce complex
assemblies is going to run several tens of
thousands to several hundreds of thousands.
(Considerably more if you try to do a high
flexibility system that can handle a wide number
of different assemblies) |
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So, yes, it would cost a little bit more per part,
only a couple of orders of magnitude though. |
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I can find no fault with this idea... the mezmerization factor is strong with this one. |
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I recall becoming addicted to these machines for one day
in the mid-'80s; the Chicago Zoo had implemented an
insidious scheme to divest patrons of their quarters by
placing one of the things at every major attraction. My
cousins and I left with armloads of monocromatic
alligators, polar bears, hippopotami... an injection-molded
menagerie of mind-boggling variety. The appeal was, as
noted, mostly in the creation process; I can't remember
anything about them other than watching the machines
and, of course, that new-polycarbon smell. |
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Could we make them in approximately the same size
and shape as a short section of an irritating, small
child's trachea? |
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//A small (palm size or smaller) plastic part will run
$30-50.// |
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Wow, that's a good price. I'm picking up a stl piece
today for $200 that's about palm sized. Got a hookup
you want to share? |
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When I was a kid, my Gramma took me to a shop where she picked out a live chicken and the guy brought it back dead, plucked and still warm! [+] |
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The next step would be interesting, bring a
chicken into the back room and come out with a
box of chicken Mc Nuggets. Complete with a
picture of a smiling chicken on the box, winking
and giving a "thumbs" up.
(See link for the finest commercial parody ever
made) |
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By the way, heard a great rebuttal to people who
make fun of Chicken Mc Nuggets by saying "I don't
know where they get those things. Chickens don't
have nuggets." Ha ha ha. Point out that pigs don't
have sausages either. |
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//Got a hookup you want to share?// |
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I may be underestimating. We've got a system in house that does decent quality plastic parts (very limited materials), but that means I don't get a part by part quote. Also, fairly open, fine structured parts and minimal supporting material. |
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If you don't need especially high resolution Rep-Rap isn't too bad, but you're still looking at $20-100/lb for the material. |
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//Could we make them in approximately the same size and shape as a short section of an irritating, small child's trachea?// is this the same size and shape as our OWN small child's trachea? |
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//our OWN small child's trachea?// - you and [UnaBubba]? - well, congratulations! |
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The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has a giant plastic spinning top toy making machine. Fun to watch. |
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And I didn't even know they were married...(Una and
po, that is.) |
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I have difficulty imagining them wed - until we hear otherwise I'm going to assume that the urchin in question is the by-blow of a champagne-filled evening. |
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I didn't feel a thing! Not sure what that says about
the process... |
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Rep-Rap, I'll check them out. Prices are coming
down
all the time with the proliferation of cheap 3d
printers. You can buy a small desktop model now
for
about $1,500. |
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Hard to justify at this point though. Maybe I need
one just to make a statement. Although if I need
to justify
buying a desktop 3d printer the terrorists have
already won. |
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As for the cool toymaker link, I have a place in my
heart for anything with the suffix "3,000". |
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You're happy to keep living in sin, [po]? I mean, it
doesn't bother me, either way. |
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Ahhhh, it's little Unapo. |
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You changing your name to reflect your lovechild
status, [bliss]? |
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