AMPEL
Though this is a personal blog, I’ll spend a good amount of time writing about work I do for AMPEL so I’ll give some detail here. This will have a link to it’s own website when I get around to building it! (If you’re reading this, I haven’t yet).
AMPEL is the Additive Manufacturing Prototyping and Experimentation Lab. This interprets to “the place where I play with 3d printers”. But here’s what it really means:
Additive Manufacturing: as compared to traditional manufacturing. 3D printing is a type of additive manufacturing. Any method of building which organizes material into a structure rather than cutting away existing material can be considered additive in nature.
Prototyping: One of the strengths of 3D printing is rapid prototyping (D’aveni, 2018), so you can test the viability of a model. It also gives you the ability to rapidly deliver changes to clients who value speed. Also in the spirit of just learning this technology, it’s very important to print out sequential versions of a design in order to assess and correct recurring or potentially recurring errors.
An “overall print satisfaction rate” chart for each time I have (metaphorically) pressed ctrl+P then Enter on this machine was created. It currently sits at around 35% satisfaction rate which I am quite satisfied with as it is swiftly on the rise (from a depressing 2% after the first ten projects). Until this percentage rises above 90-95%, however, I would recommend making it a point of figuring out what we can do to prepare for and eliminate errors. Have a person as a part of post-processing staff who does that problem-solving to determine the course of action with regards to elevating the OPSR.
Experimentation: One of the purposes of AMPEL is to build a database of materials and how they can be used in 3D printing. Experimenting with new equipment and materials is important, common, and necessary. Also, since a lot of the projects involve electronics or moving parts or both, experiments are run often to test materials.
AMPEL Vision
From notebook 5/7/20:
We believe that the future is one in which additive manufacturing overtakes traditional manufacturing as the dominant form of manufacturing. (This shift happens as a significant part of human manufacturing moves to the glorious zero gravity frontier of space).
We believe that this shift will favor companies with an ingenuous design team, agile production, and an expertise of materials/equipment at their disposal. Building a database of materials, their physical properties, relation to heat, and relation to various elements is important.
We believe that having products which are a part of the Internet of Things is of vital importance.
We believe that an investment in the intangibles like education, social capital, “luck”, and mental strength, is also of vital importance to advancing goals and winning/creating market share.
Right now I’m pretty dedicated to electronic wearables and network components of 3D printed parts. I’d like to make custom avionics and other equipment of resisted motion or the wearable side of optical enhancements (like AR). The former is a personal mode of discovery; the latter an investment.
Comment added 8/14/20 - regarding economic viability of running some type of a “3D printer farm” which was more than 85% automated: the ideal domain to build this in would be in space. Once locked in orbit and with consistent supply/maintenance runs, an additive manufacturing “farm” in space is possibly the biggest technological necessity of the next extra-terrestrial expansion by humans. This can be capable of constructing huge, monolithic structures with complex internal systems all in one go, plus with zero earthly constraints like gravity. Also self-generation: you just need a starter printer and a supply line. That one will build other printers and boom you have an exponential technology capable of shifting production on a dime. There are a few different strategies to building the “population from one printer” vision which will be discussed in detail later.
To prepare for this we must take a mindset that we will assuredly encounter unforeseen problems on the first zero-gravity test (and many tests after) but each failure will produce a mountain of data for fix-it’s and improvements.
from journal 10/17/20 - Timing is less important to AMPEL because it is a data-based model which, by nature, fuels growth.
The industry doesn’t need to be huge but if we can predict that it will grow, then being the guys selling the fuel for growth is a good place to be in. Since we believe that data is the fuel of the 4th industrial revolution and that AM is a growing industry and that AM is an industry whose growth is dependent on data, then accumulating data is an awesome position to be in. Keep prototyping and documenting.
Comment added 11/24/20 - AMPEL is a registered business now. I’ve had a couple paid projects and a little bit of excitement is catching. The additive field keeps opening up before me and paths of development go unexplored.
There is so much potential here. There is so much unexplored or just-barely-being explored aspects of application. I’m also excited because the hardest part is just keeping up with the technology as it evolves, because it is evolving fast. Staying on the cutting edge is most critical.
Update 7.15.21
AMPEL has diverged from physical production and is now primarily focused on the development of the industrial platform. This is a platform which…
standardizes design files from various programs and, on occasion, applies AI and generative design to optimize from strength and application. (for example, it could ingest all types of design files from solidworks, Fusion 360, etc, into one universally editable format).
centralizes and analyzes consumer data to provide members with critical information to redirect their resources. (for example, letting manufacturers know when demand increases or decreases and shifting production accordingly)
connects designers with manufacturers with distributors to quickly fulfill consumer needs. The use of automated additive manufacturing processes ensures production agility unattainable by traditional manufacturing methods.
Documentation of the process can be found here.
