Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament for my PhD

Re:Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament f... by moralestapia on Thursday April 11, 2024 @12:22PM (#40003909)

Paul, what an amazing project, this is what hacking is all about. Congratulations!

Definitely try to explore the commercial side of your invention.

It wouldn't hurt to talk to an IP lawyer, if you're still in Uni they usually have people there doing this and you can just go talk to them, free of charge (for you!).

I'm generally against the idea of patents, mainly because of people who came to know to game the system and exploit it (patent trolls etc...) Your project is a real thing with real applications, you definitely deserve a share of whatever commercial benefit this could bring to the world, :D.

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Re:Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament f... by 00702 on Thursday April 11, 2024 @12:29PM (#40003989)

My (former) school is actually already in the process of doing that! My dissertation committee thought it was novel enough that it needed some IP protection and encouraged me to pursue that.

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Re:Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament f... by moralestapia on Thursday April 11, 2024 @12:47PM (#40004208)

Hey, that's great to hear.

Best of luck with everything!

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Re:Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament f... by kobalsky on Thursday April 11, 2024 @12:59PM (#40004343)

Maybe I'm not understanding the blog post so bear with me. Isn't what he is described what a time domain reflectometer does? [1]. I mean that's what it's used to detect breaks or kinks in fiber optics cables. The same tech is used to detect problems in civil infrastructure with embbeded fiber optics.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_time-domain_reflectome...

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Re:Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament f... by 00702 on Thursday April 11, 2024 @01:14PM (#40004492)

Oh yeah cable companies have long been able to do that - I wasn't trying to compete with or replace that technology. My work was soft robotics-focused with simplicity in mind.

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Re:Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament f... by georgeburdell on Thursday April 11, 2024 @01:16PM (#40004529)

Yeah my thoughts exactly. OTDR is what the optical networking industry uses (for much larger runs of fiber) to find kinks/breaks.

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Re:Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament f... by moralestapia on Thursday April 11, 2024 @01:47PM (#40004831)

It could still be a novelty if it uses a slightly different method or even materials. Hence why the advice is to get this on the hands of IP experts.

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Re:Show HN: I made a new sensor out of 3D printer filament f... by georgeburdell on Thursday April 11, 2024 @02:44PM (#40005419)

I wasn't commenting on the novelty aspect, I was more wondering in which situations the author's device might be better. Also, the author noted they started with a time of flight sensor, which would have made it extremely similar to OTDR

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