Why Are There So Many Bad Tools?

Charlie Self writes:

> I wanted to fill out the RAM (IIRC, to I gig), and was quoted
>a price of $1100.

Wouldja believe ONE MEG!

Jeez. Early morning fingers.

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

Charlie,

I know you have been around long enough for this. I think tools--at least
the better ones--have been getting better and are more affordable. The
price you pay for a shop of better tools today is less, in terms of what
your paycheck will buy, than it was 30 years ago. The 12v Dewalt drill I
bought in June of 1993 cost $159 which is about what I would pay for a
BETTER grandson of that 12 volt drill today over 11 years later. My
craftsman wood lathe cost about $300 in 1973 and the same one (probably off
the same tooling but better components) was selling at Home Depot for $300
before it went on closeout this year for $199!!! My large bench drill press
cost $135.15 (Taiwanese, of course) in December of 1978. The same thing
would cost about the same today (and also Taiwanese or Chinese, of course).
I have a Milwaukee 3 v screwdriver that cost about $100 in the latter 80's
and is selling for about the same price today--in fact, I think I might be
able to get the 2 speed model for about that price or maybe a hair more
today.

Tools may not be dropping like the computers, but they are sure a good value
today. Twenty or 30 years ago I would not have given the Porter Cables or
Milwaukees a second look, because they were out of my price range. That is
not true today and not even true for people my kid's age.


"Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Charlie Self writes:
>
> > I wanted to fill out the RAM (IIRC, to I gig), and was quoted
> >a price of $1100.
>
> Wouldja believe ONE MEG!
>
> Jeez. Early morning fingers.
>
> Charlie Self
> "Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than
Christianity
> has made them good." H. L. Mencken

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, [email protected] (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)

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 people buy cheaper, lower quality tools when they need them, more
expensive, longer-lasting tools when they want them.

With a job in progress, completion is the major concern. When the job's
still a plan, we plan our purchases.

"mac davis" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On 25 Nov 2004 13:31:38 GMT, [email protected] (ToolMiser) wrote:

> >There are still a lot of good quality tools around, but I don't think the
> >demand is there as much.

> 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)
>

On 25 Nov 2004 13:31:38 GMT, [email protected] (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)

[email protected] (ToolMiser) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> 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've been watching this thread with bemused interest. In my own
industry (film & TV production) we are witnessing an evolution of
technology (so-called "high definition") that is bringing about an
overall lessening of quality. But the marketing departments, under
pressure from the owners (stockholders), have mounted a campaign to
convince consumers that they are getting something better than they've
ever had. As a result, we (those of us use the technology to produce
product as well as all of us who consume the end product) are being
saddled with an immature technology that offers a fraction of its
potential, does not equal what it is replacing, and will never be
allowed to develop fully because of the expectation of return on
investment. If the producer/marketers can bamboozle a generation of
audiences, nobody will remember what was lost and will happily accept
the crap that is served to them.

Ian

On 25 Nov 2004 13:31:38 GMT, [email protected] (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 agree. At the time you usually do not believe the tool is bad, but
will do specific job well. For some tools I buy the best I can find
and these tools are the ones I heavily rely on. Last month I spent
$185 on Starrett measuring tools--that's a lot of money compared to
buying the equivalent Stanley tools at about $24. Maybe I'll be more
likely to take care of expensive tools than throw-away tools. But if
you think about it, have there been times in the middle of a project
and an important tool broke? Recalling those times makes me buy the
best I can find, and if I can't afford it I'll wait or not buy it at
all.

On 01 Dec 2004 09:35:47 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
wrote:

>rcook writes:
>
>>Remember, I'm talking a few decades out. Now technically I suppose you
>>could call some of the elements that will go on this thing 'servos'
>>and 'cameras,' but we probably wouldn't reognize them as servos and
>>cameras if they were shown to us today. These would be tiny devices,
>>about microscopic for the most part, and there would be dozens or
>>hundreds of them on the tool. Nor will all of the be servos or
>>cameras. I expect the sensors will cover a lot more of the
>>electromagnetic spectrum than just visible light. Nor will all the
>>visible light sensors be designed to resolve an image. Each one of
>>these elements by itself could do very little, but taken together,
>>along with proper networking and distributed intelligence, they'd be
>>able to produce remarkable results.
>
>The technology may be wonderful in 30 or 40 years, but it sounds too fragile in
>construction to me to survive in anything like today's hobby woodworking shop,
>never mind in tomorrow's commercial shop.

Properly done this stuff is anything but fragile. We're talking a
technology that is already tough enough to be used in artillery shells
and can use microengineered materials that start with stuff like
diamond-like coatings. A diamond-coated work table anyone? (Not that
we'd be likely to use diamond alone for a work table surface because
it's too prone to chipping.)

Now when you start talking about stuff like that the first thought is
naturally that it will be ungodly expensive. However it won't be at
all expensive in another couple of decades. 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.

To give you a reference point, consider a $50 microwave oven. You
could have built the equivalent oven 50 years ago, including the
control system. But it would have cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars even in quantity. The notion of using a dedicated computer to
control a single kitchen appliance would have stuck folks as insane in
1954.

> Think of all the comparisons we get
>today between the Unifence and the Biesemeyer fence and the reasons for most of
>those comparisons--the comparative overall fragility of aluminum extrusions.

Most of the problems in those comparisons have to do with accuracy,
which in turn is achieved by rigidity in modern designs. That in turn
requires a combination of mass of material, careful manufacturing to
close tolerances and good design. With MEMS-based designs the first
goes away, the second drops to extremely low cost, leaving only the
third component -- good design -- which should be cookbook technology
by that time.

>Having screwed up a Unifence myself, I realize what a problem that can be.

>Too, when you think servos, keep thinking cameras. Today's servo motors are
>tiny compared to those I worked on many years ago: the autofocus systems on
>camera lenses have exceptionally responsive servo motors that weigh very little
>and take up almost no space, so you're right about some of the tchnology being
>almost here.

>But the biggest problem that is going to exist is developing a perceived need
>for such a tool.

> Excessive complexity and great fragility are not exactly
>wonderful recommendations for tools that sit out in a detached garage or other
>building, with extremes of temperature ranging widely depending on locale, a
>possiblity (probability?) of moisture invasion on a modest scale, the need to
>be moved from one corner to the other almost daily without losing its set-up,
>and, to make things more fun, the ability to survive being filled with mouse
>droppings or nesting.

Like the 1954 microwave oven building such a device with today's
technology (if we even could) would be both extremely expensive and
absurdly fragile. It would suffer from all the problems you point out
and then some. (Recalibration anyone?) The point is that we're well on
the way to dealing with those problems with the development of MEMS
and related technologies.

Micro devices are tough, by their very nature. 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.
The result is incredible power-to-weight ratios. (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.)


>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.

You don't usually find either snakes or mice in computers. And even if
you did, would it matter? Okay, mouse shit in the fans might be a
problem and mouse piss in the power supply would provide its own
distinctive aroma. But still . . .
--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

rcook writes:

>Remember, I'm talking a few decades out. Now technically I suppose you
>could call some of the elements that will go on this thing 'servos'
>and 'cameras,' but we probably wouldn't reognize them as servos and
>cameras if they were shown to us today. These would be tiny devices,
>about microscopic for the most part, and there would be dozens or
>hundreds of them on the tool. Nor will all of the be servos or
>cameras. I expect the sensors will cover a lot more of the
>electromagnetic spectrum than just visible light. Nor will all the
>visible light sensors be designed to resolve an image. Each one of
>these elements by itself could do very little, but taken together,
>along with proper networking and distributed intelligence, they'd be
>able to produce remarkable results.

The technology may be wonderful in 30 or 40 years, but it sounds too fragile in
construction to me to survive in anything like today's hobby woodworking shop,
never mind in tomorrow's commercial shop. Think of all the comparisons we get
today between the Unifence and the Biesemeyer fence and the reasons for most of
those comparisons--the comparative overall fragility of aluminum extrusions.
Having screwed up a Unifence myself, I realize what a problem that can be.

Too, when you think servos, keep thinking cameras. Today's servo motors are
tiny compared to those I worked on many years ago: the autofocus systems on
camera lenses have exceptionally responsive servo motors that weigh very little
and take up almost no space, so you're right about some of the tchnology being
almost here.

But the biggest problem that is going to exist is developing a perceived need
for such a tool. Excessive complexity and great fragility are not exactly
wonderful recommendations for tools that sit out in a detached garage or other
building, with extremes of temperature ranging widely depending on locale, a
possiblity (probability?) of moisture invasion on a modest scale, the need to
be moved from one corner to the other almost daily without losing its set-up,
and, to make things more fun, the ability to survive being filled with mouse
droppings or nesting.

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

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 20:12:35 -0600, Prometheus
<[email protected]> 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 02:06:47 -0500, "J. Clarke"
<[email protected]> 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 Fri, 03 Dec 2004 00:15:07 -0600, Morris Dovey <[email protected]>
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

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 Thu, 02 Dec 2004 23:32:15 -0700, Mark & Juanita
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 00:15:07 -0600, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> 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 Thu, 02 Dec 2004 10:25:15 -0500, in rec.woodworking you wrote:

>[email protected] wrote:
>
>>
>> On Wed, 01 Dec 2004 18:50:08 -0600, Prometheus
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>><<Snippage for brevity throughout>>
>>>
>>>>>Let's hope so- I'm sure I'm not going to be able to resist some of the
>>>>>new-fangled suckers when they get here.
>>>>
>>>>Not just a matter of hope. While the thing will undoubtedly have
>>>>failure modes, with the degree of sensing and control I'm talking
>>>>about the machine will be carefully limited in its ability to do
>>>>anything unsafe.
>>>
>>>Actually, you got right to the heart of what I find a little sad about
>>>it. Of course nobody wants to lop off a finger on a table saw, but
>>>when I was a little kid we used to shoot one another with BB guns and
>>>play on rusty jungle gyms set on blacktop. Now, half the people have
>>>turned into a bunch of whining sissies! Sometimes you do things that
>>>might just be a little unsafe with a tool because it's a calculated
>>>risk, and it ends up leading to innovation. If everything is
>>>monitored and controlled to the hilt, you'd be able to do anything the
>>>tool is designed to do, but you are absolutely bound to the limits
>>>that tool has. Sure, you're safe- and the end product is technically
>>>perfect, but it comes with a cost. Instead of a cut or a bruise, some
>>>of the small defects that add charm to the finished product and your
>>>pride in it's construction is taken away- and that's what I like about
>>>making things in the first place!
>>>
>> Of course almost exactly the same sentiments apply to modern power
>> tools compared to their unpowered predecessors. (Anyone here think
>> hewing a plank or beam with a broadax was safe?)
>>
>> It's where you choose to place yourself on the continium.
>>>>>Hmm... What were you thinking of? We've got the cameras and servo
>>>>>motors in manufacturing today, so my guess would be that that's what
>>>>>is going to filter down long before any cutting-edge technologies.
>>>>
>>>>Remember, I'm talking a few decades out. Now technically I suppose you
>>>>could call some of the elements that will go on this thing 'servos'
>>>>and 'cameras,' but we probably wouldn't reognize them as servos and
>>>>cameras if they were shown to us today. These would be tiny devices,
>>>>about microscopic for the most part, and there would be dozens or
>>>>hundreds of them on the tool. Nor will all of the be servos or
>>>>cameras. I expect the sensors will cover a lot more of the
>>>>electromagnetic spectrum than just visible light. Nor will all the
>>>>visible light sensors be designed to resolve an image. Each one of
>>>>these elements by itself could do very little, but taken together,
>>>>along with proper networking and distributed intelligence, they'd be
>>>>able to produce remarkable results.
>>>
>>>Aha! You've been reading "Prey", haven't you?
>> Nope. Just writing about the industry. Between that and applying what
>> I've seen in the labs and on the websites. The most speculative
>> element of what I'm 'predicting' here is the cost of the finished
>> tool. Most of the rest of the stuff already either exists in at least
>> proof-of-principle form or is in advanced design.
>
>So where is the "proof of principle" form of the table saw replacement?

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

>>> Interesting ideas,
>>>it'll be neat to see how it all comes out- but remember, we still
>>>don't have flying cars! (No matter how much I may want one- boy would
>>>that be spiffy...)
>>
>> The flying car is a very interesting example. The basic problem with
>> the flying car, as originally conceived, is that it takes a great deal
>> of judgement to fly safely. You cannot approach an
>> airplane/helicopter/autogyro with the same attitude people have
>> towards automobiles or the death rate becomes astronomical. It's not a
>> matter of brains or desire, but judgement. I don't have the right kind
>> of judgement and that's why I quit taking flying lessons.
>>
>> With modern control technology, machine intelligence, GPS and other
>> stuff we are just about at the point where we can build a flying car
>> that would be safe enough for the average person. In fact there are a
>> couple of very promising projects underway right now. Of course this
>> involves some infrastructure cost and, more importantly, some major
>> modifications of the regulations. So it's becoming practical, but it
>> still may not happen.
>
>Actually, the two big obstacles have always been cost and runways.

I'll disagree on both counts. The cost of some of the designs in
volume production would have been less than an luxury automobile. And
the runway issue was addressed by a variety of the designs in
different ways.

> 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. For a discussion of noise levels and reduction in
helicopters, see:
http://www.aviationtoday.com/cgi/rw/show_mag.cgi?pub=rw&mon=0899&file=08rwcover.htm

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

Whether they're quiet enough to make good neighbors is another issue.
It's worth noting that one popular method of operation would have the
aircar drive on the street several blocks to a 'parking lot' and take
off from there.

>and are unlikely to be very fuel-efficient and you can buy a fighter jet
>for the projected cost of most of them.

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.

>>> Not everything that people predict comes to pass-
>>>something totally different could come out of thin air, and up end
>>>everything you've said.
>>
>> I won't guarantee anything about the technology that will be used, but
>> I'm reasonably sure that in a few decades we'll have tools with the
>> capabilities I'm describing.
>
>You haven't really described any "capabilities" in the context of actually
>working wood.

How about something that can take the place of a tablesaw, bandsaw and
probably several other tools, cost much less than good quality tools
and do much more accurate work? Will that do for a description of
capabilities.

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.
Given what I have seen already, and the way the industry works, I can
tell you that something with those capabilities and using these kinds
of principles could be available in a few decades. 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.

> 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.

>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.

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/silicon/760798.pdf

As silicon devices become even more common the price is going to go
even lower.

(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/2004-01-26-solar-cells_x.htm


> Chips get cheaper because you can fit more of them on a wafer, not
>because the wafer costs less.

Well, no. Assuming by 'wafer' you mean the wafer of unprocessed
silicon, the cost per square inch drops significantly with every
increase in wafer size. That's why the industry has gone to bigger and
bigger wafers. The price drop is particularly noticable in raw wafers.

http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/Article.asp?datePublish=2003/12/05&pages=A5&seq=19

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.

> Your microtools are only going to be cheap
>if you can fit a lot of them on a wafer.

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.

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.

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.


>>> I still think it'll be a little sad, but that
>>>won't stop me from staring at new technologies in admiration.
>>>
>>>
>>>Aut inveniam viam aut faciam
>>
>> --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

On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 10:14:46 -0500, "J. Clarke"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>[email protected] wrote:
>
>> On 01 Dec 2004 09:35:47 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
>> wrote:
>>
>>>rcook writes:
>>>
>>>>Remember, I'm talking a few decades out. Now technically I suppose you
>>>>could call some of the elements that will go on this thing 'servos'
>>>>and 'cameras,' but we probably wouldn't reognize them as servos and
>>>>cameras if they were shown to us today. These would be tiny devices,
>>>>about microscopic for the most part, and there would be dozens or
>>>>hundreds of them on the tool. Nor will all of the be servos or
>>>>cameras. I expect the sensors will cover a lot more of the
>>>>electromagnetic spectrum than just visible light. Nor will all the
>>>>visible light sensors be designed to resolve an image. Each one of
>>>>these elements by itself could do very little, but taken together,
>>>>along with proper networking and distributed intelligence, they'd be
>>>>able to produce remarkable results.
>>>
>>>The technology may be wonderful in 30 or 40 years, but it sounds too
>>>fragile in construction to me to survive in anything like today's hobby
>>>woodworking shop, never mind in tomorrow's commercial shop.
>>
>> Properly done this stuff is anything but fragile. We're talking a
>> technology that is already tough enough to be used in artillery shells
>
>Huh? How is it used in artillery shells?

Guidance systems.
See
http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?section_id=58&document_id=4701

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.

>> and can use microengineered materials that start with stuff like
>> diamond-like coatings. A diamond-coated work table anyone? (Not that
>> we'd be likely to use diamond alone for a work table surface because
>> it's too prone to chipping.)
>>
>> Now when you start talking about stuff like that the first thought is
>> naturally that it will be ungodly expensive. However it won't be at
>> all expensive in another couple of decades.
>
>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.

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.

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.

>
>> 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?

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/october03-JohnRobertson.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-bin/morgan_news/morgan_news.cgi?database=MAC%20Diamonex.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=14&rnd=733.8257858682609

>
>> To give you a reference point, consider a $50 microwave oven. You
>> could have built the equivalent oven 50 years ago, including the
>> control system. But it would have cost hundreds of thousands of
>> dollars even in quantity. The notion of using a dedicated computer to
>> control a single kitchen appliance would have stuck folks as insane in
>> 1954.
>
>However microprocessors are solid state devices with no moving parts. That
>doesn't mean that microscopic machines with moving parts will be equally
>reliable, nor that they will be useful in the making of woodworking tools.

Their use in woodworking tools is speculative. The reliability of MEMS
devices is not. As a rough rule, the devices are somewhere between as
reliable as microprocessors (acellerometers for air bags) and about
one-tenth as reliable (laboratory structures).

>>> Think of all the comparisons we get
>>>today between the Unifence and the Biesemeyer fence and the reasons for
>>>most of those comparisons--the comparative overall fragility of aluminum
>>>extrusions.
>>
>> Most of the problems in those comparisons have to do with accuracy,
>> which in turn is achieved by rigidity in modern designs. That in turn
>> requires a combination of mass of material, careful manufacturing to
>> close tolerances and good design. With MEMS-based designs the first
>> goes away, the second drops to extremely low cost, leaving only the
>> third component -- good design -- which should be cookbook technology
>> by that time.
>
>You have to make a convincing case that such a device will work better than
>a simple mechanical fence and cost the same or work as well and be cheaper.
>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.

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.

Where this particular analogy breaks down is in the way the technology
is used and its effect on price. Adaptive optics isn't (yet) used to
make astronomical telescopes cheaper and more widely available.
Astronomical telescopes of this class are pretty much one-off items,
which limits the opportunities for economies of scale and restricts
how fast you slide down the learning curve. Instead we use adaptive
optics to give the telescopes capabilities (effective apeture,
cancelling atmospheric distortion) that we pretty much can't get
otherwise. So adaptive optic astronomical telescopes don't get cheap.

>>>Having screwed up a Unifence myself, I realize what a problem that can be.
>>
>>>Too, when you think servos, keep thinking cameras. Today's servo motors
>>>are tiny compared to those I worked on many years ago: the autofocus
>>>systems on camera lenses have exceptionally responsive servo motors that
>>>weigh very little and take up almost no space, so you're right about some
>>>of the tchnology being almost here.
>>
>>>But the biggest problem that is going to exist is developing a perceived
>>>need for such a tool.
>>
>>> Excessive complexity and great fragility are not exactly
>>>wonderful recommendations for tools that sit out in a detached garage or
>>>other building, with extremes of temperature ranging widely depending on
>>>locale, a possiblity (probability?) of moisture invasion on a modest
>>>scale, the need to be moved from one corner to the other almost daily
>>>without losing its set-up, and, to make things more fun, the ability to
>>>survive being filled with mouse droppings or nesting.
>>
>> Like the 1954 microwave oven building such a device with today's
>> technology (if we even could) would be both extremely expensive and
>> absurdly fragile. It would suffer from all the problems you point out
>> and then some. (Recalibration anyone?) The point is that we're well on
>> the way to dealing with those problems with the development of MEMS
>> and related technologies.
>
>Well, actually we're well on the way to reading a lot of hype about what
>such machines will do.

Much more than hype. 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.

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

> They will no doubt be useful tools in their own
>right, but that doesn't mean that they'll replace all other types of tool.

>> 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.

>> 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.

>> 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.

>
>> (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.

> What happens when the
>rider steps on the intakes? Or they get full of mud?

>>>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.
>>
>> You don't usually find either snakes or mice in computers.
>
>Depends on where the computer is stored. You don't usually find computers
>in open workshops either.
>
>> And even if
>> you did, would it matter? Okay, mouse shit in the fans might be a
>> problem and mouse piss in the power supply would provide its own
>> distinctive aroma. But still . . .
>
>Mouse shit in the intakes to your microturbines would most assuredly be a
>problem.

You forgot the smiley on the that one. :-)

>> --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

"Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> But the biggest problem that is going to exist is developing a perceived
need
> for such a tool. Excessive complexity and great fragility are not exactly
> wonderful recommendations for tools that sit out in a detached garage or
other
> building, with extremes of temperature ranging widely depending on locale,
a
> possiblity (probability?) of moisture invasion on a modest scale, the need
to
> be moved from one corner to the other almost daily without losing its
set-up,
> and, to make things more fun, the ability to survive being filled with
mouse
> droppings or nesting.
>

Hmmmmm... isn't that exact what was being said about putting computers in
cars 20 years ago - or whenever it was that such stuff was being said.
"Cars suffer to harsh of an environment for computers", "cars create too
much heat and static electricity for something as complex and delicate as a
computer", "all those sensors and stuff...", you know - all that stuff. I'm
not forecasting the advent of these things in woodworking next year, but I
don't believe the obstacles are that big anymore. Just about everything
that could be a worry point for a tool has been addressed by the automotive
industry already. Outside of that industry, look at what we already have -
lasers that you just throw up on a tripod and they level themselves and
shoot remarkably accurate beams for great distances. Accurate enough to
perform building layout with. I suspect it's more a matter of demand than
capability, that we don't already see more of this stuff today.

> 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.
>

Which makes it a damn good thing you're a messy person and dumped those
chisels out instead of fastidiously going through the box looking for just
the right one...

--

-Mike-
[email protected]

>>>> 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. 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.

><remainder containing no new material snipped>

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 02:06:47 -0500, "J. Clarke"
<[email protected]> 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/tooling/archives/0299/299ctl.asp

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

http://statusreports-atp.nist.gov/reports/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 02:04:04 -0500, "J. Clarke"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>[email protected] 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/show_mag.cgi?pub=rw&mon=0899&file=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/2004-01-26-solar-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/Article.asp?datePublish=2003/12/05&pages=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

Mike Marlow wrote:

>
> "Charlie Self" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>
>> But the biggest problem that is going to exist is developing a perceived
> need
>> for such a tool. Excessive complexity and great fragility are not exactly
>> wonderful recommendations for tools that sit out in a detached garage or
> other
>> building, with extremes of temperature ranging widely depending on
>> locale,
> a
>> possiblity (probability?) of moisture invasion on a modest scale, the
>> need
> to
>> be moved from one corner to the other almost daily without losing its
> set-up,
>> and, to make things more fun, the ability to survive being filled with
> mouse
>> droppings or nesting.
>>
>
> Hmmmmm... isn't that exact what was being said about putting computers in
> cars 20 years ago - or whenever it was that such stuff was being said.
> "Cars suffer to harsh of an environment for computers", "cars create too
> much heat and static electricity for something as complex and delicate as
> a
> computer", "all those sensors and stuff...", you know - all that stuff.
> I'm not forecasting the advent of these things in woodworking next year,
> but I
> don't believe the obstacles are that big anymore. Just about everything
> that could be a worry point for a tool has been addressed by the
> automotive
> industry already. Outside of that industry, look at what we already have
> - lasers that you just throw up on a tripod and they level themselves and
> shoot remarkably accurate beams for great distances. Accurate enough to
> perform building layout with. I suspect it's more a matter of demand than
> capability, that we don't already see more of this stuff today.
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> Which makes it a damn good thing you're a messy person and dumped those
> chisels out instead of fastidiously going through the box looking for just
> the right one...

Blacksnake bite (at least a US blacksnake bite) doesn't even draw blood.
Just leaves some toothmarks, and pulling the snake off feels like releasing
velcro. DAMHIKT.
>

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

[email protected] wrote:

> On 01 Dec 2004 09:35:47 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
> wrote:
>
>>rcook writes:
>>
>>>Remember, I'm talking a few decades out. Now technically I suppose you
>>>could call some of the elements that will go on this thing 'servos'
>>>and 'cameras,' but we probably wouldn't reognize them as servos and
>>>cameras if they were shown to us today. These would be tiny devices,
>>>about microscopic for the most part, and there would be dozens or
>>>hundreds of them on the tool. Nor will all of the be servos or
>>>cameras. I expect the sensors will cover a lot more of the
>>>electromagnetic spectrum than just visible light. Nor will all the
>>>visible light sensors be designed to resolve an image. Each one of
>>>these elements by itself could do very little, but taken together,
>>>along with proper networking and distributed intelligence, they'd be
>>>able to produce remarkable results.
>>
>>The technology may be wonderful in 30 or 40 years, but it sounds too
>>fragile in construction to me to survive in anything like today's hobby
>>woodworking shop, never mind in tomorrow's commercial shop.
>
> Properly done this stuff is anything but fragile. We're talking a
> technology that is already tough enough to be used in artillery shells

Huh? How is it used in artillery shells?

> and can use microengineered materials that start with stuff like
> diamond-like coatings. A diamond-coated work table anyone? (Not that
> we'd be likely to use diamond alone for a work table surface because
> it's too prone to chipping.)
>
> Now when you start talking about stuff like that the first thought is
> naturally that it will be ungodly expensive. However it won't be at
> all expensive in another couple of decades.

Unless it is.

> 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?

> To give you a reference point, consider a $50 microwave oven. You
> could have built the equivalent oven 50 years ago, including the
> control system. But it would have cost hundreds of thousands of
> dollars even in quantity. The notion of using a dedicated computer to
> control a single kitchen appliance would have stuck folks as insane in
> 1954.

However microprocessors are solid state devices with no moving parts. That
doesn't mean that microscopic machines with moving parts will be equally
reliable, nor that they will be useful in the making of woodworking tools.

>> Think of all the comparisons we get
>>today between the Unifence and the Biesemeyer fence and the reasons for
>>most of those comparisons--the comparative overall fragility of aluminum
>>extrusions.
>
> Most of the problems in those comparisons have to do with accuracy,
> which in turn is achieved by rigidity in modern designs. That in turn
> requires a combination of mass of material, careful manufacturing to
> close tolerances and good design. With MEMS-based designs the first
> goes away, the second drops to extremely low cost, leaving only the
> third component -- good design -- which should be cookbook technology
> by that time.

You have to make a convincing case that such a device will work better than
a simple mechanical fence and cost the same or work as well and be cheaper.
All I see is arm-waving. How would this fence work? How would it be
adjusted?

>>Having screwed up a Unifence myself, I realize what a problem that can be.
>
>>Too, when you think servos, keep thinking cameras. Today's servo motors
>>are tiny compared to those I worked on many years ago: the autofocus
>>systems on camera lenses have exceptionally responsive servo motors that
>>weigh very little and take up almost no space, so you're right about some
>>of the tchnology being almost here.
>
>>But the biggest problem that is going to exist is developing a perceived
>>need for such a tool.
>
>> Excessive complexity and great fragility are not exactly
>>wonderful recommendations for tools that sit out in a detached garage or
>>other building, with extremes of temperature ranging widely depending on
>>locale, a possiblity (probability?) of moisture invasion on a modest
>>scale, the need to be moved from one corner to the other almost daily
>>without losing its set-up, and, to make things more fun, the ability to
>>survive being filled with mouse droppings or nesting.
>
> Like the 1954 microwave oven building such a device with today's
> technology (if we even could) would be both extremely expensive and
> absurdly fragile. It would suffer from all the problems you point out
> and then some. (Recalibration anyone?) The point is that we're well on
> the way to dealing with those problems with the development of MEMS
> and related technologies.

Well, actually we're well on the way to reading a lot of hype about what
such machines will do. They will no doubt be useful tools in their own
right, but that doesn't mean that they'll replace all other types of tool.

> Micro devices are tough, by their very nature.

They are? How do you know this?

> 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"?

> 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.

> (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? What happens when the
rider steps on the intakes? Or they get full of mud?

>>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.
>
> You don't usually find either snakes or mice in computers.

Depends on where the computer is stored. You don't usually find computers
in open workshops either.

> And even if
> you did, would it matter? Okay, mouse shit in the fans might be a
> problem and mouse piss in the power supply would provide its own
> distinctive aroma. But still . . .

Mouse shit in the intakes to your microturbines would most assuredly be a
problem.

> --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

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

"J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> [email protected] wrote:
>
>> On 01 Dec 2004 09:35:47 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
>> wrote:
>>
>>>rcook writes:
>>>
>>>>Remember, I'm talking a few decades out. Now technically I suppose you
>>>>could call some of the elements that will go on this thing 'servos'
>>>>and 'cameras,' but we probably wouldn't reognize them as servos and
>>>>cameras if they were shown to us today. These would be tiny devices,
>>>>about microscopic for the most part, and there would be dozens or
>>>>hundreds of them on the tool. Nor will all of the be servos or
>>>>cameras. I expect the sensors will cover a lot more of the
>>>>electromagnetic spectrum than just visible light. Nor will all the
>>>>visible light sensors be designed to resolve an image. Each one of
>>>>these elements by itself could do very little, but taken together,
>>>>along with proper networking and distributed intelligence, they'd be
>>>>able to produce remarkable results.
>>>
>>>The technology may be wonderful in 30 or 40 years, but it sounds too
>>>fragile in construction to me to survive in anything like today's hobby
>>>woodworking shop, never mind in tomorrow's commercial shop.
>>
>> Properly done this stuff is anything but fragile. We're talking a
>> technology that is already tough enough to be used in artillery shells
>
> Huh? How is it used in artillery shells?

laser spotters, fuses, fin microadjusters, etc. there's lots of electronics
that get put into shells. heck, they make artillary launched a-bombs.

>> and can use microengineered materials that start with stuff like
>> diamond-like coatings. A diamond-coated work table anyone? (Not that
>> we'd be likely to use diamond alone for a work table surface because
>> it's too prone to chipping.)
>>
>> Now when you start talking about stuff like that the first thought is
>> naturally that it will be ungodly expensive. However it won't be at
>> all expensive in another couple of decades.
>
> Unless it is.
>
>> 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.

>
>> To give you a reference point, consider a $50 microwave oven. You
>> could have built the equivalent oven 50 years ago, including the
>> control system. But it would have cost hundreds of thousands of
>> dollars even in quantity. The notion of using a dedicated computer to
>> control a single kitchen appliance would have stuck folks as insane in
>> 1954.
>
> However microprocessors are solid state devices with no moving parts.
> That
> doesn't mean that microscopic machines with moving parts will be equally
> reliable, nor that they will be useful in the making of woodworking tools.
>
>>> Think of all the comparisons we get
>>>today between the Unifence and the Biesemeyer fence and the reasons for
>>>most of those comparisons--the comparative overall fragility of aluminum
>>>extrusions.
>>
>> Most of the problems in those comparisons have to do with accuracy,
>> which in turn is achieved by rigidity in modern designs. That in turn
>> requires a combination of mass of material, careful manufacturing to
>> close tolerances and good design. With MEMS-based designs the first
>> goes away, the second drops to extremely low cost, leaving only the
>> third component -- good design -- which should be cookbook technology
>> by that time.
>
> You have to make a convincing case that such a device will work better
> than
> a simple mechanical fence and cost the same or work as well and be
> cheaper.
> All I see is arm-waving. How would this fence work? How would it be
> adjusted?
>
>>>Having screwed up a Unifence myself, I realize what a problem that can
>>>be.
>>
>>>Too, when you think servos, keep thinking cameras. Today's servo motors
>>>are tiny compared to those I worked on many years ago: the autofocus
>>>systems on camera lenses have exceptionally responsive servo motors that
>>>weigh very little and take up almost no space, so you're right about some
>>>of the tchnology being almost here.
>>
>>>But the biggest problem that is going to exist is developing a perceived
>>>need for such a tool.
>>
>>> Excessive complexity and great fragility are not exactly
>>>wonderful recommendations for tools that sit out in a detached garage or
>>>other building, with extremes of temperature ranging widely depending on
>>>locale, a possiblity (probability?) of moisture invasion on a modest
>>>scale, the need to be moved from one corner to the other almost daily
>>>without losing its set-up, and, to make things more fun, the ability to
>>>survive being filled with mouse droppings or nesting.
>>
>> Like the 1954 microwave oven building such a device with today's
>> technology (if we even could) would be both extremely expensive and
>> absurdly fragile. It would suffer from all the problems you point out
>> and then some. (Recalibration anyone?) The point is that we're well on
>> the way to dealing with those problems with the development of MEMS
>> and related technologies.
>
> Well, actually we're well on the way to reading a lot of hype about what
> such machines will do. They will no doubt be useful tools in their own
> right, but that doesn't mean that they'll replace all other types of tool.
>
>> Micro devices are tough, by their very nature.
>
> They are? How do you know this?
>
>> 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"?
>
>> 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.
>
>> (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? What happens when
> the
> rider steps on the intakes? Or they get full of mud?
>
>>>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.
>>
>> You don't usually find either snakes or mice in computers.
>
> Depends on where the computer is stored. You don't usually find computers
> in open workshops either.
>
>> And even if
>> you did, would it matter? Okay, mouse shit in the fans might be a
>> problem and mouse piss in the power supply would provide its own
>> distinctive aroma. But still . . .
>
> Mouse shit in the intakes to your microturbines would most assuredly be a
> problem.
>
>> --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
>
> --
> --John
> Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
> (was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
>

Charles Spitzer wrote:

>
> "J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>> On 01 Dec 2004 09:35:47 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>rcook writes:
>>>>
>>>>>Remember, I'm talking a few decades out. Now technically I suppose you
>>>>>could call some of the elements that will go on this thing 'servos'
>>>>>and 'cameras,' but we probably wouldn't reognize them as servos and
>>>>>cameras if they were shown to us today. These would be tiny devices,
>>>>>about microscopic for the most part, and there would be dozens or
>>>>>hundreds of them on the tool. Nor will all of the be servos or
>>>>>cameras. I expect the sensors will cover a lot more of the
>>>>>electromagnetic spectrum than just visible light. Nor will all the
>>>>>visible light sensors be designed to resolve an image. Each one of
>>>>>these elements by itself could do very little, but taken together,
>>>>>along with proper networking and distributed intelligence, they'd be
>>>>>able to produce remarkable results.
>>>>
>>>>The technology may be wonderful in 30 or 40 years, but it sounds too
>>>>fragile in construction to me to survive in anything like today's hobby
>>>>woodworking shop, never mind in tomorrow's commercial shop.
>>>
>>> Properly done this stuff is anything but fragile. We're talking a
>>> technology that is already tough enough to be used in artillery shells
>>
>> Huh? How is it used in artillery shells?
>
> laser spotters, fuses, fin microadjusters, etc. there's lots of
> electronics that get put into shells. heck, they make artillary launched
> a-bombs.

A lot of electronics yes. But how are MEMs used in current production
artillery shells? MEMs and electronics are not the same.

Incidentally, in WWII, _tube_ electronics was used in artillery shells. The
fact that something is used in artillery shells does not mean that it is
inherently durable, it means that by dint of great effort the Army or some
arms manufacturer has found a way to make it work acceptably in the
application.

And a-bombs do not need any electronic components.

>>> and can use microengineered materials that start with stuff like
>>> diamond-like coatings. A diamond-coated work table anyone? (Not that
>>> we'd be likely to use diamond alone for a work table surface because
>>> it's too prone to chipping.)
>>>
>>> Now when you start talking about stuff like that the first thought is
>>> naturally that it will be ungodly expensive. However it won't be at
>>> all expensive in another couple of decades.
>>
>> Unless it is.
>>
>>> 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.

<remainder containing no new material snipped>

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

[email protected] wrote:

> On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 10:14:46 -0500, "J. Clarke"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>[email protected] wrote:
>>
>>> On 01 Dec 2004 09:35:47 GMT, [email protected] (Charlie Self)
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>rcook writes:
>>>>
>>>>>Remember, I'm talking a few decades out. Now technically I suppose you
>>>>>could call some of the elements that will go on this thing 'servos'
>>>>>and 'cameras,' but we probably wouldn't reognize them as servos and
>>>>>cameras if they were shown to us today. These would be tiny devices,
>>>>>about microscopic for the most part, and there would be dozens or
>>>>>hundreds of them on the tool. Nor will all of the be servos or
>>>>>cameras. I expect the sensors will cover a lot more of the
>>>>>electromagnetic spectrum than just visible light. Nor will all the
>>>>>visible light sensors be designed to resolve an image. Each one of
>>>>>these elements by itself could do very little, but taken together,
>>>>>along with proper networking and distributed intelligence, they'd be
>>>>>able to produce remarkable results.
>>>>
>>>>The technology may be wonderful in 30 or 40 years, but it sounds too
>>>>fragile in construction to me to survive in anything like today's hobby
>>>>woodworking shop, never mind in tomorrow's commercial shop.
>>>
>>> Properly done this stuff is anything but fragile. We're talking a
>>> technology that is already tough enough to be used in artillery shells
>>
>>Huh? How is it used in artillery shells?
>
> Guidance systems.
> See
>
http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?section_id=58&document_id=4701
>
> 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?

>>> and can use microengineered materials that start with stuff like
>>> diamond-like coatings. A diamond-coated work table anyone? (Not that
>>> we'd be likely to use diamond alone for a work table surface because
>>> it's too prone to chipping.)
>>>
>>> Now when you start talking about stuff like that the first thought is
>>> naturally that it will be ungodly expensive. However it won't be at
>>> all expensive in another couple of decades.
>>
>>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. You need a certain amount of
surface area to cut wood. That means that any macroscopic woodworking tool
based on this technology is going to be expensive.

> 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.

> 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.
>
>>
>>> 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?
>
> 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/october03-JohnRobertson.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-bin/morgan_news/morgan_news.cgi?database=MAC%20Diamonex.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=14&rnd=733.8257858682609
>
>>
>>> To give you a reference point, consider a $50 microwave oven. You
>>> could have built the equivalent oven 50 years ago, including the
>>> control system. But it would have cost hundreds of thousands of
>>> dollars even in quantity. The notion of using a dedicated computer to
>>> control a single kitchen appliance would have stuck folks as insane in
>>> 1954.
>>
>>However microprocessors are solid state devices with no moving parts.
>>That doesn't mean that microscopic machines with moving parts will be
>>equally reliable, nor that they will be useful in the making of
>>woodworking tools.
>
> Their use in woodworking tools is speculative. The reliability of MEMS
> devices is not. As a rough rule, the devices are somewhere between as
> reliable as microprocessors (acellerometers for air bags) and about
> one-tenth as reliable (laboratory structures).
>
>>>> Think of all the comparisons we get
>>>>today between the Unifence and the Biesemeyer fence and the reasons for
>>>>most of those comparisons--the comparative overall fragility of aluminum
>>>>extrusions.
>>>
>>> Most of the problems in those comparisons have to do with accuracy,
>>> which in turn is achieved by rigidity in modern designs. That in turn
>>> requires a combination of mass of material, careful manufacturing to
>>> close tolerances and good design. With MEMS-based designs the first
>>> goes away, the second drops to extremely low cost, leaving only the
>>> third component -- good design -- which should be cookbook technology
>>> by that time.
>>
>>You have to make a convincing case that such a device will work better
>>than a simple mechanical fence and cost the same or work as well and be
>>cheaper.
>>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. Now tell
us what, specifically, your tool would do better than existing tools and
how, specifically, it would accomplish it.

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

> 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? Can you make that actuator
entirely from your hotshot technology? How much will that much silicon
cost? How durable will it be? A little piece of silicon properly
supported can be pretty durable, a big piece is quite fragile.

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 for practically no cost. It does not appear to be the nature
of this technology that it will be able to do that.

> Where this particular analogy breaks down is in the way the technology
> is used and its effect on price. Adaptive optics isn't (yet) used to
> make astronomical telescopes cheaper and more widely available.
> Astronomical telescopes of this class are pretty much one-off items,
> which limits the opportunities for economies of scale and restricts
> how fast you slide down the learning curve. Instead we use adaptive
> optics to give the telescopes capabilities (effective apeture,
> cancelling atmospheric distortion) that we pretty much can't get
> otherwise. So adaptive optic astronomical telescopes don't get cheap.

I see. So Celestron doesn't enough benefit in this for small telescopes to
put it in their mass-production consumer telecopes? Or maybe it's because
there's no way to reduce the cost significantly?

>>>>Having screwed up a Unifence myself, I realize what a problem that can
>>>>be.
>>>
>>>>Too, when you think servos, keep thinking cameras. Today's servo motors
>>>>are tiny compared to those I worked on many years ago: the autofocus
>>>>systems on camera lenses have exceptionally responsive servo motors that
>>>>weigh very little and take up almost no space, so you're right about
>>>>some of the tchnology being almost here.
>>>
>>>>But the biggest problem that is going to exist is developing a perceived
>>>>need for such a tool.
>>>
>>>> Excessive complexity and great fragility are not exactly
>>>>wonderful recommendations for tools that sit out in a detached garage or
>>>>other building, with extremes of temperature ranging widely depending on
>>>>locale, a possiblity (probability?) of moisture invasion on a modest
>>>>scale, the need to be moved from one corner to the other almost daily
>>>>without losing its set-up, and, to make things more fun, the ability to
>>>>survive being filled with mouse droppings or nesting.
>>>
>>> Like the 1954 microwave oven building such a device with today's
>>> technology (if we even could) would be both extremely expensive and
>>> absurdly fragile. It would suffer from all the problems you point out
>>> and then some. (Recalibration anyone?) The point is that we're well on
>>> the way to dealing with those problems with the development of MEMS
>>> and related technologies.
>>
>>Well, actually we're well on the way to reading a lot of hype about what
>>such machines will do.
>
> Much more than hype.

Nope, hype.

> 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. 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.

> 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.

>> They will no doubt be useful tools in their own
>>right, but that doesn't mean that they'll replace all other types of tool.
>
>>> 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.

>>> 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? 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. 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.

>>> 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? And what would the engine look
like?

>>> (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?

>> What happens when the
>>rider steps on the intakes? Or they get full of mud?

I note that you have not addressed this one. Tiny devices get clogged up
with tiny amounts of dirt.

>>>>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.
>>>
>>> You don't usually find either snakes or mice in computers.
>>
>>Depends on where the computer is stored. You don't usually find computers
>>in open workshops either.
>>
>>> And even if
>>> you did, would it matter? Okay, mouse shit in the fans might be a
>>> problem and mouse piss in the power supply would provide its own
>>> distinctive aroma. But still . . .
>>
>>Mouse shit in the intakes to your microturbines would most assuredly be a
>>problem.
>
> You forgot the smiley on the that one. :-)

Because there wasn't one. You're advocating a technology that you clearly
do not really understand. Learn some engineering and you'll see what's
wrong with your claims. It's just not going to scale the way you think it
will.

>>> --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

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