Morris Dovey wrote:

Prometheus wrote:

snip

I guess anyone purchasing synthetic diamond is somehow
"blacklisted" and no longer allowed to purchase the natural
product, which is still better for some things.

I don't know about the "blacklisted" part; but the current
synthetics differ only in that they're available without the
natural impurities/flaws.

I'm eagerly looking foreward to low-cost router bits and saw
blades for wood with diamond cutting edges and I don't really
care if they /look/ beautiful or not.

Just imagine a plane or chisel with a razor sharp diamond edge!

It's going to be a throwaway though. Once you knock a chip out of it, whcih
isn't difficult--diamond is hard but it's also brittle--what do you sharpen
it with?



--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

J. Clarke wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:


Prometheus wrote:

snip

I guess anyone purchasing synthetic diamond is somehow
"blacklisted" and no longer allowed to purchase the
natural product, which is still better for some things.

I don't know about the "blacklisted" part; but the current
synthetics differ only in that they're available without the
natural impurities/flaws.

I'm eagerly looking foreward to low-cost router bits and saw
blades for wood with diamond cutting edges and I don't
really care if they /look/ beautiful or not.

Just imagine a plane or chisel with a razor sharp diamond
edge!

It's going to be a throwaway though. Once you knock a chip
out of it, whcih isn't difficult--diamond is hard but it's
also brittle--what do you sharpen it with?

A diamond file? [-8

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 00:15:07 -0600, Morris Dovey
wrote:

Prometheus wrote:

snip

I guess anyone purchasing synthetic diamond is somehow
"blacklisted" and no longer allowed to purchase the natural
product, which is still better for some things.

I don't know about the "blacklisted" part; but the current
synthetics differ only in that they're available without the
natural impurities/flaws.

I'm eagerly looking foreward to low-cost router bits and saw
blades for wood with diamond cutting edges and I don't really
care if they /look/ beautiful or not.

Just imagine a plane or chisel with a razor sharp diamond edge!

Now that would be a thing of beauty...

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 23:32:15 -0700, Mark & Juanita
wrote:

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 00:15:07 -0600, Morris Dovey wrote:

Prometheus wrote:

snip

I guess anyone purchasing synthetic diamond is somehow
"blacklisted" and no longer allowed to purchase the natural
product, which is still better for some things.

I don't know about the "blacklisted" part; but the current
synthetics differ only in that they're available without the
natural impurities/flaws.

I'm eagerly looking foreward to low-cost router bits and saw
blades for wood with diamond cutting edges and I don't really
care if they /look/ beautiful or not.


I'm not sure that diamond, synthetic or natural, is the right material
for that application. Although hard, diamond is also prone to fracture when
subjected to impulse-like blows by fracturing along the crystal bond-lines.
I imagine a router bit or sawblade with diamond would basically grind or
pulverize the diamond as opposed to cutting the material you want to cut.

It's a beautiful idea anyways. And it might work with a hand chisel
that isn't hammered on. As far as router blades and saw blades go,
I'd suspect you're right in some ways, wrong in others. A diamond
point may be pulverized, but I have some serious doubts that it would
be ground down by wood. And as far as I know, tile cutting uses
diamond blades, though these are more of a thin grinder than a saw
blade as used in woodworking.



Just imagine a plane or chisel with a razor sharp diamond edge!

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:04:04 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:


I also don't think you grasp what I mean by 'cheap'. The active
elements in these devices are going to cost on the order of what a
transistor costs in a modern microprocessor -- for exactly the same
reasons. Each tool will contain a lot of them, but the the resulting
cost will still be very low.

Huh. So how will having 40 million tiny machines on a lump of silicon a
half inch square do anything useful in the way of cutting wood?

I know "sensors and actuators". And we're back to "what are you going to
actuate with the minuscule amount of force that such a small device can
produce that is going to be useful in woodworking?

Really, before you make these wild claims you should try to at least _think_
about how what you claim will be accomplished will actually be
accomplished.

To cut wood you need something big enough to make the cut you need, able to
exert enough force to shear the wood fibers, and able to actually shove a
big lump of wood around when it is being operated on by the cutter. You're
not going to do that with any tiny little machine that can be made on a P4
sized wafer. You might be able to put the control system on something that
small, but it's still going to need actuators that can provide the
necessary forces and you haven't demonstrated that your MEMs based control
system would be superior in any way to a purely electronic control system.
So how are you going to make these actuators?

All the bits about MEM are out of my league, but what about forgetting
the sensor and actuator crap, and considering cheap plastic tools
machined from materials reenforced by carbon nanotubes? I don't know
the specifics of the technology, but what I've run across with this
seems to indicate that it would be really strong and stable. Then
you'd have a more or less conventional tool that wasn't prone to rust
or bending, but was as durable or more durable than steel or iron.
Granted, there would be some weight issues, but I imagine it would be
fairly easy to make a nice heavy stand for a machine that was
underweight so long as the materials were strong enough to handle the
job. Sure would beat some of the aluminum and conventional plastics
used in cheap tools. (BTW, I still say that if self-correcting tools
ever hit the market, it'll be servo motors and cameras, not mini
robots with swarm behaviors)

You've got a lot of good points here, and I'm not going to argue them-
like I said, out of my league. Just thought I'd toss in an
alternative "rosy future" for the tool industry!


Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:06:47 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Prometheus wrote:


The basic materials
(carbon, etc.) are cheap and the costs of producing them are in a
nosedive. The cost of putting a layer of near-diamond on something is
already so low the stuff is used as a wear coating on hard disk
platters.

"Near diamond"? To what substance, specifically are you referring?

a lot of watch faces now are artifical sapphires.

If you look up the chemical composition of sapphire you'll find that it's
simply aluminum oxide. Nothing new there at all--synthetic sapphire was
used in watch crystals in the '80s.

It is not in any sense "near diamond". If it was you'd be able to sharpen
carbide tools with aluminum oxide abrasives.

They have synthetic dimond sharpening wheels on the market for
industrial applications.

Yes, they do. They have synthetic diamond available for many purposes. So
what? I never denied that synthetic diamond was available. But it's not
as far as I know used in industrial coatings. Grinding wheels are another
story. And that does not alter the fact that synthetic sapphire is not
"near diamond" in any sense.

Looking back at the original statement, I guess it doesn't mean much
in the context. I was just pointing out that there were synthetic
diamonds, just as there were artificial sapphires. Whether or not
they're good as a coating is a whole different matter- I'd imagine a
coating is only as good as the adhesive that holds it together.

According to my cousin (the owner of a
carbide sharpening service), they're not very commonly used because of
pressure from the natural diamond suppliers- I guess anyone
purchasing synthetic diamond is somehow "blacklisted" and no longer
allowed to purchase the natural product, which is still better for
some things. Please bear in mind that this is all second-hand from a
conversation several months ago, so there are bound to be a couple
inaccuracies, but the basic idea is still correct.

Just to clarify, the blacklisting referred to relates to the jewelry
industry, not the industrial sharpening industry. It was tossed in
with the above to pre-emptively answer the inevitable "then why can't
I buy a clear white diamond ring for $100?" question.

remainder containing no new material snipped

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

On 03 Dec 2004 09:12:48 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
wrote:

Prometheus writes:

They have synthetic dimond sharpening wheels on the market for
industrial applications. According to my cousin (the owner of a
carbide sharpening service), they're not very commonly used because of
pressure from the natural diamond suppliers- I guess anyone
purchasing synthetic diamond is somehow "blacklisted" and no longer
allowed to purchase the natural product, which is still better for
some things. Please bear in mind that this is all second-hand from a
conversation several months ago, so there are bound to be a couple
inaccuracies, but the basic idea is still correct.

I think your cousin got his paranoia button pushed reading some of the
thrillers that feature the diamond industry (11 Harrowhouse for one). I can't
imagine how the natural diamond suppliers would find out about someone buying
synthetic diamonds without assistance. The original buyers are not necessarily
the ones using the stuff in tools, so the list would grow almost exponentially.
Are they going to black list every small maker who uses a bit of the material?
The blacklist can do no harm to the small maker who uses only synthetics,
anyway.

Those thrillers any good? I don't believe I've run across them.

From all the stories, natural diamonds are damned near a drug on the market,
with supplies far in excess of desires (outside of industry, there is no NEED
for diamonds). If blacklisting is a marketing technique they employ, sooner or
later someone is going to grow a substitute that is a shade better than real
diamonds for some industrial purposes, and the current big boys will be on the
outside looking in. Which would be nice, as over the years, the reputation they
developed in S. Africa was not one a good business would want.

It would be superb- then maybe people would realize that a diamond is
just a damn rock, good for grinding and real pretty for the ladies-
but a rock nonetheless. Hardly worth people getting all hyped up
over.

Too, it's easy enough, if blacklisting is true, to use a substitute to buy the
natural diamonds.

Sounded like he was referring to supply houses and jewelers, not
industrial shops. I should have been more clear on this, as I
mentioned in the last post I responded to. There's also a chance that
he's a little paranoid as well, though I'm not going to make that
claim.

But a bit of googling turns up the fact that suppliers of synthetic industrial
diamonds also sell DeBeers industrial diamonds.

I think your sig below explains why I didn't bother with that!

Charlie Self
"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy."
Edgar Bergen, (Charlie McCarthy)

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

Prometheus asks:

I think your cousin got his paranoia button pushed reading some of the
thrillers that feature the diamond industry (11 Harrowhouse for one).
snip

Those thrillers any good? I don't believe I've run across them.

Yeah, I used to like them. The author's name is Gerald Browne, IIRC. The
technology may seem a wee bit ludicrous these days as all of them I read were
written in the '80s and '70s. I do love stuff from that era as it attempts to
describe the then current state-of-the-art computers, which in almost no case
did the writer understand at all.

It would be superb- then maybe people would realize that a diamond is
just a damn rock, good for grinding and real pretty for the ladies-
but a rock nonetheless. Hardly worth people getting all hyped up
over.

Fortunately given what a freelance writer makes in too many years, my wife
feels the same way. She prefer colored gemstones (but, man, have you priced
emeralds these days!).

Charlie Self
"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy."
Edgar Bergen, (Charlie McCarthy)

Snip .....


Hell, I found a blacksnake curled up in an old box of tools a few weeks
ago.
That sumbitch had chewed its way in, and was evidently curling up for
winter
when I dumped the box on its side so I could get some old chisels out.

Charlie Self

Hi Charlie,

I rather doubt your black snake chewed it's way in ... though what a good
idea for a horror movie! Actually, you had field mice chew their way in, and
the black snake followed the smell of mouse farts, surrounded them and had a
nice mouse snack.

I saw a similar situation helping my brother move some lumber he was
air-drying (he built his house by himself, cut the cherry for the floors and
trim, air drying it and then did all the milling himself) ... and when we
lifted a layer, there was a black snake in a nice coil, surrounding the
remains of a mouse nest. The snake had several mouse-shaped lumps ... so we
were able to figure out how that evening ended.

Regards,

Rick

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:04:04 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

wrote:
much general snippage

Uh, do you understand what is meant by 'proof of principle'? Hint: It
is not a prototype.

If the principle is that the device can be used to replace a table saw then
the "proof of principle" is a device that replaces a table saw.

No that's a prototype.

I don't care about "proof of principle" that some kind of device
can be made

That's become painfully obvious. In fact it leads me to wonder why
you're so intent in participating in this discussion at all.

Your gut obviously tells you that the tool I am describing will never
exist. And that's fine. Your gut may even be right. However the logic
and facts you are attempting to use to support your gut feeling are
anywhere from fatuous to flat wrong.

What's more, your arguments are rapidly degenerating into a series of
flat statements with no support whatsoever. Which is increasingly less
convincing.

--you
claim that that device can do something, but you don't have any backup for
that claim at all, just brainless advocacy.

Wrong on both counts. I am claiming that _in another few decades_ the
woodworking tool I am describing could easily exist. Clearly a device
that I think will exist in a number of years can't be said to do
anything at all today.

As for backup for that claim I have cited a number of examples
demonstrating that the technology is coming into existence. By
contrast your 'evidence' so far has consisted of a single citation of
a paper from which you drew a correct, but utterly irrelevant
conclusion. (Of course microturbines get their advantages from being
small. That's the whole point.) It also appears you didn't bother to
read the entire paper -- or at least you missed a couple of tables and
discussion that answered one of your other questions.

I suspect that if the
engineers and scientists who are working on this are reading this thread
they are cringing and what you are claiming because they know that they
can't deliver it and it won't be remembered that it was _you_ making the
claims and not _them_ later.


If any of those scientists and engineers are participating I'd be very
interesting in hearing their opinions.

From my discussions with scientists and engineers involved in MEMS,
active structures and such I doubt seriously any of them are cringing

(And on the the side issue of flyng cars
Actually, the two big obstacles have always been cost and runways.

I am not aware of any case where runways or lack thereof had a
detrimental effect on flying cars. Are you? On the face of it, it's
difficult to see how they could. The essence of flying cars is that
the vehicle is both an airplane and a car. It was not, as generally
conceived, a personal helicopter. In other words it flew as close as
it could reasonably get to its destination and drove the rest of the
way.

Cost is a more difficult issue simply because it is more speculative.
However examination of the structures and components of various flying
cars shows that a lot of them could have been produced at prices which
would have given them a significant market. (Not as big as
automobiles, obviously.)

I'll disagree on both counts. The cost of some of the designs in
volume production would have been less than an luxury automobile.

You can buy new airplanes now for less than the price of some luxury
automobiles. Most people can't afford to drive a Ferrari though.

And many people can't afford to fly a private plane. However thousands
of people can afford it and do fly them. It's a non-argument unless
you're trying to claim that the flying car would have to replace the
automobile to be a success. That's a fairly nonsensical standard.

And
the runway issue was addressed by a variety of the designs in
different ways.

Addressed by what designs other than helicopters that actually flew well
enough for anybody but an experienced test pilot to survive the experience?

Again, the essence of a flying car is that it acts as both an airplane
and an automobile. It's hard to see how the runway issue would have
been significant. Especially given both conditions and attitudes in
the heyday of the flying car craze in the decade after World War II.
Towns and cities everywhere were building airports. So were private
individuals.

Helos
address runways but they still need a good deal of space and make a huge
amount of noise. While in principle I could keep a helo in my back yard,
in practice the neighbors would lynch me in a week. The new designs use
ducted fans for vertical takeoff but they don't promise to be any quieter

Well no. A major component of the noise from a helicopter is the
interference in the air flow between the main and tail rotors. If
you've ever heard a NOTAR chopper you'll see they are significantly
quieter.

Have you ever had one crank up in your back yard at 2 AM? "significantly
quieter" and "quiet" are not the same.

For a discussion of noise levels and reduction in
helicopters, see:

http://www.aviationtoday.com/cgi/rw/...=08rwcover.htm

Ducted fans and similar designs are even queter and can be made
quieter yet with active noise reduction technology.

Yeah, yeah, rah rah rah. Now, have you ever stood next to anything with a
high powered ducted fan as it spun up to full power?

Have you? As it happens I have.
But let's quantify this discussion. Give me an acceptable noise figure
(and profile) in EdB -- as well as a source for it -- and we'll have
something to discuss.

Try it sometime and then tell me how quiet it is.

I used to work across the street from the plant where Boeing (ex
MacDac ex Hughes) builds NOTAR helicopters, as well as Apaches.
There's also a helicopter flying school there. So I've been exposed to
a lot of helicopter noise. Even the difference between a conventional
helicopter and a NOTAR is considerable.



The ones that are furthest along promise both reasonable fuel
efficiency and a cost less than a high-end sports car. And this is
only the first generation.

Uh huh. If you've been around aviation long enough you'll have seen all
kinds of "promises" that were never delivered. And nothing that uses lift
fans is ever going to match the fuel economy of a Honda Civic.

No but it can be quite thrifty on a gallons per mile basis.

(Back to the main argument)

Now, what device that has been made or even designed has these capabilities
that you claim will be made available by this technology?

That would be a good point -- if I was claiming this woodworking tool
exists. I do not and in fact I don't expect such a thing to exist for
several decades. I don't know why you have so much difficulty grasping
this, or why it makes you so angry. But you obviously do and it
obviously does.

Now if you want to know exactly how these tools will be designed,
you'll have to find someone with a clearer crystal ball than mine.

In other words you don't have a clue whether your precious little MEMS can
actually do what you're claiming or how they might be used to do it if they
can. All you have is bad science fiction.

Wrong again. See previous discussion and citations. What I am saying
is that a lot of the design will depend on how the field develops. If
you think you can predict the exact shape of cutting edge devices even
five years out -- well, you're going to be seriously wrong more often
than not.

Given what I have seen already, and the way the industry works,

What "industry"?

Semiconductors.

The MEMs industry hasn't been around long enough for you
say anything about how it works.

MEMS has been around as an industry for more than a decade. That's
long enough to see the patterns developing and to compare them to
other high technology industries.

If you mean the electronics industry,
don't assume that MEMS is like electronics.

In what ways is MEMS different from electronics? Don't just wave your
hands, give specifics. Justify your answer with appropriate citations.

I can
tell you that something with those capabilities and using these kinds
of principles could be available in a few decades.

Or not, as the case may be.

There we agree.

Personally I'd say that "not" is the way to
bet. At least not based on the technology you are hyping. Some other
technology might come along that allows it of course.

Personally I'd say that it will happen, but that's what makes horse
races.

Trying to predict
exactly what it will look like or how the details of how it will work
will lead to something like that 'RAND corp. design of a personal
computer' that's making the rounds of the web. We just don't know
enough yet.

Was that "RAND corp" which is think tank or was that Remington-Rand the
computer manufacturer?

RAND stands for "Research ANd Development". It is a
government-sponsored think tank which concentrates on high technology.
It was established after WWII and AFIK has no connection with
Remington-Rand. As for the 'personal computer' . . . well, do a little
research and find out. No reason to spoil the joke for you.

In any case, at least they knew how a computer
worked. You don't have a clue how the devices you are hyping would
actually work.

I not only have 'a clue', I've seen the principles I'm talking about
demonstrated in the lab, in production or in other contexts. You could
get an excellent basic education in them if you were willing to read
the research papers, company literature on existing projects and other
reports.

Modern computers are small and inexpensive because the components from which
they are made are very small and there are only a few of them.

Even done a parts count on a modern PC? Even with the current level of
integration, there are still a lot of parts.

Computers are small because it is to our advantage to make them small.
If we had reason to make them large we could make them large -- and
still inexpensive. Do you seriously believe this thing is going to be
size of a modern laptop?

Now how are
you going to cut wood with that few pieces that small?

The sensors and actuators are going to be small. Where do you get the
weird notion that this tool is going to be made entirely of silicon?

Hmm? Or are you claiming that all of a sudden massive lumps of semiconductor-grade silicon
are going to become dirt cheap because they're being used to make MEMs
instead of microprocessors?

Silicon is going to get a lot cheaper but what makes you think the
active elements are going to be composed of semiconductor grade
silicon?

For the record: Some of them may well be -- if we're still using
silicon. But a lot of MEMS technology can be easily built with much
cheaper grades of silicon since the electronic charcteristics don't
matter.

Can you quote a single researcher who has actually developed such a device
who is making such claims?

Again the confusion over the existence of the tool. I'm talking about
several years out.


You've done a lot of "rah-rah" stuff but you haven't
demonstrated how something that is only cheap if it is made small is going
rip a piece of 2" lapacho in less than a month.

You're confusing the sensors and actuators (which are small) with the
complete tool (which isn't) and the cutting element -- which will be
sized appropriately for the tool.

I'm not confusing anything.

Incorrect.

You're claiming that this technology is going to be cheap

True

and it's going to be made entirely out of MEMs.

Wrong. I'm claiming it's going to incorporate MEMs elements as key
components. It is no more going to be 'made entirely out of MEMS' than
a modern desktop computer is made entirely out of silicon.

If that's the case

It is not.

I don't know what you're reacting to in all this, but it clearly is
not what I am actually saying.


then the active components have to be very small or it's not going to
be cheap.

The active components, in the sense of things like actuators and
sensors, will be small. They will also be cheap, but not just because
they are small.

In MEMS, as in electronics, economies of scale are a major
consideration. The cost to produce something in quantity, no matter
what the size, falls very rapidly.

Now, how much power can a MEMs actuator that can be made with less than, say
$200 worth of silicon produce?

Wrong question. The right question is 'how much power can a bunch of
dirt cheap MEMs actuators control?' The answer is 'more than enough'.

And there is no indication that the cost of silicon per se is going to go
down.

Untrue, as it happens. The price of silicon is on a long-term downward
trend. In 1959 metallic silicon cost a little over $1 per pound. By
1998 or so it was down to around 60 cents a pound and headed lower.

I see.

I hope so.

So it's come down 40 percent in 40 years.

Which directly contradicts your claim. You're apparently making this
stuff up as you go along and that is not a good strategy.


(The highly refined silicon used in making semiconductors is currently
running about $30 a pound. However that's pretty much irrelevant to
this discussion because of device differences and what drives prices
in that market. A couple years ago that same silicon was selling for
about $30 a pound.)

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/20...ar-cells_x.htm

So it's $30 a pound and it used to be $30 a pound and you just shot down
your own argument.

Oops. My error. A couple of years ago that highly refined silicon was
selling for *$3* a pound, not $30.

The first reason the cost of semiconductor silicon today is irrelevant
is that what drives prices in the semiconductor silicon market is
refinery capacity versus worldwide demand. The 2000 recession
disrupted that market and the recovery disrupted it in the other
direction.

The second reason it's irrelevant is that you don't have to use
semiconductor silicon for most of these devices. The reason we do so
today is that the methods of processing semiconductor silicon are well
understood. It's more convenient for researchers and it's cheaper for
relatively small production runs. However both researchers and
manufacturers are rapidly developing competency with other matetrials,
incuding less pure grades of silicon.



http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/Ar...ages=A5&seq=19

This reference takes you to a paid subscription site. Did you actually
look at it?


With processed wafers the actual computations are quite complex
because there are an enormous number of factors, both positive and
negative, in play. However if you hold the size (area) of each device
constant and the feature size constant (which almost never happens)
the devices end up being a lot cheaper as the wafers get bigger.

Define "a lot".

For starters you get about a 2.25 increase in device count, plus other
economies of scale -- principally in processing consistency. To
balance that you have the somewhat higher cost of the handling and
processing equipment.

And tell us how that translates to something large enough
to cut wood being cheap.

You're still hung up on this thing being built entirely out of
silicon. Again, that's like assuming that an entire desktop computer
is built out of nothing but silicon.

We're talking about components like actuators and sensors here, not
complete tools. And of course you're going to fit a lot of them onto a
wafer. But like current MEMS devices they will be diced and packaged
before use. You don't have to put the whole tool on a single wafer.

So what good are little bitty things going to do in cutting wood?

These 'little bitty things' are the control system. They replace the
expensive, heavy, high-precision components that we use today by
substituting active control for the passive systems based on weight of
material and mechanical precision.

Let's take a kindergarten example: An actively controlled fence. The
fence itself will consist of a strip of thin aluminium backed by an
array of actuators and the whole assembly is mounted to the saw guides
by not-very-accurate mounts. The actuators deform the aluminium in
response to signals from the sensors, mediated by the processors.

The fence actuators can be a strip array, like the array of LEDs in my
$100 Brother printer. They won't be much more complicated and in all
probability they'll be a lot cheaper. In addition there will be
another network of sensors to check the the distance of the fence from
the cutting element and their parallelism.

Mechanically, the 'fence' will be a cheap, low-tolerance, device, more
cheaply constructed than any Harbor Freight special. It will be sturdy
enough to stand up to shop use, but not much more. The mechanical
parts will cost only a few dollars.

The magic is in the active elements. The sensor array will constantly
track the movement of the wood, the cutting line and various other
factors such as temperature at the cutting interface and the cutting
speed and well as distance, parallelism, etc. And of course the
fence's processor(s)

Let's say you want to rip a 6" board. You crank your 'fence' over to
6" indicated. The tolerances will be loose as a goose, but you don't
care. The device will tell you when you're close enough, parallel
enough, etc.

Now, turn on the saw and start pushing the wood through. As the
sensors detect the cutting position, the actuators in the fence will
deform the aluminium strip to steer the wood exactly where it needs to
go. It won't need to move it very far because the fence helped you
line things up with sufficent precision before you started. The cutter
will contact the wood at precisely the right point on the right angle
to produce the cut you need. Accuracy is likely to be measured in
hundredths of an inch because that's sufficent for woodworking.

Now please note this is NOT a description of the kind of tools I have
been talking about. It's another one of those proof of principle
devices you seem to have so much trouble grasping -- albeit a more
advanced one. It is simply an example to demonstrate how these
technologies could be applied.


Given the way semiconductor fabrication works -- and given the
differences between MEMS devices and things like microprocessors or
DRAMs -- the prices of these devices will be extremely low in volume
production. And of course it's unlikely that most of the sensors and
actuators will be designed specifically for woodworking tools. They'll
be adapted from devices used in higher production devices.

Not devices big enough to do what you are claiming.

Wrong again. You're hung up on the idea that the whole thing will be
active.

I also don't think you grasp what I mean by 'cheap'. The active
elements in these devices are going to cost on the order of what a
transistor costs in a modern microprocessor -- for exactly the same
reasons. Each tool will contain a lot of them, but the the resulting
cost will still be very low.

Huh. So how will having 40 million tiny machines on a lump of silicon a
half inch square do anything useful in the way of cutting wood?

They're not going to be limited to a 1/2" square bit of silicon. Take
those 40 million devices, spread them out over several square feet
supported by an appropriately design mechanism you get something very
useful for cutting wood.

I know "sensors and actuators". And we're back to "what are you going to
actuate with the minuscule amount of force that such a small device can
produce that is going to be useful in woodworking?

The essence of a modern control system of nearly any sort is using a
combination of intelligence, sensors and relatively low powered
actuators to control larger forces. We do it every day, although
generally on a larger scale today.

Really, before you make these wild claims you should try to at least _think_
about how what you claim will be accomplished will actually be
accomplished.

Someone is definitely not thinking there. You've made that painfully
obvious in this message.

--RC


You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 20:04:52 -0600, Prometheus
wrote:



All the bits about MEM are out of my league, but what about forgetting
the sensor and actuator crap, and considering cheap plastic tools
machined from materials reenforced by carbon nanotubes? I don't know
the specifics of the technology, but what I've run across with this
seems to indicate that it would be really strong and stable. Then
you'd have a more or less conventional tool that wasn't prone to rust
or bending, but was as durable or more durable than steel or iron.
Granted, there would be some weight issues, but I imagine it would be
fairly easy to make a nice heavy stand for a machine that was
underweight so long as the materials were strong enough to handle the
job. Sure would beat some of the aluminum and conventional plastics
used in cheap tools. (BTW, I still say that if self-correcting tools
ever hit the market, it'll be servo motors and cameras, not mini
robots with swarm behaviors)

It could well happen. One of the big advantages of things like carbon
nanotube composites is that you can tailor their characteristics to
the job. If you need them stiffer in one direction than another you
can do that, for example. You can also build stuff with other
remarkable properties.

Fundamnentally it's the old tradeoff between relative cost of
production and relative capabilities. The cost of composites and
nanotube structures is definitely going to drop and we're going to
find out how to tailor them to do a lot more things. If that's going
to be enough to make them advantageous for woodworking tools, I don't
know. But they easily could.

--RC

You've got a lot of good points here, and I'm not going to argue them-
like I said, out of my league. Just thought I'd toss in an
alternative "rosy future" for the tool industry!


Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 00:15:07 -0600, Morris Dovey
wrote:

Prometheus wrote:

snip

I guess anyone purchasing synthetic diamond is somehow
"blacklisted" and no longer allowed to purchase the natural
product, which is still better for some things.

Actually I think most of the industrial diamond on the market today is
synthetic. GE is a major manufacturer.

The real fight is over gem quality diamonds. In the last few years we
have learned how to produce gem diamonds and that has the diamond
merchants running scared.

I don't know about the "blacklisted" part; but the current
synthetics differ only in that they're available without the
natural impurities/flaws.

That's not as true in the case of diamond as it is with, say,
sapphire. For example most of the synthetic ones are yellow because of
included nitrogen. Personally I think canary yellow diamonds are a lot
prettier than the colorless ones, but not everyone agrees.

I'm eagerly looking foreward to low-cost router bits and saw
blades for wood with diamond cutting edges and I don't really
care if they /look/ beautiful or not.

Diamond film blades, yes. Low cost, well that's the sticking point.
Even DLC would run up the cost substantially with today's production
processes.

This is a real good example of the effects of deriving a technology
from the semiconductor industry. Diamond and DLC (Diamond Like
Composite) films are traditionally produced by Chemical Vapor
Deposition (CVD), which was developed by the semiconductor industry.
As a result both the equpment and standards are very high -- as is the
cost. It is taking time to 'dumb down' the tools and process to apply
it to larger markets that don't need semiconductor quality.

I definitely think we're going to see something like this in the next
five years. It will probably be DLC rather than diamond for added
toughness and it will probably be a butt-ugly coating, say dingy brown
or an unattractive black. The bits will have a premium price and the
early ones will probably have tool life issues because of chipping
rather than dulling, but we'll see them.

Just imagine a plane or chisel with a razor sharp diamond edge!

Razor? Think sharp, man! Think sharp! Seriously, so can I. So can
Norton, which is one of the major manufactrurers of diamond films. The
problem, short-term is getting the price down.

IIRC there have been several experimental knives produced with diamond
film on the blade which have sold for astronomical prices.

Oh yeah, sharpening these tools. The diamond film will only be applied
to one side of the blade and it will be sharpened from the other,
uncoated side, to expose more diamond/DLC film.

--RC

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:06:47 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

Prometheus wrote:

They have synthetic dimond sharpening wheels on the market for
industrial applications.

Yes, they do. They have synthetic diamond available for many purposes. So
what? I never denied that synthetic diamond was available. But it's not
as far as I know used in industrial coatings.

Incorrect, as it happens. Diamond films are being used, especially to
machine composites.

See the last item under Product Profiles in:

http://www.manufacturingcenter.com/t...299/299ctl.asp

and they have the potential for a lot more growth in cutting tools.
See:

http://statusreports-atp.nist.gov/re...94-01-0357.htm

BTW: The main problem is not diamond's brittleness, it is the
different coefficient of expansion between the diamond and the metal
substrate. See the NIST reference above.

--RC



You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 20:12:35 -0600, Prometheus
wrote:

Just to clarify, the blacklisting referred to relates to the jewelry
industry, not the industrial sharpening industry. It was tossed in
with the above to pre-emptively answer the inevitable "then why can't
I buy a clear white diamond ring for $100?" question.

The reason you can't get that $100 diamond ring is that we can't make
them yet. Gem quality synthetic diamonds of any color are just
emerging from the experimental stage and they are still expensive to
produce. (Although a lot cheaper than natural ones, especially in
larger sizes.)

Wait a few more years and watch the diamond cartel crumble.

--RC

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 01:31:11 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

wrote:
(Much snippage throughout)

On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 10:14:46 -0500, "J. Clarke"
wrote:

wrote:

On 01 Dec 2004 09:35:47 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
wrote:



Huh? How is it used in artillery shells?

Guidance systems.
See

http://www.smalltimes.com/document_d...ment_id=470 1

I don't recall if the information made it into the finished article,
but the next step is a guidance system that costs a few hundred
dollars per unit and fits in a NATO standard fuze well. That guidance
system will include the active elements (pop-out fins), an intertial
sensing system, control electronics, actuators for the active elements
and possibly a GPS system as well.

I can see where MEMS might be useful for the gyros, but how is it used in
the fin actuators?

I don't know that it will be. But that doesn't effect my original
statement that MEMS devices are tough enough to be used in artillery
stills. (Not all of them, but not everything has to take the 5000 Gs
that's the reference acelleration for an artillery projectile in the
tube.

Unless it is.

It might be, but the odds are against it. The expense lies in
fabricating these things. Our experience with these kinds of materials
is that the prices drop sharply as we learn how to make them and the
volumes increase. We're still at the beginning of this particular
roller coaster ride, but we're already seeing this happen.

The price per square inch doesn't drop appreciably, the price per part drops
as more can be fitted into a square inch.

Well, no. There are economies of scale as well as a learning curve to
consider. (Not to mention amortization of equipment.) And it is untrue
that more parts can necessarily be fitted into each square inch.
You're neglecting the growth in die size in things like
microprocessors as they become more complex and more powerful. The
cost decreases hold true even though the feature size has been
dropping like a rock. If you were to hold the feature size, and hence
the die size constant, you'd get at least a factor of 10 improvement
in price per square inch over the first generation parts.

You need a certain amount of surface area to cut wood.
Absolutely true, as far as it goes.

That means that any macroscopic woodworking tool
based on this technology is going to be expensive.

Nope. You're assuming the whole tool is made of active elements. Of
course it won't be any more than a desktop PC is made entirely of
microprocessors.

In fact the tool I'm envisioning is cheap because it is built light,
low precision parts. The accuracy comes from the sensors, processors
and actuators built into it.

Fabricating these devices and materials is closer to making simple
semiconductors than anything else. In fact most of the technology for
fabricating this stuff is adapted from semiconductor manufacturing.
The same kinds of economies of learning and scale apply.

And low cost then relies on high density.

Nope.
This is a common misconception about semiconductors and it is even
less true in MEMS systems. The low cost relies on the peculiar
economics of semiconductor-like manufacturing processes. Essentially
no matter how complex the device, the cost tends toward the cost of
the raw materials. This is independent of density.

This statement is not, please note, just a matter of looking at price
trends. The people working on these advanced materials and MEMS
devices generally have a very clear idea of what they need to do to
bring the prices down. It's simply a matter of learning and doing it.



"Near diamond"? To what substance, specifically are you referring?

The technical name for the most common form of the stuff is "Diamond
Like Coating". This refers to materials, usually films, which are
composed of diamond without the long range crystaline structure. This
is sometimes called 'amorphous diamond'. Some of the coatings have a
certain percentage of other forms of carbon mixed in, hence the term
'near diamond'. There are a lot of variations on this general theme
and they're being used for a number of things. See

http://www.shahlimar.com/diamond/ for an overview.

For an explanation of the composition, see:
http://www.diamonex.com/abouttech.htm

or in pretty plain English:
http://www.esi-topics.com/fbp/2003/o...Robertson.html

DLC is even being used to coat AIT data storage tape:
http://www.qualstar.com/146103.htm

Notice one DLC maker is even branching out into areas like performance
automobile parts:

http://www.morgancrucible.com/cgi-bi....8257858682609


All I see is arm-waving. How would this fence work? How would it be
adjusted?

Think adaptive optics compared to a conventional telescope mirror. A
conventional mirror works because it is both rigid and precisely
shaped. An adaptive mirror works in almost exactly the opposite
manner. It is flexible and its shape is determined by the network of
actuators behind it. The adaptive mirror is constantly deformed to
produce the desired results as determined by the sensor system.

Well that's fine for optics, but we aren't talking about optics.
The principle is the same however. Higher precision by deforming the
active element under precise control rather than trying to make the
active element rigid.

Now tell
us what, specifically, your tool would do better than existing tools and
how, specifically, it would accomplish it.

At least equivalent accuracy, lower price, increased safety. That will
do for a start.

Adaptive optics is a useful technology because for many purposes a
correction has to be made for variations in air density. It is not a
cheaper way to make telescopes

Huh?
This is incorrect. It is a _much_ cheaper way to make telescopes of
equivalent performance. In fact I'm not sure we could build telescopes
with conventional methods that could match the performance of the big
adaptive instruments.

and in the absence of air it is not a better
way either.

As I noted, it is not cheaper because of the economics of large
astronomical telescopes. The use of adaptive optics in these
instruments has focused on added capabilities rather than reducing the
price of an instrument of the same capability as existing instruments.

Now imagine a fence/table system that works the same way. The sensors
feed back information on the straightness of the cut and many other
things and the fence and table actuators use that information to guide
the wood. (I'm assuming some sort of passive control over feed speed
here. The user pushes the wood through, but the system will either
indicate when it is being fed too quickly or restrict the feed speed.
) Not only does this give you inherently superior control over the
cut, but since it doesn't rely on mass and precision of machining or
casting, it has the potential to be significantly cheaper.

Fine, you have sensors that feed back the information. Now what makes the
adjustment with sufficient force to overcome the forces exerted by the hand
of the operator pushing the piece through?

The tool does. Probably the 'fence' in combination with the cutting
element and some kind of speed control in the table itself. (Think a
variable friction surface leading up to the cutting element.) In the
first instance this provides feedback to the operator. Feed too fast
and this element slows you down by increasing the friction on the
table. Try to overpower that and the machine stops.

Can you make that actuator entirely from your hotshot technology?

The actuator is the element in the control system that causes the
thing to move. It isn't necessarily the whole moving part. So, yes,
you make the actuators entirely this way.

How much will that much silicon cost?
Not much.

How durable will it be? A little piece of silicon properly
supported can be pretty durable, a big piece is quite fragile.

Not if it's properly supported.
The answer is the components be as durable as they need to be.

Again, you seem to be envisioning this thing as being built entirely
out of unprotected silicon. That's silly.

Now, you claim that it "doesn't rely on mass and precision of machining".
Instead it relies the technology you are advocating being able to provide
high forces

What high forces? How high do you think these forces have to be?

for practically no cost.

For the cost equivalent to perhaps half the cost of a good-quality
table saw. Or, to put it another way, about the cost of a Harbor
Freight cheapie.

It does not appear to be the nature
of this technology that it will be able to do that.

Obviously I disagree.



I see. So Celestron doesn't enough benefit in this for small telescopes to
put it in their mass-production consumer telecopes?

Today no. Give it a few years and things might be different.

Or maybe it's because
there's no way to reduce the cost significantly?

Once again, the time confusion.

Much more than hype.

Nope, hype.

And you base this opinion on what, precisely?


There are a lot of proof of principle devices
working in labs, more stuff in advanced development and a few devices
in consumer products, in some cases for more than a decade. The
acellerometer that is the heart of an air bag sensor is a MEMS device.

None of which are tools that are anything like what is needed for
woodworking.

Gee what a surprise. Something that isn't predicted for a few decades
doesn't exist today.

Yes, some woodworking tools might have some MEMs components
someday for some purpose. But using MEMS instead of electromagnetic or
hydraulic actuators to move fences and the like is a huge stretch.

There's a huge difference between 'precision' and 'adjustment'. I
suspect the initial adjustments will be made by hand, or if not by a
cheap screw actuator -- just threaded rod driven by a cheap motor, for
example. That's the 'adjustment'. The precision comes from the
sensor/processor/actuator network handling the fine control once
you're in the neighborhood. That's the precision.


Google MEMS and you'll find a lot of hype. But you'll also find a lot
of very real devices.

None of which do anything like what you are claiming the technology can do.

Time confusion.



Micro devices are tough, by their very nature.

They are? How do you know this?

Well, we can start with the basic laws of physics and what happens
when you scale structures. Or we can go by why I've been told
repeatedly by the researchers and companies working in the field. Or
we can go by their demonstrated performance.

Define "tough". I'm pretty sure that I can, using tools commonly available
in a woodworking shop, break any MEMS device you want to provide me.

I'm pretty sure using nothing more than a big hammer I can break any
tool in a woodworking shop -- unless you consider an anvil a
woodworking tool.


MIT has built micro
turbines for jet engines out of silicon that spin faster and can
handle much higher temperatures that conventional full-size engines.

Oh? What temperature do they "handle"?

You should have read further into the ASME paper you cite. On p 16
there is a chart (table 2) comparing material properties. Conventional
alloys for jet turbines top out at about 1000 C. (This is the
temperature of the material, not the inlet temperature of the turbine,
which can be much higher.) Silicon carbide, which is a long way from
the optimum material, can run at 1500 C by the same measure.

A little further along Fig. 23 compares the performance of alloys and
MEMS-type materials at various temperatures.

Ultimately the material properties determine the device
characteristics (or at least set the outside boundaries). Higher
temperature materials allow higher temperature devices and hence more
thermodynamic efficiency.

Of course even silicon carbide isn't the ultimate for microturbines.
There are a number of materials with better properties we are still
learning how to fabricate using MEMS techologies. The paper mentions
sapphire as an example.

There are other considerations as well, of course. For instance most
turbines have active cooling of some kind. Active cooling for
microturbines is aided by the greater heat transfer that results from
the higher surface to mass ratio. Bearings are a notorious failure
point in gas turbines. Microturbines can use air bearings, which can
be made much more reliable. The list goes on.

Even the early, very (and deliberately) crude microturbine described
in the paper matches the performance of WWII jet engines.

I see. So they provide the same 1980 pounds of thrust as the Junkers Jumo
004?

Strawman. And a rather absurd one at that.

The point is that in the first generation, using wildly unoptimized
design, we get equivalent results in basic design paramters.

I don't think so. They may match the _efficiency_ or the thrust to
weight ratio, but that does not mean that they could be substituted unless
they can match the thrust for a reasonable cost.

Who said anything about subsituting them? Powering aircraft with
microturbines, perhaps. But it's not going to be a subsitution for a
WWII era engine.

And that does not seem likely to happen based on anything that you have described except some pie
in the sky hype about how the price will come down because electronics
prices came down.

There are a lot of people in the field who disagree with you. However
again you're getting sidetracked by your inability to follow the
argument. I offered the microturbines as examples of the toughness,
strength and efficency of MEMS based technologies.

You still don't seem to have an answer for that.

The result is incredible power-to-weight ratios.

According to the guy that developed them
http://www.asme.org/igti/resources/articles/scholar_gt-2003-38866.pdf
the "incredible power to weight ratio" is simply the result of the small
size
and the square-cube law. Scale one to the size of an aircraft engine and
you lose that advantage.

Well Duh! The whole point is that these turbines are small. That's
what gives them their advantages. You use them in groups to get more
power, not make them bigger.

So how many do you need to power a 747?

This is another irrelevancy, but. . .

Depends on how much power each one produces. As a rough estimate
thousands of them.

And what would the engine look like?
Like nothing you've ever seen.

They'd probably be integrated into the structure of the aircraft
rather than hung on the wings in nacelles. It's unlikely the aircraft
would look like a 747, although you could design a craft to match the
performance of a 747.

Understand powering aircraft of any size isn't going to be the initial
application. (Well, okay, maybe some tiny RPVs). Battery replacement
is a much more likely application.


(Want to build a
flying skateboard a la 'Back To The Future 2'? The researchers figured
it would take an array of about 500 of these micro-jet engines, each
less than an inch square.)

Which researchers are those? Where do they say this?

The statement appeared in an article in "Science" several years ago
about MIT's micro turbine program. The researcher who made it was
being facetious, obviously. But the thrust would be there and he was
pointing out that microturbines for larger aero vehicles would be used
in large numbers.

How large would these numbers be, how many square inches of silicon would be
required to make the devices, and how much would that silicon, just the raw
silicon in the appropriate grade cost? And what would happen if one of
these hypothetical engines ate a seagull?

The guy was being facetious, for God's sake! See if you can get your
mind off these irrelevancies and stick to the main issues.

I mentioned it to demonstrate the compactness and power output of
microturbines, not because anyone's going to build one.

--RC


--RC

Charlie Self
"Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than
Christianity has made them good." H. L. Mencken

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

On 04 Dec 2004 09:34:53 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
wrote:

Prometheus asks:

I think your cousin got his paranoia button pushed reading some of the
thrillers that feature the diamond industry (11 Harrowhouse for one).
snip

Those thrillers any good? I don't believe I've run across them.

Yeah, I used to like them. The author's name is Gerald Browne, IIRC. The
technology may seem a wee bit ludicrous these days as all of them I read were
written in the '80s and '70s. I do love stuff from that era as it attempts to
describe the then current state-of-the-art computers, which in almost no case
did the writer understand at all.

It would be superb- then maybe people would realize that a diamond is
just a damn rock, good for grinding and real pretty for the ladies-
but a rock nonetheless. Hardly worth people getting all hyped up
over.

Fortunately given what a freelance writer makes in too many years, my wife
feels the same way. She prefer colored gemstones (but, man, have you priced
emeralds these days!).

Take a look at Morion's synthetic emeralds made in the former Soviet
Union.
http://www.morioncompany.com/CutStones.htm

How does $22 a carat for cut emeralds in 5 carat sizes grab you?

And yes, those are real emeralds. Just man-made.

--RC

Charlie Self
"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy."
Edgar Bergen, (Charlie McCarthy)

You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

On Sun, 05 Dec 2004 14:03:17 GMT, calmly
ranted:

Take a look at Morion's synthetic emeralds made in the former Soviet
Union.
http://www.morioncompany.com/CutStones.htm

How does $22 a carat for cut emeralds in 5 carat sizes grab you?

And yes, those are real emeralds. Just man-made.

I know it's in part due to the lousy photography, but those emeralds
look awfully pale, as do the hydrothermal rubies. The pulled rubies
are a lot deeper, more realistic. Have you seen these in person?
If so, how do they compare to the real items?


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On Sun, 05 Dec 2004 08:14:48 -0800, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Sun, 05 Dec 2004 14:03:17 GMT, calmly
ranted:

Take a look at Morion's synthetic emeralds made in the former Soviet
Union.
http://www.morioncompany.com/CutStones.htm

How does $22 a carat for cut emeralds in 5 carat sizes grab you?

And yes, those are real emeralds. Just man-made.

I know it's in part due to the lousy photography, but those emeralds
look awfully pale, as do the hydrothermal rubies. The pulled rubies
are a lot deeper, more realistic. Have you seen these in person?

Not the Morion ones, no. I think I'd want to see them before I
invested in more than one small stone.

If so, how do they compare to the real items


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You can tell a really good idea by the enemies it makes

Another issue is that increases in technology have narrowed the gap
between "high quality tools" and "low quality tools". Now days, any
old HomeDepo or Sears special will get the job done. I personally own
some higher priced, quality tools, and also opted for the cheaper tools
for other needs.
mac davis wrote:
On 25 Nov 2004 13:31:38 GMT, (ToolMiser) wrote:

There is a reason for so many bad tools. Supply and demand. People
want to
pay a very low price, so the supplier meets that price by cutting
quality.
There are still a lot of good quality tools around, but I don't
think the
demand is there as much. Also we are a throw away society, so
people would
rather buy something cheep, use it up then buy another. We used to
buy good
quality, and "if" it broke, we would repair it.

I think you've pin pointed it...
Also, put that together with the "Instant Gratification" generation,
and you have the demand for inexpensive and cheap tools. (I do think
there is a difference)