Connections

I contacted someone yesterday, through a dating site. We exchanged a couple emails and then talked on the phone for a bit. She (let's call her Jane) asked me about my RepRap journal. Wanted an executive summary of the project. I complied, being careful not to get too enthusiastic about it. I learned the hard way that the best way to get rid of a person is to go on and on and on about some obscure subject.

She tells me that her daughter (let's call her Judy) might be interested in this. Apparently Judy is working on techniques for making inexpensive prosthetics, especially for developing countries. A sub-$1000 machine that can print custom parts (and can print off it's own replacement parts) would be handy for this sort of thing.

Long story short, Jane's going to talk to her daughter about RepRap and she also agreed to have dinner with me this weekend.

You may want to look at open-source prosthetics:
[www.wired.com]

Unfortunately,
[openprosthetics.org]
is down. They're doing a lot of 3D printing, mostly using exotic processes like laser-sintered metal powder, or investment casting of 3D-printed plastic blanks, I think.

... the manufacturer of my old CNC-mill redirect some of their customers to me which want to mill dental prosthetics - preforms from wax and ceramics from zircondioxide.

They're mostly dentists or dental technicians, wanting some hints and informations about low-cost-fabbing, as most comercial systems for this are in the price-range above 50.000 Euros

Viktor

What a great application!

Demented

Hi Demented,

... but the want very high precision and surface-finishing, so a the reprap should be able to fab with 0,01mm accuracy!

I think the combination of a coarse FFF-head with a finishing mill could be the hit

Viktor