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3-D PRINTER: UNIVERSAL MACHINE FOR DOMESTIC MANUFACTURING (REVISITED!!!) Below are some modifications to my design:
_ At the input end of the printer, there are many cartridge slots where required gel-like materials are provided. Each slot is connected to several nozzles at the bottom of the printer.
_ The printer heats the materials (the “heat” light turns red).
_ In order, the printer “reads” each layer then sends data to the detector inside the printer.
_ Upon receiving the data, the detector will make an overall scan of all cartridge slots to determine the substance contained within each slot.
_ Information about the available slots will then be sent back from the detector to the computer for further processing.
_ Complete information is finally transferred to the central processor located inside the printer for executing.
_ Like numerous robot arms, the nozzles spit out drops of material like pixels, which constitute the object.
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I-WORLD'S MATERIAL MANUFACTURING PROCESS
I-World has vast natural gas and ore resources. Everyday, vans equipped with large spider-silk tanks ship highly pressurized gas from gas wells and extracted ores from mining fields to the material-processing center. Other sources of alkanes and minerals come from meteorites as well as tails of comets, which are driven to I-World's orbit by satellite-magnet. At the material-processing center, natural gas and extracted ores are separated to produce pure carbons, hydrogens and other elements. This separation is accomplished by first vaporizing the raw materials in a solar furnace. Then the vaporized materials pass through an ionization chamber to become ionized (positively charged). The ionized vapor is then accelerated into a finely focused beam in which all ions have the same kinetic energy. The beam passes near a strong magnetic field which will cause the lighter atoms to diverge from their original path more than the heavier atoms do. The separated atoms would then be collected and cooled to liquid, with a separate collector for each element. I-World can produce all kinds of materials that can be imagined. With the knowledge of the material’s chemical structure, I-World residents use microbots to actively implement all chemical reactions. In general, a microbot is composed of 3 jointed modules. The biggest middle module is the body. The flexible right module with a magnetic active site is called detecting arm. The left module with a magnetic active site is called constructing arm. Embedded in each module is a processing chip that is programmed to control the module’s sensitivity and activity. The microbot is made of a material that is superelastic and has a very high boiling point. First, one or more liquid reactants are introduced into the tank reactor together with the microbots. Prior to entering the tank, each microbot was installed an extremely sophisticated instruction that guides it throughout the assembly process. The process begins with the body commanding the detecting arm to “pick up” the first atom. By detecting the wave emitted by each kind of atom, the detecting arm will bind the closest required reactant to its active site by magnetic force. When the atom is in place, the active site will automatically close. In the closed active site, the atom is “processed” such as changing orientation so that it’s ready for assembly. Then the detecting arm will bend so that it meets the constructing arm at their active sites. Here, the detecting arm’s active site is uncharged while the constructing arm’s active site is positively charged, thus, takes over the atom. Such a process is repeated until the expected product is formed. The detecting arm can be elongated if the product has a length of hundreds of atoms. Then the constructing arm is uncharged and the product is released. When the reaction process reaches its equilibrium, the microbots, the remaining reactants and the products are separated by distillation. The remaining reactants and the microbots are drained back to their collectors for later use. If the product is going to be marketed as a material for 3D printers which use most materials produced, it will further go through a process of gelation in which liquid or solid product is transformed into a “memory elastic gel”, which will shrink to its normal form at low temperature.