A Clanking Replicator is a machine capable of reproducing others of its kind.

It employs conventional large-scale technology and automation techniques.

The term evolved to distinguish such systems from the microscopic "assemblers" that nanotechnology might eventually make possible.

Clanking Replicators are also sometimes called Auxons, taken from the Greek word auxein which means to grow, or von Neumann machines after John von Neumann, who first rigorously studied the idea. Von Neumann himself used the term Universal Constructor for the concept.

Tommelise, a 3D printer, is a Clanking Replicator in the sense that it can reproduce most of its own components in thermoplastic. These components can be assembled into working copy of Tommelise.