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.
2,050 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Slashdot: For What Are You Using 3-D Printing?
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/15/06/28/236231/ask-slashdot-for-what-are-you-using-3-d-printing
I’ve been thinking about getting a 3-D printer for a while: the quality is rising, the software is better, STL files really do seem a sufficiently good standard (“sufficiently standard,” that is — I’m not worried that printers are going to stop supporting it anytime soon), and prices have dropped quite a bit. Importantly to me, it also seems like less of a jumping-off-a-cliff decision, since I can get a completely assembled one from places as wild and crazy as … the Home Depot
Comments:
Most stuff people interact with don’t get 105 degrees C though. If you needed to make an enclosure for something or fix a piece of existing ABS/PLA plastic that broke, that’s what you use a 3D printer for. You can also make prototypes for objects that you then send to a commercial printer, laser cutting facility or CNC mill to get created in the appropriate material.
With a 3D printer you could run a ~19th century machine shop from your own home. You don’t use the 3D printed model. You use it to check fit up and then to turn it into molds.
You can melt iron with used motor oil even charcoal. Sand casting is still used almost everywhere for cast iron.
Give me a 3D printer big enough and I’ll build you a tractor. Engine and all.
They’re quite useful if you know what you’re doing. For example, you have some kind of toy, gadget, device and whatnot…that’s missing the battery cover? Hard to find…even on eBay, so what do you do? Fire up your favourite 3D software and make one. Works like a charm.
If you’re working in advertisement/merchandise production… you can make small prototype samples of what you want to have mass produced, this ensures that your oversea production don’t get it wrong (and they always do, trust me!) Shipping a sample of what you want mass produced, is a dream come true, and fortunately for (me) most of my competitors have no clue that this can be done, so they still do it the old fashioned way (try to tell the production team with drawings and talk over the phone with a foreign team that hardly understands English).
It’s nice to quickly be able do design and print replacements for stuff I happen to break without having to visit a store and adhere to opening hours
Well, the things that I tend to do most often is make my own tools for fairly specific tasks.
I use mine for all sorts of things. Missing battery covers, custom enclosures (Working on making a custom instrument panel for my project car powered by some 328p’s), missing knobs and dials.
A 3D printer is great for people who know CAD.
Simply put, if you know CAD or are willing to learn, 3D printers are great. If you are only going to print what other people have made, don’t bother. After the toys and other tat, you will lose interest and probably feel like you wasted your money.
The things that I print range pretty widely:
- 3D printed prosthetics for people. See http://www.enablingthefuture.o… [enablingthefuture.org] . Yes, home printers can make prosthetics that hold up to real world use, and for a lot of people (particularly kids and uninsured) the difference between $50 and $5,000 is insurmountable. Of course you should work with a professional if you can, for obvious reasons, but they’re getting into 3d printed prosthetics.
- Parts that you can’t buy. For example, a clip in my dishwasher broke, and the manufacturer only wanted to sell the whole drawer assembly for $400. So I printed my own, which have lasted for years. (Nylon)
- And parts that you can buy, but it’s more fun (or cheaper) to make your own. Like a replacement watch band for the Pebble.
- Scans. I have a portable scanner (structure.io) and I scan people at Maker Faires and F&SF Conventions. Fun to share and print.
- Art. I like designing things and printing them because they look cool. And there’s tons of great art to download.
- Personalized/unique stuff. I’ve published tons of designs using Thingiverse Customizer, that let you personalize or randomly generate a unique pen, your wallet, minions, snowflakes, etc.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing Binaural Microphones
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/28/3d-printing-binaural-microphones/
Binaural audio is probably the coolest thing you can listen to with a pair of headphones. Instead of just a single microphone, binaural recordings use two microphones, set inside an analog for a human head, to replicate exactly what you would hear if you were there.
The only way to record binaural audio is with fake plastic ears attached to a dummy head.
The ears used in this microphone setup are taken from a Thingiverse project by [Jonathan March].
The results? It sounds awesome
OpenBinaural
Low-cost 3D-printable binaural microphone.
https://github.com/carlosgs/OpenBinaural
Tomi Engdahl says:
Semi-Automatic Bed Leveling Your 3D Printer
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/29/semi-automatic-bed-leveling-your-3d-printer/
Two of the most important prerequisites for successful 3D printing is making sure the bed is level and correctly setting the Z=0 height. Getting both of these right almost guarantees great adhesion since the first print layer is not only at the right distance from the build platform but also at a consistent distance for the entire bottom surface of the part.
Manual bed leveling is tedious
[Jonas] posted a video showing the semi-automatic bed leveling capability of his printer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hope it’s real: 3D Printing Houses with Bricks
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/29/hope-its-real-3d-printing-houses-with-bricks/
You’ve just got to go with the hype on this one, because it’s obviously not ready for prime time yet. But a few days ago murmurs started circling the net that an Australian inventor had developed a robot capable of building complicated structure from brick all by itself.
We were excited at the prospect of extruding walls of concrete. But this is more like LEGO buildings in the real world. The beast cuts brick to length, conveys each brick along the telescoping arm, and butters them as it lays them in place.
We’re hearing about this now because FastBrick Robotics, the company [Mark Pivac] founded and has spent ten years developing the Hadrian project at, was just sold to a company called DMY Capital Limited. Of course they’re going to want to get some press out of the sale.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Etching PCBs With A 3D Printer
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/29/etching-pcbs-with-a-3d-printer/
There are dozens of circuit board printers out there that lay down traces of conductive ink and ask you to glue down components to a fragile circuit board. This is a far cry from the old way of making PCBs, but these printers are going gangbusters, cashing in on the recent popularity of hardware startups and rapid prototyping.
People who think deeply about a problem are few and far between, but lucky for us [Arvid] is one of them. He’s come up with a way of creating PCBs with any 3D printer and steel rod. The results are better than anything you could make with a circuit board printer, and the technique is very, very cheap.
[Arvid] is using the traditional method of etching away copper, just some ferric chloride and a bit of time.
Making PCB with 3D printer and permanent marker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNh0ubRcTYU
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meet the Makers of an Exotic (Partially) 3-D Printed Car (2 Videos)
http://build.slashdot.org/story/15/07/01/1922241/meet-the-makers-of-an-exotic-partially-3-d-printed-car-2-videos?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Tomi Engdahl says:
Naval Research Interested In Bringing 3D Printing To Large Scale For Ships
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/07/02/2230246/naval-research-interested-in-bringing-3d-printing-to-large-scale-for-ships
The Navy this month will outline what it is looking for from additive manufacturing or 3D printing technology as way to bolster what it terms “fleet readiness.”
Navy goes all-in on 3D printing technology
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2943724/it-skills-training/navy-goes-all-in-on-3d-printing-technology.html
Office of Naval Research interested in bringing 3D printing to large scale for ships, aircraft
The Navy this month will outline what it is looking for from additive manufacturing or 3D printing technology as way to bolster what it terms “fleet readiness.”
The Office of Naval Research will on July 15 detail its Quality Metal Additive Manufacturing (Quality MADE) program that will aim to “develop and integrate the suite of additive manufacturing software and hardware tools required to ensure that critical metallic components can be consistently produced and rapidly qualified in a cost
n particular, technology development is required to reduce the time and cost of associated with deploying qualified/certified AM metallic components for use in Naval Air, Sea, and Ground platforms,” ONR stated. While additive manufacturing is currently being used or explored across the Naval Enterprise, technology development is still necessary to accelerate the use of additively manufactured metallic components particularly analogs of Titanium and Aluminum for castings.
The idea is that the Navy could make needed parts onboard ships at sea including aircraft parts for planes on aircraft carriers. The issues that could challenge the plan are storage of needed manufacturing components and the sheer size of some parts on ships and aircraft.
”Additive manufacturing has the potential to be a truly disruptive technology and shows great promise for supporting Naval Sea Systems components,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Reasons Paper-based 3D Printing is Better
http://mcortechnologies.com/10-reasons-white-paper/?utm_source=10+Reasons+Paper+is+Better+WP+Remail&utm_campaign=10+Reasons+WP+Email+Blast&utm_medium=email
Download this complimentary white paper and learn:
The advantages paper has over other 3D printer materials
The importance of multiple 3D printing technologies in your toolbox
Applications and environments best suited for paper-based 3D printers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Extreme Reduction Gearing Device Offers an Amazing Gear Ratio
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/07/06/2215233/extreme-reduction-gearing-device-offers-an-amazing-gear-ratio
The 3D printed extreme reduction gearing device, created by long-time puzzle maker M. Oskar van Deventer
a ratio of 11,373,076 : 1. This 3D printed reduction gearing device is compact and multi-colored, and looks deceivingly simple at first glance.
3D Printed Extreme Reduction Gearing Device Offers Exponential Force of 1 by 11 Million
http://3dprint.com/79049/3d-printed-extreme-reduction/
Whether you are an engineer, maker, or both–or just learning–you are going to find M. Oskar van Deventer’s 3D printed extreme reduction device to be impressive–and maybe a little puzzling, too.
The multi-colored, 3D printed device is compact, with separate gears designated by the multi-colored design skipping a ‘tooth’ with each turn. With a crank and planetary gears built into the first gear or ring, it works to drive the next ring, which moves in the opposite direction. This means that the green ring is moving forward, and the red ring is moving backward, almost at the exactly the same speed, with the net effect being a one to eleven million gearing ratio due to an algorithm developed by van Deventer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Same Day Shipping for 3D Printed Parts! Now a Reality with CloudDDM at UPS Worldport
http://3dprint.com/77741/cloudddm-same-day-3d-printing/
Back in May, we reported on the launch of a startup called CloudDDM. They had just launched a huge factory with 100 3D printers and just 3 employees at the UPS Worldwide Hub, UPS Worldport, with plans of eventually expanding to as many as 1000 3D printers. With special automation systems, this looked to be a factory of the future.
Today, CloudDDM, a company which also happens to have the financial backing of UPS, through the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, looks to take things a step further. They have announced another first within the 3D printing industry. They are now shipping 3D printed parts out the very same day an order is placed. This is quite groundbreaking for an industry already lauded for vastly improving the speed of product prototyping.
Tomi Engdahl says:
In Search of 3D Printed Fiber Optics
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327107&
Fiber-optic cables are constructed by pulling heated glass into fine strands and surrounding them with other materials. Today’s manufacturing techniques can provide consistent material composition in a fiber. But, perhaps having the ability to create new compositions in fibers can lead to faster communications and new applications.
A research team at the University of Southampton is investigating a new way to construct optical fibers using 3D printing. This technique could lead to optical fibers that use a variety of glass materials, some of which could lead to better reflectivity within a fiber and thus result in lower losses.
“We will design, fabricate and employ novel Multiple Materials Additive Manufacturing (MMAM) equipment to enable us to make optical fibre preforms (both in conventional and microstructured fibre geometries) in silica and other host glass materials,” said Professor Jayanta Sahu of the University of Southampton in a press release. “Our proposed process can be utilised to produce complex preforms, which are otherwise too difficult, too time-consuming or currently impossible to be achieved by existing fabrication techniques.” The figure below shows a silia fiber drawing tower at The University of Southampton’s Zepler Institute.
3D printing will let the researchers build an optical fiber using ultra-pure glass powder, building the fiber in layers. The research team admits that the high melting temperature on silica (2000°C) will bring challenges to the construction.
Assuming that the team is successful at 3D-printing optical fibers, much testing will be needed. For these new fibers to be practical, they will need measurements for optical power loss, dispersion, physical strength, mounting to connectors, and a host of others.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printering: The Makerbot Class Action Suit
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/12/3d-printering-the-makerbot-class-action-suit/
Since the 5th generation of Makerbot 3D printers were released at CES in 2014, there has been an avalanche of complaints about the smart extruder in these printers. Clogs were common, and the recommended fix was to simply replace the extruder. The smart extruder is a $175 part, and the mean time before failure is somewhere between 200 and 500 hours. With these smart extruders, you’re looking at a new extruder every dozen prints or so. Combine this with Makerbot’s abdication of open source values, and it’s easy to see why no one in the know would buy a Makerbot.
The performance of the 5th gen Makerbots is also reflected in the Stratasys stock price. The stock has tanked, from a high of $130.83 in early 2014 to a low of $31.88 a few days ago. This has investors calling for blood, and now there’s a class action suit claiming Stratasys violated securities laws.
The court documents allege Stratasys and Makerbot touted the incredible ease of use and ‘unmatched’ quality of the 5th generation of Makerbots, while former Makerbot employees confirmed known issues with the smart extruder. The 5th gen Makerbots were rushed into production without proper testing for performance and reliability and no standardized testing and validation program. In short, Makerbot itself didn’t know how bad the smart extruder was, but shipped the product anyway. This in turn hurt sales, with one sales executive leaving the company as he “did not want to sell the 5th generation printers after learning about the defect issues because he has a ‘conscience’.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Automatically Designing 3D Printers From E-Waste
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/20/automatically-designing-3d-printers-from-e-waste/
No one wants to design consumer electronics that last longer than a few years. This trend is an ecological disaster, with millions of tons of computers, printers, fax machines and cell phones ending up in landfills.
[Masterperson] and [Maaphoo] have been working on a way to turn those tons of e-waste into something useful. They’ve come up with a framework for turning e-waste into 3D printers. With a clever application of Python and FreeCAD Macros, this project can generate a model of a 3D printer using motors, shafts, and bearings taken from discarded 2D printers.
Right now a printer can be configured by adding the parts you have on hand to a configuration file, running a Python macro in FreeCAD, and waiting until the macro generates the parts to build a cartesian bot. This macro also spits out the files for the parts that need to be printed, and can interface with Plater to optimize the placement of these printed parts on an existing printer.
E-Waste 3D Printer
Another Man’s Trash is Another’s 3D Printer
http://masterperson40.github.io/ewaste3Dprinter/
E-Waste 3D Printer uses python and FreeCAD to 3D model printable parts for the construction of more 3D printers. Through globalVars.py dimensions of procured e-waste are turned into customized 3D models. E-Waste 3D Printer’s software depends on FreeCAD’s python scripting API.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Repackaging a Webcam in a 3D Printed Enclosure
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/23/challenge-yourself-to-3d-print-a-solution-to-a-problem/
One of the beauties of having a 3D printer is the ability to print accessories for it to make it better. [Sky] had been using a Logitech C920 webcam to record some of his prints, but it wasn’t really designed to mount off a 3D printers frame. So he designed his own enclosure for it.
He started by taking the webcam apart, getting down to the bare PCB level and taking some measurements. It turned out to be pretty compact! He modeled a rough outline of it in SketchUp, and then started designing his new enclosure around it. After a few failed prints — thanks to the 3D printer company that shall not be named — he put it altogether and did some test fits. It worked!
3D Printed Design Self-Challenge: 3D Printer Webcam Mount / Housing – #0058
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHYlxcXf1UQ
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing with 2D Inkscape Projections
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/02/3d-printing-with-2d-inkscape-projections/
If you had a formal drafting class, you probably learned about making orthographic projections–engineering drawings with multiple views (for example, top, front, and right). Even if you didn’t take the class, you’ve probably seen drawings like this where you view a 3D object as a series of 2D views from different angles.
These days, you are more likely to create a 3D model of an object, especially if you are going to 3D print it. After all, the 3D printer software is going to expect a model. When [Nightshade] wanted a laptop stand for his workbench, he started trying to do a 3D model. His final product though, was made by creating two views in Inkscape. They aren’t exactly orthographic projections of the final product, but the idea is similar.
Inkscape is a vector graphics program and generally creates SVG files, although it can also save EPS files. [Nightshade] used pstoedit to convert the EPS output to DXF format. DXF files are still two dimensional, but OpenSCAD can extrude DXF files into 3D shapes.
Parabol: 3D printed laptop stand
http://wemakethings.net/2015/06/19/parabol-laptop-stand/
Tomi Engdahl says:
We Should 3D Scan People
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/30/we-should-3d-scan-people/
In a perfect futuristic world you have pre-emptive 3D scans of your specific anatomy. They’d be useful to compare changes in your body over time, and to have a pristine blueprint to aid in the event of a catastrophe. As with all futuristic worlds there are some problems with actually getting there. The risks may outweigh the rewards, and cost is an issue, but having 3D imaging of a sick body’s anatomy does have some real benefits. Take a journey with me down the rabbit hole of 3D technology and Gray’s Anatomy.
I jumped on this magic carpet ride after seeing several instances where 3D printed casts were being heralded as the new hotness. They are tailored for the patient’s limb, impervious to water, allow the skin to breathe, and can be designed with Low Intensity Pulsed Ultra Sonic (LIPUS) modules which clip into the cast’s structure to speed healing.
In thinking about a 3D printed cast, I wondered where they got the model for the cast. How do you know what the arm is supposed to look like when the bone is set and the swelling is gone? The answer is that they don’t. The x-ray of the bone, and a 3D scan of the currently broken (and undoubtedly swollen) arm are used to make the model. In other words, this is medically quite similar to wrapping plaster and bandages around the swollen arm after setting the bone.
I had a cast made of them. The idea is that I can take this along to an emergency dental visit and the dentist will use it to put my pearly whites back exactly as they were before the trauma. Could this work for bones as well? Maybe.
The problem is that breaking a bone isn’t like separating LEGO pieces that can be put back together exactly the same way.
Pivoting away from casts, imaging technology has long been the cutting edge in medicine. The machines themselves produce fantastic data, and we’ve seen examples of how using this data to assemble 3D models is hugely beneficial.
Unintended “Side Effects”
Even if we could find a great reason to image our bodies on a regular basis, it still can do more harm than good. One example is over-diagnosis. If you are scanned and examined regularly it increases the odds that some ailment will be found, and that includes false positives.
The solution is to take the NSA approach to full-body scanning. You collect the data but you don’t look at it.
The popularity of 3D printing has the power to revolutionize all realms of technology. But so far I’m still searching for the route that allows it to take widespread hold of how we repair our bodies and help them last longer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Bristle Bots (Robot Cockroaches!)
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/01/3d-printed-bristle-bots-robot-cockroaches/
Bristlebots are one of our favorite projects to teach young hackers the basics of electronics. They’re easy to build, fun, and most importantly — cute. Usually you make them out of the head of an old toothbrush and a cellphone vibrating motor, but [Kevin Osborn] figured out a way to 3D print the entire thing!
http://baldwisdom.com/droobots/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Full-color 3D printing is the number one need for schools. Mcor 3D printers provide educators with the world’s only high-definition, photorealistic color 3D printers at 10-20% the cost of any other 3D printing technology. Mcor 3D printers are also the safest and most eco-friendly.
As winner of 2015 SOLIDWORKS World Best-in-Show for hardware and 2015 CES Best-in-Show for 3D printers, Mcor Technologies is growing fast.
http://mcortechnologies.com/?utm_source=Dealer%20Recruitment%20email%20EDUCATION%20-%20July%202015&utm_campaign=Dealer%20Recruitment%20Email%20EDUCATION&utm_medium=email
http://mcortechnologies.com/school-art-institute-chicago-discovers-power-versatility-affordable-full-color-paper-based-3d-printing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gazan medico team 3D-prints world-leading stethoscope for 30c
Surgeons, hackers, on mission to provide near-free medical tech to developing world
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/14/printed_stethoscope_cccamp/
Tarek Loubani, an emergency physician working in the Gaza strip, has 3D-printed a 30 cent stethoscope that beats the world’s best $200 equivalent as part of a project to bottom-out the cost of medical devices.
Loubani together with a team of medical and technology specialists designed the stethoscope and tested it against global standard benchmarks, finding it out performed the gold-standard Littmann Cardiology 3.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Printing Flexible Lithium-Ion Batteries
Materials: A solid, printable electrolyte enables lithium-ion batteries to take many shapes
http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/08/Printing-Flexible-Lithium-Ion-Batteries.html
Engineers dreaming up new pacemakers, watches, or whatever wearable gadgets come after Google Glass have to tailor their designs around existing battery shapes—typically cylinders, pouches, or rectangles. But a team of researchers hopes their fully printable, flexible lithium-ion batteries will one day free designers from these constraints (Nano Lett. 2015, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01394).
Battery shapes are now limited because of the need to contain liquid electrolytes, which carry ions and charges between the two electrodes when the battery is being used or recharged. Solid-state batteries that use solid electrolytes could be printed to fit a particular device shape and would give designers more room to play. So far, though, there aren’t any solid-state lithium-ion batteries on the market, says Corie Cobb of PARC, a research company owned by Xerox, in Palo Alto, Calif., who is not involved in the new work. Lithium-ion is currently the best rechargeable battery chemistry—it lasts a long time, has a high energy density, and delivers that energy in powerful bursts.
To print working batteries, Lee’s group first creates printable inks by mixing previously developed battery-electrode material blends into the UV-curable polymer. They press ink for the anode through a stencil with a squeegee, cure it with UV light, then do the same with the electrolyte on top of the anode. They follow that with the cathode ink to create the full battery cell. Using this technique, the researchers printed a battery on the bridge of a pair of paper glasses and also put a heart-shaped battery on the curved surface of a glass mug. Lee says this stencil printing can be done on a massive scale.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Vice Holds Your Breadboards
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/14/3d-printed-vice-holds-your-breadboards/
While [Pat]’s inspiration came from the aforementioned Stickvise, the new 3d-printed vice is just what you’ll need before you’re ready to do the soldering. The vice is spring-loaded using rubber bands. The base is sized to fit a standard breadboard in the center with clamping arms on either side to hold dev boards such as an Arduino. This innovative yet simple de”vice” grips boards well enough that you won’t be chasing them around your desk, knocking wires out of place, anymore.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Color by Number 3D Printing Style
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/19/color-by-number-3d-printing-style/
Remember paint-by-number kits? Your canvas has outlines with numbered regions that you paint with correspondingly numbered paints. When you are done, you’ve recreated the Mona Lisa. [KurtH3] uses a similar technique to coax multicolor prints from his 3D printer.
The technique isn’t general purpose, but it still is an interesting way to add some color to your usually monochrome prints. The idea is simple: You find a paint-by-number layout
Here’s the trick: instead of extruding the 2D image as one piece, you extrude the numeric regions to slightly different heights. Say you wanted to print a red, white, and blue flag to a thickness of about 5mm and you use 0.2mm layers. You could extrude the white part to 5mm, for example. Then the red parts could be extruded to 5.02mm (one layer higher) and the white parts to 5.04mm. You could extend the idea to do multiple layers, although that will increase the surface roughness.
How to Color by Number with Your 3D Printer
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Color-by-Number-with-Your-3D-Printer/
You can “color by number” with your single head FDM 3D printer to make colorful projects that will leave people wondering how much you’ve spent on a full color 3D printer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to make a car with the 3doodler!
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-car-with-the-3doodler/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Drivers for 3D Printers and Why We Need Them
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/20/drivers-for-3d-printers-and-why-we-need-them/
Manufacturers of 3D printers have a lot to do before they catch up with makers of the cheapest 2D, paper-based printers. If you’ve ever taken an inkjet apart, you’ll most likely find some sort of closed-loop control on at least one of the axes. The 2D printer will tell you when you’re out of ink, when a 3D printer will go merrily along, printing in air without filament. File formats? Everything is Gcode on a 3D printer, and there are dozens, if not hundreds of page description languages for 2D printers.
The solution to some of these problems are drivers – software for a 3D printer that slowly consumes the slicing of an object, printer settings, and placing an object on the bed. It’s coming, and the people who are responsible for making your 2D printer work with your computer are busy at work messing up the toolchain for your 3D printer.
The latest version of CUPS (C Unix Printing System) adds support for 3D printers.
What CUPS Offers
gcode to draw a circle [Image source]
gcode to draw a circle [Image source]
The most obvious question related to CUPS’ addition of 3D printer support is a glib. ‘why?’. 3D printers speak G Code, and any device can send that over a serial port. There’s no need for drivers to send ASCII strings to a device, is there?
Anyone who has ever dealt with a failed print will tell you this is not the case. Printers fail, sometimes spectacularly. From a white paper penned by [Michael Sweet] (PDF), lead developer of CUPS, driver support will include printer failures, a standard build platform, cameras, lasers, a replacement for the .STL file format, and the color of an object. It’s all there, an entire 3D printer toolchain, wrapped up in a single software package.
It’s somewhat remarkable when you consider what a user must do to print an object downloaded from the Internet. In the current 3D printer ecosystem, a user would download a model, set the temperture, of the hot ends and build platforms, slice the model, put it on a build plate, and finally send the G Code over to the printer. While this can be greatly simplified with fantastic host software such as Cura, a driver-like solution reduces all these processes down to a single, automatic step. Companies are interested, too: Ultimaker is already talking to PWG, and hopes in the PWG are high to get other printer manufacturers on board.
CUPS isn’t the only game in town, and in this case it’s a little behind the ball. In 2013, Microsoft released their 3D printing driver with spooling and queuing support, and an API for submitting jobs to manufacturers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ina Fried / Re/code:
3-D Printer Maker Carbon3D Raises $100 Million From Google Ventures, Others
http://recode.net/2015/08/20/3-d-printer-maker-carbon3d-raises-100-million-from-google-ventures-others/
Carbon3D, whose 3-D printing technology uses light and oxygen to make 3-D objects from a pool of resin, has also apparently honed an ability to print money.
The company is announcing Thursday it has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by Google Ventures. Other participants include Yuri Milner, Reinet Investments and FIS as well as previous backers Sequoia Capital, Silver Lake Kraftwerk and Northgate Capital.
While there are a host of 3-D printers out there, most produce objects that are best suited as prototypes. By contrast, Carbon3D has its sights set on production-quality goods for the automotive, medical and manufacturing industries. Ford is among the handful of customers testing one of its printers.
“We’ll be placing a couple dozen more this calendar year and expect general availability early next year,” Carbon3D CEO Joseph DeSimone said in an interview. The company has not yet said how much its printers will cost.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Giant Stepper Motor Gets You Up to Speed on Theory
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/20/giant-stepper-motor-gets-you-up-to-speed-on-theory/
Few hackers have trouble understanding basic electric motors. We’ve all taken apart something that has a permanent magnet DC motor in it and hooked up its two leads to a battery to make it spin. Reverse the polarity, reverse the spin; remove the power, stop the spin. Stepper motors (and their close cousins, brushless DC motors) are a little tougher to grok, though, especially for the beginner. But with a giant 3D printed stepper motor, [Proto G] has made getting your head around electronically commutated motors a little easier.
While we’ve seen 3D printed stepper motors before, the size and simple layout of this one really lends to understanding the theory. With a 3D-printed frame, coils wound on nails, and rare-earth magnets glued to a rotor, this is an approachable build that lays the internals of a stepper motor out for all to see and understand.
3D Printed Stepper Motor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2FNUNALSTw
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hello RAMPS, meet ESP8266
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/20/hello-ramps-meet-esp8266/
The proliferation of DIY 3D printers has been helped in large measure by the awesome open-source RepRap project. A major part of this project is the RAMPS board – a single control board / shield to which all of the other parts of the printer can be easily hooked up. A USB connection to a computer is the usual link of choice, unless the RAMPS board has the SD-Card option to allow the 3D printer to operate untethered. [Chetan Patil] from CreatorBot built a breakout board to help attach either the ESP8266 WiFi or the HC-05 Bluetooth module to the Aux-1 header on the RAMPS board. This lets him stream G-code to the printer and allow remote control and monitoring.
While the cheap ESP8266 modules are the current flavor of the season with Hackers, getting them to work can be quite a hair tearing exercise.
Add ESP8266 Wifi To Your 3D Printer
http://creatorbot.com/projects/electronics/add-esp8266-wifi-to-your-3d-printer
Tomi Engdahl says:
Metal 3D Printing with Your Printer
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/23/metal-3d-printing-with-your-printer/
Over in Italy, [Robotfactory] has a new setup called CopperFace that they claim allows you to essentially electroplate 3D printed objects with a metal coating using copper, nickel, silver, or gold.
The new mini galvanic CopperFace: easy to use and fast for the metallization of 3D objects!
http://lnx.robotfactory.it/en/products/copperface/
The widespread use of 3D printing in recent years, in almost all productive-industrial sectors and hobby, led quickly to new user needs: coat the surfaces of the ‘plastic’ object products in 3D, with a coating ‘metal’. This is due to functional requirements (to protect the surface from abrasion or from the weather) and most of the times, for a simple aesthetics.
CopperFace is the small galvanic machine designed and created by Robot Factory S.r.l., quick and easy to use for the metallization of plastic materials.
The system CopperFace, has been designed knowing that the ‘plastic’ materials are non-conductive and therefore to be able to metallize an object in ‘plastic’ it is necessary that before being deposited on it a conductive substrate (graphite, silver, etc.) that allows,in a second phase, the metallization by electrolysis.
The process of ‘metallization’ with the system CopperFace, is particularly simple and allows you to deposit a metal surface on plastic models obtained by 3D printing. CopperFace can work with copper, nickel, silver, gold, etc …
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D-printed robot hand grabs Dyson award for UK
Robotics graduate within touching distance of £30,000 prize
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/25/3d_robot_hands_winds_dyson_award_for_uk/
A 3D-printed robot hand for amputees has won the UK heat of this year’s James Dyson Award, which recognises university graduate inventions.
Joel Gibbard, a 25-year-old robotics graduate from Plymouth University, created a prototype which can be assembled in 40 hours for under £1,000. Advanced prosthetics can cost anything from £3,000 to £60,000.
The low-cost robotic hands are designed to perform the same tasks as expensive, advanced prosthetics, including individual finger movement through the use of electromyographical sensors which are stuck to the amputee’s skin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You Own Your MRI Brainscan; Do Something Interesting With It
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/25/you-own-your-mri-brainscan-do-something-interesting-with-it/
If you are having an MRI, you can request a CD immediately after the scan, or contact your doctor: as a patient, you have a right to a copy of this data. You’ll receive a CD that includes the MRI images in a format called DICOM. Short for Digital Images and Communications in Medicine, this is an open format that is used by most medical systems. The CD will include a Windows program that allows you to view these files
To process and convert these images, there are several free and open source programs available, such as Slicerweb, Osirix, 3DSlicer and Invesialus. These all have their own pros and cons, but I’m going to use Invesalius in this tutorial, as it is the easiest to work with and is available for windows, mac and Linux.
This will load the scan images, and show you four windows. Three of these are views (or slices, as the pros call them) through your head from different angles: from the top (Axial), the side (Sagittal) and the front(Coronal). The fourth will be blank at the moment: that is where the 3D model will show up.
When you are done, hit the create surface button.
After some pondering, the program will create the 3D surface from the masks and show it in the fourth window.
If you are happy with this surface, click on Next Step and select Export 3D surface. Save this surface as a .STL file.
We now have an STL file. However, it isn’t ready for printing yet. Next, we are going to use MeshLab to clean the model up and getting it ready for printing.
Now I have the 3D model, the possibilities are endless.
3D Printing Your Brain
Tomi Engdahl says:
Highly Configurable 3D Printed Helmholtz Coil
https://hackaday.io/project/7409-highly-configurable-3d-printed-helmholtz-coil
Design for 3D printed Helmholtz Coil that can be configured for any wire size, number of wraps and magnetic strength
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIT Develops Inkjet-Style 3D Printer That Uses 10 Different Materials At Once
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/08/25/200238/mit-develops-inkjet-style-3d-printer-that-uses-10-different-materials-at-once
Researchers at MIT have been able to build a printer with uses 10 different photosensitive polymers to create a myriad of objects, and they were able to build it using off-the-shelf commodity parts for around $7,000. The MultiFab 3D printer works by mixing together microscopic droplets of photopolymers that are then extruded through inkjet printheads similar to those in office printers. A UV light then hardens the polymers layer by layer.
“MultiFab” 3-D prints a record 10 materials at once, no assembly required
https://news.mit.edu/2015/multifab-3-d-print-10-materials-0824
Printer from Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab uses machine vision and 3-D scanning to self-correct and directly embed components.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building a Business Around Generative Design and Marvels of 3D Printing
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/28/building-a-business-around-generative-design/
Generative design is a method of creating something by feeding seed data into an algorithm. It might be hard at first to figure out how someone would build a business around this, but that’s exactly what Nervous System has been doing with great success. The secret is not only in the algorithm, but in how they’re bringing it to life.
The company was founded in the Boston area by [Jessica Rosenkrantz] and [Jesse Louis-Rosenberg], both graduates of MIT. They produce all kinds of goods from furniture, to jewelry, games, and of course art (which includes clothing
The workflow for several of their products starts with a web-based design tool that lets you start with a simple generated design and make it your own
https://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/cellCycle/
Tomi Engdahl says:
LumiPocket LT: More than a 3D Printer, a Personal Fabricator
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1508643250/lumipocket-lt-a-revolutionary-personal-fabricator
An high quality, Resin-based 3D Printer, a Laser Engraver and a PCB Etching machine: all in a compact, affordable, standalone device!
LumiPocket LT is the first multi-purpose, SCARA-based, Light curing 3D Printer. It is an affordable, standalone, compact tool that can take your Maker projects to a new level! It is more than “just” a high quality, resin based 3D Printer: it is also a fast PCB etching machine, and a Laser engaver that can work with many different materials!
Your first light-curing, resin-based 3d Printer
Light-curing, Resin-based 3d Printing is fast and provides much more quality than FDM 3D printers, specially with 3d models with small details.
LumiPocket LT is a UV laser based 3D printer, with a resolution of up to 50 microns on the Z and 100 microns on XY axis. Run our cross-platform Software, slice your 3D model (binary or ascii .Stl file), and save the printing job to an SD card: insert it into the LumiPocket LT, it will do all the rest!
The maximum printing size is 10 cm diameter by 10 cm high; on LumiPocket LT we suggest our LumiReact and FunToDo resins, however it is also compatible with MakerJuice, 3D Materials, Spot-A and Bukytown Polymers UV pigmented resins.
A fast PCB etcher
Ever wanted to make a custom PCB? Of course you can make it “the old way”, by printing the mask with a laser printer, aligning the PCB board, than exposing to a UV lamp.. but why not just put a presensitized PCB board into LumiPocket LT’s special tray, import your PCB files, and watch it etch your PCB that is then ready to be developed? Quick and easy! Please note that at the moment the resolution of the current prototype is not enough for SMDs based PCBs, but works for standard (pass-through) PCBs.
A compact laser marker & engraver
LumiPocket LT can engrave many different materials using the integrated UV laser. This feature is very useful for example if you want to create business cards, QR codes, coasters, and much more. We tested many materials, including MDF, wood, expanded PVC, heavy cardboard and leather
Tomi Engdahl says:
Custom Threaded Inserts for 3D Printing
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/31/custom-threaded-inserts-for-3d-printing/
There’s a variety of ways to add threaded holes to 3D printed objects. You can tap a hole, but the plastic isn’t always strong enough. Nut traps work, but aren’t very attractive and can be difficult to get exactly the right size. If you try to enclose them, you have to add a manual step to your printing process, too. You can buy threaded inserts (see video below) but that means some other piece of hardware to have to stock in your shop.
[PeterM13] had a different idea: Cut a piece of threaded stock, put nuts on the end and heat it up to let the nuts reform the plastic.
Making Custom Threaded Inserts (3D Printing)
http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-Custom-Threaded-Inserts-3D-Printing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Objects From a Laser Cutter
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/02/3d-objects-from-a-laser-cutter/
Actors want to be singers and singers want to be actors. The hacker equivalent to this might be that 3D printers want to be laser cutters or CNC machines and laser cutters want to be 3D printers. When [Kurt] and [Lawrence] discovered their tech shop acquired a 120 Watt Epilog Fusion laser cutter, they started thinking if they could coax it into cutting out 3D shapes. That question led them to several experiments that were ultimately successful.
The idea was to cut away material, rotate the work piece, and cut some more in a similar way to how some laser cutters handle engraving cylindrical objects. Unlike 3D printing which is additive, this process is subtractive like a traditional machining process. The developers used wood as the base material. They wanted to use acrylic, but found that the cut away pieces tended to stick, so they continued using wood. However, the wood tends to char as it is cut.
Cutting 3D Shapes on a Laser Cutter
http://retrotechjournal.com/2015/09/01/cutting-3d-shapes-on-a-laser-cutter/
Could I produce a 3D object by rotating the object and cutting out various 2D silhouette profiles?
The new 120-Watt laser seemed like it might be powerful enough make this idea practical. I’d never seen anyone do this sort of work with a standard laser cutter. In industry, it’s common to add additional axes to cut at angles, but this XY plus rotational axis (A) was hard to google for.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Learn 3D Modeling in Your Browser
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/03/learn-3d-modeling-in-your-browser/
If you have a 3D printer, it is a good bet you’ve at least seen or heard of Tinkercad. There’s pros and cons to doing your design in a Web browser, but Tinkercad is very easy to use and great for making simple objects. However, there are other 3D object designers you can use in your browser, too. Tinkercad is just the one that everyone seems to know about.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Build Anything Using Delrin and a Laser Cutter
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/03/how-to-build-anything-using-delrin-and-a-laser-cutter/
Need a simple fab process to go from a humble vector graphic to a final part — in a matter of minutes? The CO2 laser cutter might be the right choice. As these tools open themselves up to widespread use through hackerspaces, I decided to give Delrin some well-deserved time under the spotlight.
Delrin Prototyping Techniques
When machining metal, a press-fit between two parts necessitates tolerances tighter than ±0.0005 in. (0.0127 mm) between the mating surfaces such that the two parts that are pressed together will deform slightly and cannot separate under normal operating conditions. Delrin, because of its flexibility, is much more willing to deform to accommodate press fits. This fact is a lifesaver for hobbyist laser cutters. What this means is that even if our laser cutter has slightly less precision, we can still achieve a press fit between two Delrin parts (or just one part made from Delrin) because of Delrin’s willingness to deform to the shape of another part. As a back-of-the-envelope rule, if your laser cutter can hit relative dimensions between features that are ±0.001 in. (0.0254 mm), just undersize the hole (or other press-fit geometry) slightly smaller than you would for a conventional press-fit, and the Delrin will still be able to expand and hold the part firmly.
Delrin is easily machined–so easy that you don’t even need a proper machine to put countersinks into your part!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Not 3D printing, but local manufacturing and open source designs also here:
Open Source Furniture Makes This Office Look Like a Toy Box
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/opendesk-open-source-furniture/
Kano’s office bears a striking resemblance to the product it makes.
Kano is a handsomely-designed modular kit of parts that assembles into a computer, and its office, while not a computer, is also assembled from a handsomely designed modular kits of parts.
You see, Opendesk, the company behind Kano’s interiors, is known for making open source furniture. It’s a little like GitHub, only instead of offering a repository of code, it offers tables, desks and chairs whose designs can be tweaked to individual specifications.
The way it works is simple: Customers choose from one of 40 design on the website and download it as a digital file that can be altered to fit any given room. That file is then sent to a local manufacturer who uses a CNC machine to cut the pre-designed parts into what amounts to pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Those parts are then delivered to your door as a flatpack piece piece of furniture just waiting to be assembled. Joni Steiner, one of Opendesk’s five co-founders, explains the whole idea by quoting a John Maynard Keynes saying: “It’s easier to ship a recipes than cakes and biscuits,” he recites. In this case, the recipe is a digital blueprint file and the cake is a piece of furniture.
If you look around the Kano office, or really any office Opendesk helped to design, you’ll notice a lot of wood. Right now, the company only works with plywood and CNC machine milling.
Most of Opendesk’s pieces are optimized for the material and the way they’re made. Most plywood comes in 8×4 foot sheets that are ¾ of an inch thick, which fits nicely on the bed of many CNC machines.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New 3D Metal Printing Technique Combines Lasers and Advanced Robotics
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/09/07/2220256/new-3d-metal-printing-technique-combines-lasers-and-advanced-robotics
A new alternative to rival other 3D metal printing techniques is being developed by a team of manufacturing researchers at the Southern Methodist University. Led by Professor Radovan Kovacevic, the group have presented a technique called Laser-Based Direct Metal Deposition (LBDMD) which builds on traditional FDM and laser technology to create high-quality metal objects as parts for a range of fabrication uses.
New 3D metal printing technique combines lasers and advanced robotics
https://thestack.com/world/2015/09/07/new-3d-metal-printing-technique-combines-lasers-and-advanced-robotics/
While traditional 3D printing using fused deposition modelling (FDM) techniques becomes evermore commonplace, engineers are looking to develop further 3D printing technologies to widen its application within the manufacturing industry.
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) is one of the key areas for 3D printing research, which uses laser beams to project and bind powdered materials, typically metal, creating solid 3D models.
However, a new alternative to rival SLS is being developed by a team of manufacturing researchers at the Southern Methodist University. Led by Professor Radovan Kovacevic, the group have presented a technique called Laser-Based Direct Metal Deposition (LBDMD) which builds on traditional FDM and laser technology to create high-quality metal objects as parts for a range of fabrication uses.
The technology is still very much under development, but the researchers hope that LBDMD will offer a promising 3D metal printing solution for low volume demand, or for the repair and alteration of parts.
the machine forms a molten pool on a base using a laser beam into which it feeds the metal powder. It then performs subtractive techniques to achieve the final result set out by CAD files. In the YouTube video posted below the team illustrates its working prototype printing a metal propeller:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=11&v=5jPValHxhW0
The technology differs from standard sintering techniques, as it uses multi-axial positioning robotics which eliminates the need for a support structure and human intervention, which inevitably slows existing methods.
http://www.smu.edu/Lyle/Centers/RCAM
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed RC car
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4OpXajpE2w
Tomi Engdahl says:
Only Eat Red Skittles? We’ve Got You Covered.
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/08/only-eat-red-skittles-weve-got-you-covered/
Are you a bit obsessive compulsive with lots of certain things? We are too. Like Skittles! If you’re the kind of person who likes to sort their Skittles, you should seriously look into making your own 3D printed Skittles Sorter.
It uses an Arduino Uno with a ZITRADES color sensor module to identify the color of each candy. A small LED helps illuminate the Skittles to ensure an accurate color reading. Then, depending on the color, a series of gears rotate the Skittles piece to its designated color repository.
https://hackaday.io/project/7579-3d-printed-skittles-sorting-machine
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aerogel Insulation for 3D Printers
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/09/aerogel-insulation-for-3d-printers/
A heated bed is nearly essential for printing with ABS. Without it, it is difficult to keep parts from warping as the plastic cools. However, heating up a large print bed is difficult and time consuming. It is true that the printer easily heats the hot end to 200C or higher and the bed’s temperature is only half of that. However, the hot end is a small insulated spot and the bed is a large flat surface. It takes a lot of power and time to heat the bed up and keep the temperature stable.
We’ve used cork and even Reflectix with pretty good results. However, [Bill Gertz] wasn’t getting the performance he wanted from conventional material, so he got a piece of aerogel and used it as insulation
https://hackaday.io/project/7602-3d-printer-heated-bed-insulation-mod
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lockpickers 3-D Print TSA Master Luggage Keys From Leaked Photos
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/lockpickers-3-d-print-tsa-luggage-keys-leaked-photos/
The TSA is learning a basic lesson of physical security in the age of 3-D printing: If you have sensitive keys—say, a set of master keys that can open locks you’ve asked millions of Americans to use—don’t post pictures of them on the Internet.
A group of lock-picking and security enthusiasts drove that lesson home Wednesday by publishing a set of CAD files to Github that anyone can use to 3-D print a precisely measured set of the TSA’s master keys for its “approved” locks—the ones the agency can open with its own keys during airport inspections. Within hours, at least one 3-D printer owner had already downloaded the files, printed one of the master keys, and published a video proving that it opened his TSA-approved luggage lock.
Those photos first began making the rounds online last month, after the Washington Post unwittingly published (and then quickly deleted) a photo of the master keys in an article about the “secret life” of baggage in the hands of the TSA. It was too late. Now those photos have been used to derive exact cuts of the master keys so that anyone can reproduce them in minutes with a 3-D printer or a computer-controlled milling machine.
“Honestly I wasn’t expecting this to work, even though I tried to be as accurate as possible from the pictures.”
Bolduc says he doesn’t know the brand of the luggage lock he opened, but based on the “TSA” inscription on the bottom, he can conclude it is on the approved list. The problem likely extends well beyond one brand, anyway; the leaked master keys include those that open every type of TSA-approved lock made by companies such as Master Lock, Samsonite and American Tourister.
Tomi Engdahl says:
People Aren’t Buying 3D Printers Anymore, So Companies Are Refocusing on Health
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/people-arent-buying-3d-printers-anymore-so-companies-are-refocusing-on-health
When personal 3D printers hit the market a few years ago, it seemed like it wouldn’t be long before every household had its own, sitting right next to the laptop.
That dream has faded, thanks to a bad global economy, printers that can cost as much as a month’s rent, and the lack of people who know how to use them. It seems like the fantasy of $100 printer should be put aside for now, since Stratasys Inc. already downgraded MakerBot and most 3D printing companies seem to be zeroing in on health care as their biggest and fastest-growing target.
3D Systems Inc., for example, recently joined up with a volunteer network that prints hands for kids who need them.
“Consumer printing has grown a lot in interest, but now that the early adopters have already all gotten the first wave of 3D printers, there aren’t enough people that have the skills and capability to create things that are compelling to print,” said Sophia Vargas, an analyst for Forrester Research.
Meanwhile, business-to-business health care “is an area that is still holding up,” says Stacey Witten, 3D Systems’s vice president of investor relations. “It’s been the fastest-growing vertical for us and a major point of investment.” Health care revenue has been nearly doubling every year for the past three years, said Lewis, the CMO.
3D Systems isn’t the only company making this push.
Motherboard Shows Consumer 3D Printing Hype is Dead. Now, Real Growth Can Continue
http://3dprintingindustry.com/2015/09/08/motherboard-shows-consumer-3d-printing-hype-dead-real-growth-can-begin/
When you consider which media ride the hype and which ones can create it, Motherboard, VICE’s tech website, certainly belongs to the second category. The same is true about knowing when to stop (riding the hype) and a recent article by Mothrboard’s Angela Chen shows that that time has come for consumer 3D printing.
The good news for everyone involved in the business of 3D printing is that now that they hype is over, as Gartner showed in its famous New Technology Hype Curve, the real growth can begin, or continue. While better than most generalist media outlets, VICE (and Motherboard) don’t really always know the subject they are writing about.
They cover too many different topics and 3D printing market dynamics can hardly be tackled in 300 to 500 words. The generalist journalist’s ability is in “perceiving” such macro-trends and pointing them out before the others do.
In fact, while it is undeniably true that the consumer 3D printing hype is dying down (finally), it is just as undeniably untrue that 3D printer sales are slowing down. By that I mean, any 3D printer sales, both industrial and consumer. The dream may have faded, but the reality remains, and it says that there was no possible way that every home could have a 3D printer within a few months, but market data says that it is very likely to happen within a few (say 15) years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sinterit Pulls SLS 3D Printer Entry Level Price Down to Just $8k
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/10/sinterit-pulls-sls-3d-printer-entry-level-price-down-to-just-8k/
Almost exactly two years ago, news of a great revolution in 3D printing carried itself through blogs and tech columns. Patents were expiring, and soon the ‘squirting filament’ printers would be overtaken by a vastly better method: selective laser sintering. In the last two years, the market has been markedly silent on the possibilities of SLS technology, until now, at least. Today, Sinterit is launching their first printer. It’s an SLS printer that builds objects by fusing nylon powder with a laser, producing things with much better quality than filament-based printers.
The Sinterit Lisa is a true laser sintering printer, able to create objects by blasting nylon powder with a 5W laser diode. Inside this box that’s about the same size as a laser printer is a CoreXY mechanism to move the laser diode around, heated pistons, cylinders, feed bed and print bed for keeping the print volume at the right temperature and the top layer perfectly flat. The layer thickness of the printer goes down to 0.06 mm
If there is one drawback to the Sinterit, it’s the price: it will ship in 2016 with a list price of $8000. This puts it in a strange middle ground, straddling the divide between high-end consumer-level printers such as the Lulzbot, Ultimaker, and the Form1, and the business-grade printers from 3D Systems and Stratasys.
http://www.sinterit.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Most Self-Replicating RepRap Yet
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/12/the-most-self-replicating-reprap-yet/
The goal of the RepRap project was always a machine that could replicate itself. The project began with the RepRap Darwin, a machine with a frame made nearly entirely of threaded rods, and progressed to the Mendel, with a slightly higher proportion of printed parts. Around 2011, the goal of self-replication fell by the wayside after some money was thrown around. The goal now, it seems, is to create the 3D printer with the best profit margins. That doesn’t mean there still isn’t a small contingent of RepRappers out there trying to improve the status quo and create a printer that can truly self-replicate. [Revar] is one of those tinkerers, and he has just released the RepRap Snappy, a snap-together 3D printer built nearly entirely out of 3D printed parts.
Snappy RepRap 1.0 Printer
http://reprap.org/wiki/Snappy
Snappy is an Open Source RepRap 3D printer designed by RevarBat from 2014 to 2015. It is a true RepRap, using very few non-printed parts. This design needs no rods, belts, or pulleys, and no screws outside of the motors or extruder hot-end. This means that you should be able to put one together for under $300, including the price of plastic to print parts. The entire thing snaps together without screws or nuts, and you should be able to assemble it from parts in only a couple hours. The few required non-printable parts are available world wide from a variety of suppliers.
A prototype of the 0.93 version of the Snappy RepRap 3d Printer
Snappy is an original design, created in OpenSCAD, so many individual design parameters can be altered to fit the end user’s specific needs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building a 3D Printed Laser Tube
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/13/building-a-3d-printed-laser-tube/
A YouTuber by the name of [1kreature] is doing some excellent research into building his very own 3D printed laser tube.
He then designed some 3D printed fittings for a clear acrylic tube that allow for pneumatic and electrical connections.
3D printed lasertube – Wohoo vacuum!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_DbF0tpZjc
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hack Your Rib Cage with Titanium 3D Printing
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/16/hack-your-rib-cage-with-titanium-3d-printing/
A Spanish hospital recently replaced a significant amount of a man’s rib cage and sternum with a titanium replacement. Putting titanium inside people’s chests is nothing new, but what made this different was the implant was 3D printed to match his existing bone structure.
An Australian company, Anatomics, created the 3D print from high-resolution CT scans of the patient. They used a printer provided by an Australian Government corporate entity, CSIRO, that helps bring technology to Australian companies.
Biomedical printing has been in the news quite a bit lately
Tomi Engdahl says:
Graphene Filament Enables Fabrication of Electronic Devices with 3-D Printing
http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/graphene-filament-enables-fabrication-of-electronic-devices-with-3d-printing
Earlier this month, we reported on research that was bringing the attractive qualities of graphene in its 2-D form to the fabrication of 3-D objects.
Now a start-up based in Calverton, NY, Graphene 3D Lab, Inc., has made commercially available a graphene-based conductive polymer filament for use in 3-D printing to fabricate electronic devices. The graphene-based filament, which is targeted for both industry and hobbyists, has been dubbed Black Magic 3D.
“Our material is the most electrically conductive material on the market right now and is the best option for 3-D printing of electronics,”
Stolyarov believes that this graphene-enabled polymer filament is unique on the market in its ability to impart electrical conductivity. Stolyarov argues that their product compares favorably to other 3-D printing filaments that have at best a volume resistivity of 15 Ohms-centimeter (Ohms-cm), whereas Black Magic 3D’s volume resistivity measures at 0.6 Ohms-cm—25 times better. According to Stolyarov, 15 Ohms-cm is just not good enough for most of electronic applications. If electrical properties are poor, the device will not work properly.
http://www.blackmagic3d.com/