3D Printing Flies High now. Articles on three-dimensional printers are popping up everywhere these days. And nowadays there are many 3D printer products. Some are small enough to fit in a briefcase and others are large enough to print houses.
Everything you ever wanted to know about 3D printing article tells that 3D printing is having its “Macintosh moment,” declares Wired editor -in-chief Chris Anderson in cover story on the subject. 3D printers are now where the PC was 30 years ago. They are just becoming affordable and accessible to non-geeks, will be maybe able to democratize manufacturing the same way that PCs democratized publishing.
Gartner’s 2012 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies Identifies “Tipping Point” Technologies That Will Unlock Long-Awaited Technology Scenarios lists 3D Print It at Home as important topic. In this scenario, 3D printing allows consumers to print physical objects, such as toys or housewares, at home, just as they print digital photos today. Combined with 3D scanning, it may be possible to scan certain objects with a smartphone and print a near-duplicate. Analysts predict that 3D printing will take more than five years to mature beyond the niche market. Eventually, 3D printing will enable individuals to print just about anything from the comfort of their own homes.Slideshow: 3D Printers Make Prototypes Pop article tells that advances in performance, and the durability and range of materials used in additive manufacturing and stereolithography offerings, are enabling companies to produce highly durable prototypes and parts, while also cost-effectively churning out manufactured products in limited production runs.
3D printing can have implications to manufacturers of some expensive products. The Pirate Bay declares 3D printed “physibles” as the next frontier of piracy. Pirate Bay Launches 3D-Printed ‘Physibles’ Downloads. The idea is to have freely available designs for different products that you can print at home with your 3D printer. Here a video demonstrating 3D home printing in operation.
Shapeways is a marketplace and community that encourages the making and sharing of 3D-printed designs. 3D Printing Shapes Factory of the Future article tells that recently New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg cut the Shapeways‘ Factory (filled with industrial-sized 3D printers) ribbon using a pair of 3D-printed scissors.
The Next Battle for Internet Freedom Could Be Over 3D Printing article tells up to date, 3D printing has primarily been used for rapid commercial prototyping largely because of its associated high costs. Now, companies such as MakerBot are selling 3D printers for under $2,000. Slideshow: 3D Printers Make Prototypes Pop article gives view a wide range of 3D printers, from half-million-dollar rapid prototyping systems to $1,000 home units. Cheapest 3D printers (with quite limited performance) now start from 500-1000 US dollars. It is rather expensive or inexpensive is how you view that.
RepRap Project is a cheap 3D printer that started huge 3D printing buzz. RepRap Project is an initiative to develop an open design 3D printer that can print most of its own components. RepRap (short for replicating rapid prototyper) uses a variant of fused deposition modeling, an additive manufacturing technique (The project calls it Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) to avoid trademark issues around the “fused deposition modeling” term). It is almost like a small hot glue gun that melts special plastic is moved around to make the printout. I saw RepRap (Mendel) and Cupcake CNC 3D printers in operation at at Assembly Summer 2010.
There has been some time been trials to make 3D-Printed Circuit Boards. 3D Printers Will Build Circuit Boards ‘In Two Years’ article tells that printing actual electronics circuit boards is very close. Most of the assembly tools are already completely automated anyway.
3D printing can be used to prototype things like entire cars or planes. The makers of James Bond’s latest outing, Skyfall, cut a couple corners in production and used modern 3D printing techniques to fake the decimation of a classic 1960s Aston Martin DB5 (made1:3 scale replicas of the car for use in explosive scenes). The world’s first 3D printed racing car can pace at 140 km/h article tells that a group of 16 engineers named “Group T” has unveiled a racing car “Areion” that is competing in Formula Student 2012 challenge. It is described as the world’s first 3D printed race car. The Areion is not fully 3D printed but most of it is.
Student Engineers Design, Build, Fly ‘Printed’ Airplane article tells that when University of Virginia engineering students posted a YouTube video last spring of a plastic turbofan engine they had designed and built using 3-D printing technology, they didn’t expect it to lead to anything except some page views. But it lead to something bigger. 3-D Printing Enables UVA Student-Built Unmanned Plane article tells that in an effort that took four months and $2000, instead of the quarter million dollars and two years they estimate it would have using conventional design methods, a group of University of Virginia engineering students has built and flown an airplane of parts created on a 3-D printer. The plane is 6.5 feet in wingspan, and cruises at 45 mph.
3D printers can also print guns and synthetic chemical compounds (aka drugs). The potential policy implications are obvious. US Army Deploys 3D Printing Labs to Battlefield to print different things army needs. ‘Wiki Weapon Project’ Aims To Create A Gun Anyone Can 3D-Print At Home. If high-quality weapons can be printed by anyone with a 3D printer, and 3D printers are widely available, then law enforcement agencies will be forced to monitor what you’re printing in order to maintain current gun control laws.
Software Advances Do Their Part to Spur 3D Print Revolution article tells that much of the recent hype around 3D printing has been focused on the bevy of new, lower-cost printer models. Yet, significant improvements to content creation software on both the low and high end of the spectrum are also helping to advance the cause, making the technology more accessible and appealing to a broader audience. Slideshow: Content Creation Tools Push 3D Printing Mainstream article tells that there is still a sizeable bottleneck standing in the way of mainstream adoption of 3D printing: the easy to use software used to create the 3D content. Enter a new genre of low-cost (many even free like Tikercad) and easy-to-use 3D content creation tools. By putting the tools in reach, anyone with a compelling idea will be able to easily translate that concept into a physical working prototype without the baggage of full-blown CAD and without having to make the huge capital investments required for traditional manufacturing.
Finally when you have reached the end of the article there is time for some fun. Check out this 3D printing on Dilbert strip so see a creative use of 3D printing.
2,052 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maggie McGrath / Forbes:
3D printer manufacturer Stratasys reports growing operating expenses, lowers guidance; stock slides over 29%
http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2015/02/03/stratasys-tanking-more-than-30-on-slashed-guidance/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Contour Crafting: Revolutionary Robotic Construction Technology
https://event.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1054395
The nature of construction has remained intensely manual throughout recorded history. Contour Crafting is a mega-scale 3D fabrication process aiming at automated on-site construction of whole structures as well as subcomponents.
Using this process, a single building or a colony of buildings may be constructed automatically with all plumbing and electrical utilities embedded in each; yet each building could have a different design which can include complex curved features.
The entry level implication is especially profound for emergency shelter construction and low income housing. NASA is exploring possible applications of Contour Crafting in building on other planets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printering: Hobbs Meters And 3D Printer Reliability
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/10/3d-printering-hobbs-meters-and-3d-printer-reliability/
We’re here to solve problems, not just state them, so here’s what we’re working with: to quantify the long-term reliability of 3D printers we need a way to measure the mean time before failure of extruders. This is already a solved problem; it’s just not implemented.
On aircraft and some very expensive engines that power things like buildings and ships, there’s one gauge, tucked away in the control panel, that keeps track of how long the engine has been running. It’s called a hobbs meter, and the idea behind it is extremely simple – when there is power going to the Hobbs meter, it counts out hours on a small clockwork display.
Spend enough time with a 3D printer, and you’ll quickly realize the ‘estimated print time’ is merely a ballpark, and with failed prints the ‘total print time for this object’ isn’t exactly a perfect measure of how many hours you’ve been using your extruder. Only by directly measuring how many hours are logged on a hot end or how many kilometers of filament have been sent through an extruder will you ever get an accurate idea of how long an extruder has been running, and how reliable a printer is.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TwinTeeth: The Delta Bot PCB Factory
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/23/twinteeth-the-delta-bot-pcb-factory/
There are a few all-in-one CNC/milling/plotting/3D printing/engraving bots out there that claim to be mini factories for hobbyists, prototypers, and other homebrew creators. The latest is Diyouware’s TwinTeeth, a bot obviously inspired by a few 3D printers, but something that has a few interesting features we hope will propagate through the open hardware ecosystem.
One very interesting feature of this bot is the ability to mask off PCBs for chemical etching with a BluRay laser diode. This actually works pretty well
Diyouware TwinTeeth: The PCB mini-factory
Diyouware TwinTeeth is a open-source PCB mini-factory targeted to the electronic
http://hackaday.io/project/4409-diyouware-twinteeth-the-pcb-mini-factory
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon tries to patent 3D printers on trucks
Who needs distribution hubs when you can make kit in the delivery van?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/25/amazon_dials_up_patent_for_3d_printing_service/
Amazon has filed for a patent on a service that would see the company offer 3D-printed stuff on demand.
The US Patent Filing [PDF] describes a service where customers can order items to be remotely fabricated and shipped by Amazon – or, in some cases, 3D printed by a mobile unit that delivers the items directly to them.
The online shopping giant argues that by equipping itself with 3D printers it could save money by eliminating the need to import items and store them in warehouses. What’s more, 3D printing could help it get orders into customers’ hands faster.
“Increased space to store additional inventory may raise costs for the electronic marketplace. Additionally, time delays between receiving an order and shipping the item to the customer may reduce customer satisfaction and affect revenues generated,” Amazon writes in the application.
“Accordingly, an electronic marketplace may find it desirable to decrease the amount of warehouse or inventory storage space needed, to reduce the amount of time consumed between receiving an order and delivering the item to the customer, or both.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Openhand Combines 3D Printing with Urethane Casting
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/25/openhand-combines-3d-printing-with-urethane-casting/
Yale University brings us quite a treat with their Openhand Project.
[Yale] is working to bring tendon-driven robotic hands to the masses with an interesting technique of combining 3D printing and resin/urethane casting. Known as Hybrid Deposition Manufacturing (HDM), it allows the team to 3D print robotic fingers that also contain the mold for finger pads and joints, all built right into the 3D part. The tendon-driven fingers allow for a very simple design that are not only easy to make, but have a low parts count as well.
http://www.eng.yale.edu/grablab/openhand/index.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printers Making Inroads In Kitchens
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/02/26/2140203/3d-printers-making-inroads-in-kitchens
mpicpp sends an article from Fortune about the tiny industry springing up around food-related 3D printing. While such devices are still too expensive and too special-purpose for home kitchens, professionals in restaurants and large cafeterias are figuring out ways they can automate certain time-intensive task
Will 3D printed food become as common as the microwave?
http://fortune.com/2015/02/26/3d-food-printing/
Entrepreneur Lynette Kucsma is bullish on the idea.
Lynette Kucsma wants to sell the 21st century’s version of the microwave.
The “Foodini”—an automated meal-assembly machine that creates homemade meals faster and more efficiently than human hands—is the first product by Natural Machines, Kucsma’s company.
Natural Machines is marketing the Foodini as a 3D food printer.
“When people first heard about microwaves they didn’t understand the technology, but now 90% of households have microwaves,” she says. “We see the same thing happening with 3D food printing, but on a much faster scale because we adopt technology faster and the technology advances faster.”
In reality, the Foodini isn’t a 3D printer, per se.
Natural Machines’s first iteration of the Foodini works best for time-consuming projects like pasta, elaborately shaped breads and cookies. Users first select a recipe from the touch screen or send their own to the Internet-connected machine. They then make the individual components of the dish from scratch and put the components into Foodini’s stainless steel ingredient capsules. From there, Foodini whips up dinner.
If the user is making a recipe for ravioli, for instance, the Foodini prints the bottom layer of dough, the filling and the top dough layer in subsequent steps. It reduces a lengthy recipe to two minutes construction time and ensures that no one has to clean a countertop caked with leftover dough and flour.
Version 1.0 can’t cook or heat food, but Kucsma expects to add those features in future Foodini models.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Fish Feeder
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/27/3d-printed-fish-feeder/
[Helios Labs] recently published version two of their 3D printed fish feeder. The system is designed to feed their fish twice a day. The design consists of nine separate STL files and can be mounted to a planter hanging above a fish tank in an aquaponics system.
The system is very simple. The unit is primarily a box, or hopper, that holds the fish food. Towards the bottom is a 3D printed auger. The auger is super glued to the gear of a servo. The 9g servo
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing Everywhere from Lab to Factory
Cars, lab equipment, DIY nearly anything
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325860&
rinters that print three-dimensional (3D) objects were invented as a way to enable kids to make cool toys for themselves. But now dozens of companies are making industrial-sized versions capable of making production quality products — such as the Local Motors car — and custom parts for laboratories that used to have be to go to the machine shop.
“The first question we ask when we conceive of new part for an experiment is if we can print it ourselves on the 3D printer,”
According to Zwicker and Millet 3D printers have become a crucial piece of laboratory equipment, allowing them to make one-offs of practically any piece of laboratory equipment (except lenses and other glass parts). 3D printers build up layers of plastic, metal, ceramic or organic materials. The piece is merely designed using a computer aided design (CAD) program that transfers instructions to the 3D printer — telling it when and what to “extrude” to form each layer of an object — with 100-micron accuracy.
The biggest advantage — except low cost — is the speed at which experiments can be accelerated, since the 3D printer can one-off custom parts in a matter of hours — including the CAD programming time — instead of sending the plans off to a machine shop and waiting days to get the part back.
Local Motors
Beside labs, now even mass production is being switched to 3D printing, a capability not unnoticed by Chinese manufacturers, who are investing heavily in the manufacture of 3D printers. But is China’s large, relatively inexpensive workforce working themselves out of a job by making 3D printers?
One company trying to short circuit the exploitation of cheap foreign labor is Local Motors, which is promising to open 100 microfactories to make its vehicles locally in every country where they will be sold, each customized to meet the needs of local residents.
They are also building a Mobi-Factory in the back of a semi-trailer so that vehicles can be produced in-place in remote locations that cannot support the expense of a permanent micro-factory.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cardboard CNC Machine Boxes Up both a Tool and a Framework
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/01/cardboard-cnc-machine-boxes-up-both-a-tool-and-a-framework/
Want to build up a desktop CNC machine without breaking your pocketbook? [James Coleman], [Nadya Peek], and [Ilan Moyer] of MIT Media Labs have cooked up a modular cardboard CNC that gives you the backbone from which you can design your own machine.
[m]MTM
Modular Machines that Make : Cardboard CNC
http://monograph.io/james/m-mtm
A framework for the rapid prototyping of rapid prototyping machines. Modular hardware, modular electronics, and modular software.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Checking Populated PCB Clearance with a 3D Printer
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/04/checking-populated-pcb-clearance-with-a-3d-printer/
Laying out one PCB, sending it out to a fab, stuffing it with components, and having the whole thing actually work when you’re done is a solved problem. Doing the same thing and having it plug in to another PCB… well, that’s a bit harder. Forget about building a PCB and having it fit inside an enclosure the first time.
The usual solution to this problem is printing the board to be fabbed on a piece of paper, take some calipers, and measure very, very carefully. Extra points for sticking a few components you’re worried about to the paper before lining the mechanical prototype up to the existing board. [N8VI] over at the i3 Detroit hackerspace had a better idea – print the whole thing out on a 3D printer.
pre-fab PCB sizing testing
https://www.i3detroit.org/pre-fab-pcb-sizing-testing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inside the Weird World of 3D Printed Body Parts
http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/03/05/0132211/inside-the-weird-world-of-3d-printed-body-parts
Inside the Weird World of 3D Printed Body Parts
https://medium.com/backchannel/where-s-my-bioprinted-kidney-already-25d8c2a5d676
Startups in the U.S. are working on printing nipples and bits of liver tissue, while a Russian provocateur claims to have on-demand thyroid
Laura Bosworth wants to 3D print breast nipples on demand. The CEO of the Texas startup TeVido Biodevices is betting on a future in which survivors of breast cancer who have undergone mastectomies will be able to order up new breasts printed from their own living cells.
“Everyone,” she says, “knows a woman who has had breast cancer.” Right now their options are limited. Reconstructed nipples using state-of-the-art plastic surgery techniques, she says, “tend to flatten and fade and don’t last very long.”
Bosworth readily acknowledges that significant obstacles must be overcome before 3D printed breast parts become an affordable reality. Despite the waves of hype that surged after Anthony Atala, a Wake Forest professor, wowed a TED crowd in 2011 by purporting to print a human kidney on stage, no one has yet used a 3D printer to create a functional human organ.
The science is only half the battle. Venture capitalists aren’t exactly beating down the doors of TeVido. It’s a lot easier, observes Bosworth, to raise money “for an app that lets you order a taxi” than for a biomedical breakthrough that will cost millions of dollars in R&D before beginning the lengthy process of clinical trials needed to bring a product to market.
Yet Bosworth is convinced that a $6 billion market awaits whoever gets out of the lab first. “The field itself has grown tremendously,”
If we believe everything we’ve heard recently, we’ll be 3D printing our food, our cars, our homes, our electronics—heck, the entire structure of globalized trade will be disrupted when we’re 3D printing everything we need in our living rooms rather than having it shipped in containers from China. The possibilities seem near infinite, even if the present-day realities are constrained.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Entering the era of 3D printed electronics
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/the-workbench/4438791/Entering-the-era-of-3D-printed-electronics?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20150305&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20150305&elq=d7c65291367b42788fdf3d64ef3858f5&elqCampaignId=21948&elqaid=24642&elqat=1&elqTrackId=ed9a151ace0a48f7a3dada0717921be4
The days when 3D printing was being used only for prototyping are long gone. In the not too distant future, the electronics industry will embark on a fascinating journey that realizes the advent of 3D printed electronics.
3D printing has gone through some exciting developmental stages in the past few years. Now, we can print 3D titanium objects and add transformation capabilities to objects using 4D printing. Now, we enter a new stage. Voxel8 and Autodesk have developed a fully integrated 3D printed electronics platform based on ten years of research conducted by the Lewis Research Group at Harvard University developing novel conducting materials and 3D printing technology.
Voxel8, a 3D printed electronics startup founded by Harvard professor Jennifer A. Lewis, who leads the Lewis Research Group at Harvard University, has conducted research and developed novel conductive materials and 3D printing technology with her team for the past decade.
Watch the short video below to see Voxel8′s 3D electronics printer in action printing a quadcopter:
Voxel8: The World’s First 3D Electronics Printer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbm2SSql8V8
Tomi Engdahl says:
Incubating Resin Prints through the Chilly Months
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/05/incubating-resin-prints-through-the-chilly-months/
FormLabs resins operate best between the comfortable temperature range of 18 – 28°C (64 – 82°F). For many of us experiencing the chillier weather these days, our garage workshops can easily drop below those temperatures and cause our prints to fail. Rather than hunker down for the freeze and wait for the world outside to defrost, [MarkStrohbehn] has discovered a budget heating technique that heats the print chamber from the inside instead.
This hack is staggeringly simple but effective at reducing the odds of failed prints through the cold weather. Best of all, the modifications are far less invasive than other upgrades made to 3D printers, as it requires no modification of the Form1+.
DIY print chamber HEATER that works great
http://forum.formlabs.com/t/diy-print-chamber-heater-that-works-great/3769
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top 10 Personal 3D Printers 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEzj4BqRBJs
Within the 3D printing industry, “personal” printers are generally regarded as those that cost less than $5,000. This makes any ranking of the best models a somewhat subjective exercise, and my own Top 10 list is no different. It just not sensible to do an absolute comparison based on, for example, print quality, as a $599 printer (like the Printrbot Simple Metal) is a very different purchase proposition to a $4,399 printer (like the Cube Pro Trio). Allowance also needs to be made for the fact that different personal 3D printers can output differing ranges and numbers of materials, as well as having different levels of user control. And some printers work better out of the box than others and have different reputations for reliability!
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printer Plays Classic MIDIs
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/09/3d-printer-plays-classic-midis/
For whatever reason we all seem to have this obsession with making things other than speakers into speakers. Hard drives, floppy drives, CD drives, fax machines, inanimate objects, dot-matrix printers, and now — well let’s stay with times — a 3D printer!
he found HomeConstructor.de, which happens to have an awesome MIDI to G-CODE converter specifically designed for making those steppers hum.
http://en.homeconstructor.de/converter-convert-music-in-g-code.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Z-Unlimited add-on for Ultimaker
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1661525705/z-unlimited-add-on-for-ultimaker
The Z-Unlimited is an Ultimaker 3D printer add-on which convert your own trusty 3D printer into a printer with unlimited heights.
Ever dreamed of printing larger objects with your own Ultimaker 3D printer? This is the Z-Unlimited. With this amazingly simple add-on you convert your own trusty Ultimaker into a 3D printer with an unlimited extended print-area in height.
The Z-Unlimited basically flips your 3D printer upside down and moves it all the way up along a wall while it is printing. To convert your 3D printer to reach unlimited height will only take you 10 minutes.
With the Z-Unlimited add-on your Ultimaker will be able to print really tall objects like large vases, wine bottles, life-sized (scanned) human sculptures or even an elephant!
The basic Z-Unlimited package comes with a carriage set and a rail of 1.2 meters. This will extend your print-area in Z to 65cm high. If you wish to go even higher you easily mount extra length of rails to the system
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source, 3D Printed Rocket Engines
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/10/open-source-3d-printed-rocket-engines/
A liquid-fuel rocket engine is just about the hardest thing anyone could ever build. There are considerations for thermodynamics, machining, electronics, material science, and software just to have something that won’t blow up on the test rig. The data to build a liquid engine isn’t easy to find, either
[Graham] over at Fubar Labs in New Jersey is working to change this. He’s developing an open source, 3D printed, liquid fuel rocket engine.
This engine, powered by gaseous oxygen and ethanol, is designed for 3D printing. It’s actually a great use of the technology; SpaceX and NASA have produced 3D printed engine parts using DMLS printers, but [Graham] is using the much cheaper (and available at Shapeways) metal SLS printers to produce his engine.
Small-Liquid-Fueled-Rocket-Engines
http://wiki.fubarlabs.org/FubarWiki/Small-Liquid-Fueled-Rocket-Engines.ashx
Tomi Engdahl says:
Laser Marketplace Seminar: 3D Printing and Panel Insights
http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/2015/02/laser-marketplace-seminar-3d-printing-and-panel-insights.html
This year, Laser Focus World had a lunchtime speaker talking about 3D printing–one of the hottest growth areas in photonics (and in non-photonic applications as well).
Dexheimer cited the McKinsey forecast that says the 3D printing industry will amount to $550 billion dollars by 2025. Even if lasers get 5% of that, Dexheimer exclaimed, that would be a huge windfall for laser manufacturers already in the 3D printing, additive manufacturing, laser sintering, or polymerization space, just to name a few aspects of the 3D printing business. One only needs to watch the GE nozzle video (see below) to see the benefits of moving from 18 individual parts down to one 3D printed component that requires no welding.
Laser Marketplace Seminar: 3D Printing and Panel Insights
02/25/2015
By Gail Overton
Senior Editor
With the morning presentations concluded, a pre-lunch panel on industrial lasers encouraged attendees of the 2015 Lasers & Photonics Marketplace Seminar (http://www.marketplaceseminar.com) to ask questions–any and all questions related to industrial laser markets and technologies. But as usual, audience questions got off to a slow start and were few.
Industrial lasers panel
Fortunately, panel moderator Mark Taggart, president of Laser Mechanisms, started with some introductory questions and statements by each of the panel members, including Silke Pflueger, general manager of DirectPhotonics, Ron Schaeffer, CEO of PhotoMachining, and Marianna Forrest, president of LasAp. As we described in our 2015 Annual Laser Market Review & Forecast in the January 2015 issue of Laser Focus World, Forrest recounted her early experience with lasers for body in white applications whereby she became somewhat of a pest to managers as she attempted to champion the use of lasers in numerous automotive applications.
At that time, lasers were expensive, complex, and in many cases, not able to compete with conventional mechanical processes. Fast-forward to 2015 and Forrest as well as other panel members agreed that this mentality in the industrial space no longer exists, thanks to laser advances that make them competitive and in many cases, the only solution in many manufacturing environments.
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Among the industrial laser applications that the panel sees as growing in the coming years are rail-car manufacturing, automotive, especially for new carbon-reinforced fiber composites and aluminum bodies, and for small micromachining applications. The panel says that there is a lot of headroom for the penetration of laser technology for welding and brazing. For example, flatness specifications on many metallic components absolutely require the low-heat-affected zone of laser brazing and soldering. Also, Schaeffer noted that medical device processing applications emerge every day in his business. The panel also wanted to point out the companies like Apple and Google are hiring laser people as the trend continues towards the use of lasers in everything manufacturing related. These companies are recognizing that in-house laser expertise can accelerate the implementation of laser technology in the many manufacturing processes that are required for consumer electronics, gaming, and even wearable medical devices.
3D printing
This year, Laser Focus World had a lunchtime speaker talking about 3D printing–one of the hottest growth areas in photonics (and in non-photonic applications as well). While some audience members felt that a lunchtime speaker took away some of the valuable networking time at the conference, the presentation by John Dexheimer, president of LightWave Advisors, did not disappoint.
Dexheimer cited the McKinsey forecast that says the 3D printing industry will amount to $550 billion dollars by 2025. Even if lasers get 5% of that, Dexheimer exclaimed, that would be a huge windfall for laser manufacturers already in the 3D printing, additive manufacturing, laser sintering, or polymerization space, just to name a few aspects of the 3D printing business. One only needs to watch the GE nozzle video (see below) to see the benefits of moving from 18 individual parts down to one 3D printed component that requires no welding.
3D printing continues to gain favor in applications that seek more lightweight components with added functionality not possible using traditional subtractive processes. Compared to photonics, Dexheimer sees 3D printing as a more “vertical” business requiring hardware equipment, software, process control expertise, and distribution. Will stocks tumble like the telecom markets after the initial hype is over? Dexheimer doesn’t think so–knowing that one of the strengths of 3D printing is the elimination not only of expensive tooling and molding costs, but the elimination of many post-processing steps that confound more traditional methods.
Tomi Engdahl says:
RepRap: Prusa i3 Rework
http://hackaday.io/project/4697-reprap-prusa-i3-rework
Build log of first go at putting together a 3D printer
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Molds and Silicone Caulking
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/13/3d-printed-molds-and-silicone-caulking/
Have you ever had a pair of ear buds fit perfectly out of the package? Probably not. Well, [Joe] decided to take matters into his own hands and cast his own silicone ear bud covers custom made for him.
The traditional route would have been to make an ear bud model, make a mold from it, cast a copy from it… etc, etc. But [Joe] wanted to try something else — he designed and 3D printed the two-part mold, and used plain old silicone caulking to fill it.
The golden ratio [Joe] found was about 5:1 silicone to cornstarch, which resulted in a cure time of about 20 minutes.
After curing you just need to trim off the excess silicone.
http://hackaday.io/project/4644-3d-printed-molds-custom-silicone-earbuds
Tomi Engdahl says:
LEGO Based 3Doodler Uses Regular Filament
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/13/lego-based-3doodler-uses-regular-filament/
As part of a university research project, [Vimal Patel] was asked to make something out of biodegradable 3D printer filament.
He started by experimenting with the 3D printer filament in the UP 3D printers the university had on hand.
he was able to build his own custom extruder using a hot glue gun, and some LEGO. It’s kind of like a 3Doodler, but much more bulky.
LEGO Set MOC-2629 – Lego 3D printer extruder
http://rebrickable.com/mocs/vmln8r/lego-3d-printer-extruder
Tomi Engdahl says:
New 3D Printing Process Claimed To Be 25X Faster Than Current Technology
http://build.slashdot.org/story/15/03/17/0213210/new-3d-printing-process-claimed-to-be-25x-faster-than-current-technology
Carbon3D, a startup based in Redwood City, CA. has just announced a new breakthrough 3D printing technology called Continuous Liquid Interface Production technology (CLIP). The process works by using oxygen as an inhibiting agent as a UV light rapidly cures a photosensitive resin
Carbon3D Unveils Breakthrough CLIP 3D Printing Technology, 25-100X Faster
http://3dprint.com/51566/carbon3d-clip-3d-printing/
The technology that the company calls Continuous Liquid Interface Productiongo technology (CLIP) works by harnessing the power of light and oxygen to cure a photosensitive resin. Sounds an awful lot like Stereolithography (SLA) technology, doesn’t it? While it uses principles we see within a typical SLA process, where a laser or projector cures a photosensitive resin, Carbon3D’s CLIP process strays greatly from the technology that we are all used to seeing.
Instead of printing an object layer-by-layer, which leads to incredibly slow speeds as well as a weak overall structure similar to that of shale, this new diaprocess harnesses light as a way to cure the resin, and oxygen as an inhibiting agent, to print in true 3-dimensional fashion.
“Current 3D printing technology has failed to deliver on its promise to revolutionize manufacturing,” said Dr. Joseph DeSimone, CEO and Co-Founder, Carbon3D. “Our CLIP technology offers the game-changing speed, consistent mechanical properties and choice of materials required for complex commercial quality parts.”
By bringing oxygen into the equation, a traditionally mechanical technique for 3D printing suddenly becomes a tunable photochemical process
It’s going to be very interesting to see just how this technology ultimately plays out, and when it may come to market
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ina Fried / Re/code:
Carbon3D’s 3-D printing grows objects from a pool of resin, is 25-100 times faster than conventional layer by layer method
http://recode.net/2015/03/16/startup-says-new-3-d-printing-technique-could-shift-use-from-prototype-to-production/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adding Recycling Codes To 3D Prints
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/18/adding-recycling-codes-to-3d-prints/
Every little plastic bauble you interact with has some sort of recycling code on it somewhere. Now that we’re producing plastic 3D printed parts at home, it would be a good idea to agree on how to recycle all those parts, and [Joshua Pearce]’s lab at Michigan Tech has the answer; since we’re printing these objects, we can just print the recycling code right in the object.
The US system of plastic recycling codes is particularly ill-suited for identifying what kind of plastic the object in question is made of; there are only seven codes, while China’s system of plastic identification uses 140 identification codes. This system for labeling 3D printed parts borrows heavily from the Chinese system, assigning ABS as ‘9’, PLA as ’92’, and HIPS as ‘108’.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BeagleBones At MRRF
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/22/beaglebones-at-mrrf/
Of interest at the BeagleBooth were a few capes specifically designed for CNC and 3D printing work. There was the CRAMPS, a clone of the very popular RAMPS 3D printer electronics board made for the Beagle. If you’re trying to control an old mill that is only controllable through a parallel port, here’s the board for you. There are 3D printer boards with absurd layouts that work well as both printer controller boards and the reason why you should never come up with the name of something before you build it.
http://reprap.org/wiki/CRAMPS
Tomi Engdahl says:
Take a Spin on this Voice-Controlled 3D Scanning Rig
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/22/take-a-spin-on-this-voice-controlled-3d-scanning-rig/
[Aldric Negrier] wanted to make 3D-scanning a person streamlined and simple. To that end, he created this voice-controlled 3D-scanning rig.
[Aldric] used a variety of hacking skills to make this project, and his thorough Instructable illustrates this nicely. Everything from CNC milling to Arduino programming to 3D-printing was incorporated into the making of this rig.
Autonomous / Voice Controlled – 3D Scanning Rig For 3D Printing
http://www.instructables.com/id/Autonomous-Voice-Controlled-3D-Scanning-Rig/
Tomi Engdahl says:
MRRF: MakerOS for Maker Business Management
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/22/mrrf-makeros-for-maker-business-management/
If you’re a maker business, making the things is usually your chief concern, whether you’re 3D printing widgets or milling them. But if you don’t put enough time and energy into things like client interaction and payments, you may find that you don’t have customers. [Mike Moceri] was tired of bloated systems like Salesforce that cost entirely too much for what they are. He created makerOS to help maker businesses be more effective without wasting time, starting with his own—a Detroit-based 3D printing, design, and prototyping firm called Manulith.
When a business registers with makerOS, they get a custom subdomain. makerOS is white-label software that provides a dashboard for the business owner and opens the lines of communication between maker and client. The client sees their own dashboard, and here they can can fill out a short form to describe what they want and upload photos and files from common cloud services.
The operating system for your
maker business
The simple + complete platform for your 3D printing service
http://makeros.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Motorcycle Weighs Only 18kg
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/24/3d-printed-motorcycle-weighs-only-18kg/
After discovering 3D printing a few years ago, [Jonathan Brand] was hooked. He loved the ability to design things on a computer, and then have them realized as a real 3D object he can touch — sometimes within hours of doing the CAD work. He’s always wanted a motorcycle, but it was never the right time so at long last he decided to print one.
First off — no, it doesn’t actually work — it’s a 1:1 scale model of a 1972 Honda CB500. But it is an amazing testament to 3D printing and prototyping.
Jonathan Brand 3D printed motorcycle
https://ultimaker.com/en/stories/view/38-jonathan-brand-3d-printed-motorcycle
Tomi Engdahl says:
MRRF: Flexible 3D Printing
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/24/mrrf-flexible-3d-printing/
The concession stand at the Midwest Rep Rap Festival did not disappoint when it came to the expected fare: hot dogs, walking tacos, and bananas for scale. But the yummiest things there could not be bought—the Nutella prints coming off the Ultimaker² at the structur3D booth.
Hey, what? Yes, an Ultimaker² that can print in Nutella, icing sugar, silicone, latex, wood filler, conductive ink, polyurethane, peanut butter, and a growing list to which you should contribute. This is possible because of their Discov3ry Universal Paste Extruder add-on, which is compatible with most filament printers, especially those that use a RAMPs or Arduino control board.
Discov3ry Paste Extruder
http://www.structur3d.io/
The Discov3ry offers printing enthusiasts a simple, ingenious and affordable hardware add-on solution for printing a wide range of pastes. Allowing makers to go beyond plastic.
Discov3ry works with any stepper based desktop 3D printer system.
The Discov3ry system uses a syringe based, open cartridge system which keeps your printing materials separate. Switching from silicone to icing sugar is safe and seamless.
Each cartridge holds over 60cc (cubic centimetres) of your printing material. This is enough material for several prints. Unused material can be capped and saved for later.
SOME OF THE MATERIALS WE HAVE SUCCESSFULLY TESTED ON THE DISCOV3RY:
Silicone – Direct from Home Depot.
Icing Sugar – Store bought or homemade.
Nutella – Who doesn’t love Nutella?
Wood Filler – Great for crafts.
Polyurethane – Durable applications around the house.
Latex – Perfect for flexible applications.
Many more
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pint-sized printer delivers pro-quality 3D performance at entry-level price point
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4438905/Pint-sized-printer-delivers-pro-quality-3D-performance-at-entry-level-price-point–?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150324&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150324&elq=8cb72af89e1f4f41ba1a4f5f7ed00bc4&elqCampaignId=22218&elqaid=24955&elqat=1&elqTrackId=25408b388d33483d9d30b8598a577bce
Aleph Objects’ TAZ Mini 3D printer is a value-priced version of the popular LulzBot TAZ series which trades a smaller printing volume for a lower retail price without sacrificing either quality or performance.
Aimed at budget-minded 3D printer enthusiasts and would-be Makers, the compact unit priced at $1,350 and still offers a generous 152mm x 152mm x 158mm (6in x 6in x 6.2in) print area. Like its larger counterpart, the Mini is based on the TAZ open-source architecture but is built on a powder-coated aluminum chassis which Aleph says is more rugged and even more rigid than the big TAZ’s extruded aluminum framework.
Aleph says that the Mini’s higher print quality and wider range of materials are made possible by the latest LulzBot Hexagon hot end.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Australian Company Creates Even Faster 3D Printer
http://build.slashdot.org/story/15/03/24/224209/australian-company-creates-even-faster-3d-printer
One of the major reasons 3D printing hasn’t really caught on is because it’s an incredibly slow process. Just last week a company called Carbon3D unveiled a super fast new 3D printing process that utilizes oxygen and light. Now, another company — Gizmo 3D — has unveiled an even faster 3D printing process
Has This Australian Company Just One-Upped Carbon3D’s Super Fast 3D Printer?
http://3dprint.com/53286/gizmo-3d-printers-fastest/
last week that we reported on a company called Carbon3D, who had just unveiled a “breakthrough” 3D printing process referred to as Continuous Liquid Interface Production technology (CLIP).
Now, less than a week later, 3DPrint.com has been informed by a company called Gizmo 3D, that they too are working on a super fast SLA style 3D printer, which may actually one-up the Carbon3D system, as far as speed and print quality go.
While the Gizmo 3D printer uses Direct Light Processing (DLP) technology in order to create solid objects out of liquid resin, their method is not the same as that used in other DLP 3D printers on the market today, nor is it the same as the method that Carbon3D has unveiled, although similar.
What makes du Toit’s methodology so incredible and so fast, is that instead of printing in broken layers, with quick flashes of a projected image from the DLP projector, his layers are printed like an animation, without any breaks between frames. The build plate, full of resin, continuously moves downward while this animation plays. Currently he calls this method of printing “continuous printing” but says that “animated printing” might even be a better term.
According to du Toit, there is another benefit to his 3D printer which is not known to exist with Carbon3D’s machine.
“I believe the continues printing method that Carbon 3D is using, and what I am using, can really only be used on thin walls,”
Well, currently he is working on lauching a Kickstarter campaign for this technology, while he also needs to work on patenting his innovations, so much of it still remains a secret.
“I am using the same DLP technology as everybody else building bottom-up printers, except mine is a top-down,” he tells us. “I just have special features that set it apart. [There is] one top secret that needs to be patented”
In all, there will be 3 different models of printers offered via the Kickstarter campaign, which is scheduled to launch sometime this coming September, if all goes as planned.
One of the great benefits of these machines, just like that of other DLP based 3D printers, is the fact that the printing process doesn’t slow down when new objects are added to the build plate. This is because the projector has the ability to display multiple animations at once.
If all goes as planned, like mentioned above, you should be able to pre-order your very own Gizmo 3D printer starting at just $2,500 this coming September.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MRRF: Hot Ends, Extruders, Extremely Posh Brits, and Stoic Swedes
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/25/mrrf-hot-ends-extruders-extremely-posh-brits-and-stoic-swedes/
[Martin] of bondtech.se came to MRRF all the way from Sweden. He was there showing off his new extruder.
The extruder uses a normal stepper motor, but instead of the usual knurled or threaded feed wheel and bearing to push filament though, he’s using two counter-rotating feed wheels attached to a planetary gear system. That’s a lot of torque that doesn’t distort or strip the filament.
Even if your filament isn’t exactly 1.75 or 3mm in diameter, this setup will still reliably push plastic
[Sanjay] and [Josh] from E3D came all the way from merry olde England to show off a few of their wares. The star of their show was the Cyclops extruder, a dual-extrusion hot end that’s two input, one output. Yes, two colors can come out of one nozzle.
If you see a printer advertised as being dual extrusion, what you’re going to get is two extruders and two hot ends. This is the kludgy way to do things – the elegant solution is to make two colors come out of one nozzle.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wrapping Up The Last Midwest RepRap Festival
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/27/wrapping-up-the-last-midwest-reprap-festival/
promised the world’s largest 3D printed trash can, and I gave you the world’s largest 3D printed trash can. This gigantic orange vase was printed on the PartDaddy, SeeMeCNC’s 18-foot tall delta printer a few months ago at the NYC Maker Faire.
The PartDaddy sucks PLA pellets up from a trash can (that’s not 3D printed), and dispenses it into a hopper above the print head.
NEW FILAMENTS
For the last few months, metal filaments – PLA with tiny particles of copper, brass, bronze, iron, or aluminum have been available. MRRF was the first place where you could see them all together. A few things of note: these filaments are heavy – the printed objects actually feel like they’re made out of metal. They’re actually metal, too: the iron-based filaments had a tiny bit of red corrosion, and the Lincoln death mask above was treated with acetic acid. These filaments are also expensive, around $100 for 1kg. Still, if you want to print something that will be around in 100 years, this is what you should get.
Because you can use Peltiers to heat and cool a bed, a little bit of GCode at the end of a print will cool the bed to below room temperature. If you do your design right, this means the print will just fall over when it’s done.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Mechanical Keyboard
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/29/3d-printed-mechanical-keyboard/
Tired of buying boring keyboards with almost no customization available? We’ve seen lots of keyboard hacks before, but if you want to take it a step further — why not make it from scratch and have it 3D printed?
Reddit user [Wildpanic] has just finished his first attempt at a 3D printed keyboard and he’s even shared the files to make it over at Thingiverse. The frame is entirely 3D printed, but he’s chosen to use pre-manufactured key switches, which is probably for the best.
3D Mech keyboard
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:731801
Tomi Engdahl says:
Let’s say you want a carbon fiber quadcopter frame. What’s the most reasonable thing you can do? 3D print a CNC machine, obviously. That’s a 200mm FPV racer cut from 1mm and 3mm carbon fiber sheets, but the real story here is the CNC machine. It’s a PortalCyclone, and even the cable chains are 3D printed.
http://www.cyclonecnc.4fan.cz/portalcyclone/
http://aeroquad.com/showthread.php?9774-200mm-H-FPV-Racer
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fail of the Week: Easy Cheese? Printer Says No
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/31/fail-of-the-week-easy-cheese-printer-says-no/
[Andrew] here has created a 3D-printed arm that holds a can of aerosol cheese-like substance in place.
There are a couple of issues at play.
What do you think about the viability of cheese printing?
Easy Cheese 3D Printer: Initial Testing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCy0NEbJf4s
Tomi Engdahl says:
HD 3d printing pizza on a contract from NASA HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYB559Is9Y0
Systems and Materials Research Corporation (SMRC) is experimenting with 3D printing of food on a contract from NASA. Their pizza printer uses open source technology to “print” dough, sauce and cheese onto a platform with a heating element underneath.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pancakes: My 1st digital recipe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3O19n_JqXU
Tomi Engdahl says:
13 Amazing Things You Can Make With a 3-D Printer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wWG_3MeyHk
Tomi Engdahl says:
More MRRF, This Time A Roundtable
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/02/more-mrrf-this-time-a-roundtable/
The first video covers the introductions for these very prominent 3D printer developers and their views on what future advances in 3D printers will be, the differences between Delta, Cartesian, and Polar bots (there aren’t many), and when resin printers will start to pick up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Pogo Pin Programmer
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/06/3d-printed-pogo-pin-programmer/
The new hotness for Internet of Things hardware is the ESP8266. Alone it can connect to a WiFi network, but it doesn’t really have a lot of output options. Paired with an ATMega, and you really have something. That’s the philosophy behind the WIOT board, and when [Chris] was assembling these boards, he needed a way to flash firmware. The board has an unpopulated ISP header from the assembler, so pogo pins are the answer. How do you make a pogo pin jig? With a 3D printer, of course.
Upgraded Programming Clip for AVR / Arduino boards
https://cockrum.net/cnc_projects.html#progclip2
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing Different Colors with a Single Extruder
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/06/3d-printing-different-colors-with-a-single-extruder/
Let’s be honest, multi-extruder 3D printers don’t work the greatest — even MakerBot decided to get rid of the feature in their latest line of printers. So what are you going to do when you want to print a multi-colored object with your trusty single extruder? Pause the print like a savage and exchange the filament? No, no, it’s much easier than that — well, you’re still going to have to switch the filament.
[Jan Henrik] has put together a simple script in OpenScad to split up 3D files into layers in order to facilitate printing in multiple colors (or even materials).
Rainbow-Space-Invader
https://github.com/Jan–Henrik/Rainbow-Space-Invader
With the OpenScad sketch provided, you can print multi/rainbow colored objects/space Invaders. To do so, the sketch will slice your object into levels, which you can print level by level with a different color. It will also provide structure, wich will the printer allow to stack and align the levels perfectly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smartphone-Enabled Replicators Are 3-5 Years Away, Caltech Professor Says
http://build.slashdot.org/story/15/04/07/2228257/smartphone-enabled-replicators-are-3-5-years-away-caltech-professor-says
In just a few years, we could see the mass proliferation of DIY, smartphone-enabled replicators. At least, Caltech electrical engineering professor Ali Hajimiri and his team of researchers thinks so. They’ve developed a very tiny, very powerful 3D imager that can easily fit in a mobile device
Smartphone-Enabled Replicators Are 3-5 Years Away, Caltech Professor Says
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/smartphone-enabled-replicators-may-be-three-to-five-years-away
Hajimiri claims the imager may soon allow consumers to snap a photo of just about anything, and then, with a good enough 3D printer, use it to create a real-life replica “accurate to within microns of the original object.”
It’s called the nanophotonic coherent imager (NCI), and it’s small—it spans just a single square millimeter, and therefore easy to integrate into a smartphone—and cheap, since it’s made out of silicon, like most sensors. It is also exceedingly accurate, Hajimiri says—it utilizes LIDAR, a remote detection and sensing technique that bathes the intended object in lasers.
The light that is reflected off of the object is then picked up by on-chip detectors, called grating couplers, that serve as ‘pixels,’ as the light detected from each coupler represents one pixel on the 3D image.”
Hamiri tells me he sees the technology moving to mass market in three to five years.
There’s a strict limit on what consumers could be able to print, of course, imposed by the quality of the fabricator available and the materials at hand. But 3D printer (and Star Trek) enthusiasts will no doubt be enthused by the prospect—hell, one of Makerbot’s popular product lines is called the Replicator.
Tomi Engdahl says:
We Have a Problem: Mass Versus Local Production
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/09/we-have-a-problem-mass-versus-local-production/
Hackaday, we have a problem. We’re trying to engineer a brighter future; a task that calls for a huge mental leap. This week, instead of discussing a concrete problem
Shipping Mass Produced vs. Producing Locally
Standard practice is that the part be ordered from a parts supplier (either by you or by a serviceman). These suppliers keep a stock of common parts which are well documented in a huge library of service manuals for the myriad of home appliances out there. But when you get right down to it, it’s just a little plastic bauble. Let’s assume all of these are made in a single factory in huge production runs that supply both the manufacturer and the legacy parts houses. What if instead of this you could have these parts 3D printed by a business within 500 miles of where they are needed. There are industrial-grade 3D printing techniques that produce parts strong enough to act as a replacement. Where do you come down on resource saving between the two methods?
We want to hear your ideas on local production versus centralized mass production.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Report: Chinese Government Plans To Put 3D Printers In All Elementary Schools
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/04/13/0156209/report-chinese-government-plans-to-put-3d-printers-in-all-elementary-schools
The Chinese government has a new plan to install a 3D printer in each of its approximately 400,000 elementary schools over the next two years. Education is probably one of the areas that will benefit the most from 3D printers in the long run.
Chinese Government to Put 3D Printers in All 400,000 Elementary Schools by Next Year
http://3dprint.com/56699/china-3d-printers-schools/
Education is probably one of the areas that will benefit the most from 3D printers in the long run. The problem though is getting the machines into the schools in the first place. With prices generally ranging from $400 to $3,000 for typical desktop 3D printers, they are not cheap, and with budgets within many school districts running dry, both in the United States and overseas, the unfortunate fact is that many schools simply can’t afford them, not to mention the materials and time it takes to train teachers to use them.
Speaking with former MakerBot CEO, Jenny Lawton, at CES this year, she told me that 3D printing will become mainstream and really begin to explode as far as adoption rates go, when a full cycle of education has been exposed to the technology. Just like many of us who were exposed in school to desktop computing back in the ’80s and ’90s can’t envision not having access to a computers now, the children of today may one day think the same about 3D printers.
The United States clearly understands the importance of this technology, particularly President Obama.
According to Shen, the Chinese government has a new policy to install a 3D printer in each of its approximately 400,000 elementary schools over the next two years
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese Government to Put 3D Printers in All 400,000 Elementary Schools by Next Year
http://3dprint.com/56699/china-3d-printers-schools/
Education is probably one of the areas that will benefit the most from 3D printers in the long run. The problem though is getting the machines into the schools in the first place. With prices generally ranging from $400 to $3,000 for typical desktop 3D printers, they are not cheap, and with budgets within many school districts running dry, both in the United States and overseas, the unfortunate fact is that many schools simply can’t afford them, not to mention the materials and time it takes to train teachers to use them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making Funhouse Mirror Lenses
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/16/making-funhouse-mirror-lenses/
There were two techniques tested while making these lenses. The first was the old standby, CNC milling. A piece of acrylic was put in a CNC and carved with a 1/2″ ball mill. The second technique was 3D printing on a very fancy and very expensive Objet Connex 500. Neither of these methods produce a ready to use lens; to get a finished lens out of the machined or printed objects, [Robb] had to wet sand with 240, 320, 400, 600, 1000, 1500, and 2000 grit sandpaper. After a few hours worth of sanding, the parts were polished with a scratch remover.
Making a lens like this isn’t really that novel – it’s basically the same way lenses have been made for 500 years.
3D Printed Weird Lenses
http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-Custom-Lenses/?ALLSTEPS
The world of optics and lens manufacturing has traditionally been closed off to non-experts. It doesn’t have to be that way. Using rapid prototyping tools like 3D printers and CNC routers, making a lens is easier than you might think.
You can use the technique outlined in this Instructable to make very large lenses, lenses that produce special effects, and sculptural lenses with freeform shapes. You’ll need to know how to use a CNC router or have access to a nice 3D printer. With one of the two you’ll be able to start making lenses right away.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Prodigu Vows to Offer Affordable 3D Printed Prosthetics
http://www.intuitlabs.com/blog/prodigy-vows-to-offer-affordable-3d-printed-prosthetics/
LaChappelle’s tenacious commitment to creating affordable prosthetics came after meeting a 7-year-old girl with an $80,000 prosthetic limb. Knowing she’d need multiple throughout her lifetime, he vowed to design a robotic arm for under $1,000.
“My goal is to help people,” LaChappelle said. “I saw an opportunity to change this industry and make the world a better place by giving back. And it has turned into something I never expected. I believe it’s the future.”
The wireless EEG-capable headset senses 10 different channels of brainwaves, which control the arm. The arm is more functional than a traditional prosthesis and stronger than a human hand. LaChappelle said the next generation of the arm will be capable of sustaining 50 pounds of pressure on each finger.
“We’re confident in our ability and wanted to create a control system, which is open-source,” he said. “All of the modeling, electronic design, 3D printing and software is new. Somehow everything worked flawlessly.”
“There is very little that will limit you,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Review: Printrbot Assembled Simple Metal
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/17/review-printrbot-assembled-simple-metal/