Need a part?

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Why not just get it to whup out a WHOLE CT-100 ?!? (grin)

Sandy, that could actually be a possibility down the road as the technology improves. I suppose if you had a rather large printer, you could spit out an entire cabinet... then cover it with wood-grained laminate or just paint it. There would be the question of whether or not the material would be able to deal with the heat build-up with the set operating.

N2 mentioned parts being flimsy, so there would be the issue with it dealing with the weight as well.

I know the idea of creating a cabinet sounds crazy, but really, it just goes to show that the possibily exists.

In any case, replicating small plastic parts would certainly be an interesting experiment. Now I just need a few grand to blow on such a crazy idea.

[N2IXK]

Even if we had a 3D printer that could print a 15GP22 (or any other CRT), you would still have to evacuate it, activate the cathodes, and flash the getters before you could use it.

The sheer number of exotic materials that go into vacuum tubes make them an unattractive prospect for 3D printing, at least until the technology advances enough that we can simply reload the printer with stocks of individual chemical elements, and the printer makes the materials it needs from them.

A machine like THAT would be the ultimate "disruptive technology". I can't imagine that any government would ever allow such a thing to become widely available. Hell, being able to print whatever structure you wanted using only 4 elements (Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen) would completely undermine the War on Drugs. Add in various metals, and gun control becomes impossible.