from Hacker News

A Printer That Can Print a 2,500 Square Foot House in 20 Hours

by newsmaster on 10/28/13, 5:03 PM with 86 comments

• by JoeAltmaier on 10/28/13, 5:47 PM

  Hm. A whole house, except the flooring, walls, wiring, plumbing, windows, roofing, lighting, heck anything but the bare frame and walls. You can already do that, prefab, in a few hours. This is custom, but so is prefab.

  The problem is the usual: a single material isn't enough to make anything but the simple constructs. Almost everything is complex these days. Materials Science hasn't been a science for a century for nothing.

• by ChuckMcM on 10/28/13, 6:23 PM

  Sigh, if this guy had an actual 3D printer he would realize those doors and windows are a no-go :-) More seriously, there are unsolved issues in printing unsupported structures, the current best solution is a second 'support' material that can be dissolved/blown away once the part is completed but that rules out voids which are part of what you hope to make with this sort of thing.

  Also as others point out this is just the frame (and if you do the robotic crane thing you can add a roof. You might also be able to use your robotic crane to do joists for overhangs but the finish suffers as your joist material is exposed on the underside.

  No doubt solvable problems but they take away from some of the 'magicalness' of fused deposition printing. Stereo lithography where the part is neutrally bouyant in the construction fluid doesn't have those issues but it has other issues associated with strength and material choices that can be laser activated.

  For now doing a concrete lay-up would be pretty killer but building the forms on site isn't that hard and in both cases you need to transport the concrete at the last minute.

  Bottom line I think the stuff that BluHomes [1] is doing is much more creative than trying to do this with 3D printing.

  [1] http://www.bluhomes.com/

• by brokentone on 10/28/13, 8:20 PM

  Interesting, but this still has the classic issue where the "printer has to be larger than the object printed." A few weeks back I got a tour of MIT's media lab, where they have a robot arm they're strapping to a bucket truck, in which case they have a mobile, 3D printer with a 100 foot wingspan.

  This arm has an attachment for a polyurethane foam sprayer, a milling device, and a paint sprayer. In which case they can spray out a concrete form, mill it to get more precise (urethane foam is a bit imprecise), and paint it.

  Then they want to get a series of these trucks to work together in a "hive" format... crazy kids.

• by ohwp on 10/28/13, 5:49 PM

  The 3d visuals of this printer have been on the internet for more than a year but there are still no pictures and movies of a working version.

  Concrete printing is not new so I wonder what is keeping them from building the printer over a year later.

• by jguimont on 10/28/13, 5:43 PM

  Wonder how building's made like this can withstand the cold. In Canada or northern US we do not construct houses and building the same way that southern countries do. For example, exterior walls are 1' wide with an R value of close to 30, most houses have a basement that is below the freezing line, etc.

• by JonSkeptic on 10/28/13, 5:36 PM

  "Construction is the most hazardous job. It is more dangerous than mining and agriculture."

  Interesting if true. I had no idea.

• by marincounty on 10/29/13, 1:49 AM

  As the owner of a physibles domain name, and hopefully one day a company; fanciful stories like this are a bit too soon. Actually, I hope we never have to resort to living in manufactured houses. The overly strict building codes and approval processes in the U.S. might bring this kind of building a reality though. Right now, I think we need to work on ending homelessness. Yes, build pyramids in the middle of the country where land is still cheap. Nothing fancy, but livable. Kinda like kibbutzes, but on a much larger scale.

• by VladRussian2 on 10/28/13, 9:34 PM

  now if there were a printer that could print a 5000 sq feet lot for the house, with all the building permits approved, kickbacks/bribes/political donations paid and utilities connected...

  The 3D printed houses will be a life-saver on Moon and Mars though.

• by lifeisstillgood on 10/28/13, 7:31 PM

  I wrote a bit about this and it's implications some years back - http://www.ciocookbook.com/philosophy/thecodeisthedesign.htm..., and the Times has reported on a group working on concrete printing - but as is pointed out here, it's very hard - but on e the basics are in, well software eats another industry

• by angersock on 10/28/13, 5:28 PM

  So, I realize that the return on investment for VCs in something like this is probably pretty low--the AEC industry is terrible (though real estate is alright).

  That said, can we at least be honest that having that much capital locked up in stupid consumer and enterprise gambles is actually a pretty obviously sub-optimal use of that money for the common good?

• by locusm on 10/29/13, 12:29 AM

  I guess this is cool if your into ugly concrete construction, check out rammed earth to see something beautiful. http://www.rammedearthconstructions.com.au/gallery.php?mp_id...

• by VLM on 10/28/13, 5:26 PM

  Its interesting to see the world of "just like plastic filament printing but with concrete" collide with the world of highly automated manufactured housing. Bring the jobsite to the printer or the printer to the jobsite, sorta.

• by bayesianhorse on 10/28/13, 9:21 PM

  Obviously this technology isn't ready for prime-time yet. But there is no compelling reason why it shouldn't be able to compete with prefabbed housing. In any way, this 3D-printer collaborates with prefabbed parts, so you can combine custom or tricky bits with prefabbed parts for the easier portions.

  Where I see additional advantages is complicated buildings, for example pig stables where you want hundreds of bays, and maybe special channels for herding pigs etc.

  Also for larger settlements once the robot is on-site it can just keep on going while the logistics train is a lot simpler than if they had to coordinate all the different types of parts.

• by aaron695 on 10/28/13, 10:59 PM

  You'll notice a whole lot of hand waving around auxiliary issues like wiring and painting. Solvable yes, but projects in their own right.

  Biggest point he makes is around the danger. It's also why autonomous cars might take off incredibly quick. Once the lawsuits start rolling in by people hurt/killed by people driving cars large companies will have to go autonomous pretty quick.

• by 650REDHAIR on 10/28/13, 6:42 PM

  I love this idea, but where would this be useful?

  Is there really a shortage of single family homes anywhere? Maybe in some sort of disaster area or 3rd world, but I imagine there are better/easier/cheaper alternatives for those situations.

• by mattsfrey on 10/29/13, 3:39 AM

  As cool as this is, it's scary to think where our economy is going. What will all the construction workers do?

• by Fundlab on 10/30/13, 2:36 AM

  I love the way nascent thought is being given to the use of 3D printing on large size implementations

• by ffrryuu on 10/28/13, 9:17 PM

  And the house will still cost $1 million.

• by tehwalrus on 10/29/13, 9:17 AM

  This is wicked. I want one. :)