Vacuum Lockout - concepts old and new

  • Hi,

    Vacuum lockout is one of the most essential steps in advanced diamondoid nanofactories. If you watch the "productive nanosystems" video attentively though you'll realize that this important step is conveniently omitted. Why is that? I vaguely suspect the reason for this sore omission is that there aren't any simple and convincing ideas for doing this yet.

    Also in "Radical Abundance" the vacuum lockout process is mentioned rather briefly.
    In "Radical Abundance" page149 chapter10 Eric Drexler writes:

    Quote:

    "...The door to the right then unseals and opens, and a car moves out into the receiving area,sealed in what looks like a plastic sleeve. A moment after the door releases, the sleeve is pulled back for recycling and the process is done. (This exit maneuver is part of a cycle that prevents contaminants from entering when the product exits.) ... Instead, at the touch of another button, the car rolls into a neighboring machine where its parts are recycled." I think I've somewhere read about an idea (which is the most up to date one - I think) keeping practically perfect vacuum right up to the macro-scale and extruding the product in a sausage shaped balloon through a tube that seals atomically tight. -- I very much dislike this idea because:
    * recycling (of microcomponents) seems a lot more difficult
    * not using the small chamber effect
    * it is a single point of failure for the whole factory
    * probably not relevant: opening gap through hard crash or mishandling => scratches through dirt or vacuum breach

    Wrapped up I perceive a lack of convincing vacuum lockout methods.
    Thus I searched for a more elegant solution.
    Here is what I came up with for a new vacuum lockout concept for nanofactories:
    Please share your thoughts!
    (details:
    http://apm.bplaced.net/w/index.php?title=Vacuum_handling )
    I plan to publish the 3D-model when it is in a 3D-printable state.
    Here's a little preview video of the operation process:
    Video: https://www.flickr.com/photos/65091269@N08/20787742264/

    I think the best place in the convergent assembly chain to include these devices is just before the microcomponents assembly step. At this point all open radicals are already passivated and you can do further assembly by exclusive shape locking (& VdW force) in a clean but reactive gas environment.

    Beside the aforementioned "sausage lockout" concept basically all of the ideas that are still flowing around are I believe remnants from the time when assemblers where still considered a valid approach.

    4.11.2 Merkle Replicating Brick Assembler (1995-1997)
    * extruding block concept: http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/Figures/4.38.JPG
    * the same with details: http://www.molecularassembler.com/KSRM/Figures/4.42.JPG
    * throwaway scrolled up graphite hull concept: http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/casing.html

    I think because of the lack of new ideas for nanofactories assembler targeted concepts made it into the nanofactory targeted Book Nanosystems:
    * Nanosystems Page 417 figure 14.2 -- elastic balloon extending
    * Nanosystems Page 417 figure 14.3 -- sliding blocks
    (Afaik there was some work done on that sliding cube concept by Tihamer (Tee) Toth-Fejel)

    Related too vacuum lockout I once made this model of a bellow that could be made from diamondoid material. (Image Public Domain)
    Assemblers (for which this was originally intended for) are outdated now but maybe this can be used for something else.
    The surfaces in this model are kept parallel to the main crystallographic axes.
    Sadly I've lost 3D-data of the newest version of the openscad file. :(

    Attached files

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