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:
3D Printering: Smartphone Resin Printers Actually Work
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/18/3d-printering-smartphone-resin-printers-actually-work/
Last spring, the world saw something amazing. It was a device that would revolutionize the planet, save the world, and turn your smartphone into a 3D printer. Kickstarters aren’t known for selling themselves short. I speak, of course, of the OLO 3D printer, later renamed the ONO 3D printer, ostensibly because of a trademark dispute.
While filament-based 3D printers are extremely capable and slicing software is only getting better, resin-based printers are able to produce prints of nearly unparalleled quality. If you want high-resolution objects and fine detail, a resin printer is the way to go. These resin printers, however, are a bit more expensive than your traditional filament printers. A few hundred dollars will buy you a serviceable i3 clone, and less than a thousand will get you a real Prusa capable of printing in four colors. The premier desktop resin printer, the Form 2 from Form Labs, starts at $3500 USD.
The ONO (or OLO) changed all of this. Instead of lasers and galvanometers or DLP projectors, this $99 resin-based printer used your smartphone display to shine light on a vat of resin.
For people who are more familiar with 3D printers, there were a few questions concerning the ONO. The Kickstarter campaign showed light-sensitive resin stored in translucent bottles. Control of the Z-axis stage of this printer was apparently through the headphone port. Different models of smartphones have different thicknesses
If a print on the OLO takes an hour, you can’t use your phone for an hour. OLO (or ONO) had a booth at this year’s World Maker Faire in New York
Someone finally did it. In a YouTube video uploaded this week, [Ionel Ciobanuc] demonstrated a homebrew 3D printer that is pretty much what ONO pretends to be. It’s a 5 inch LCD driven by a Raspberry Pi running nanoDLP with a simple motorized Z-axis pulling the print out of the resin. It works. Compared to a Form Labs print, or even a high-quality print off a filament-based machine it doesn’t work terribly well, but it works. In any event, it’s an experiment and proof of concept.
LCD 3D Printer v1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uybLNu0zv28
Tomi Engdahl says:
9 New 3D Printing Materials Offer Weather and Heat Resistance
This batch of the latest 3D printing materials features materials that are resistant to electrostatic discharge (ESD), UV, and weather.
http://www.designnews.com/materials-assembly/9-new-3d-printing-materials-offer-weather-and-heat-resistance?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161120.tst004c
3Dynamic Systems says its Carbon Fibre 3D Printer Filament can be used on any conventional Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) or fused filament 3D printer. It’s made using 15%-22% high-modulus carbon fibers small enough to fit through the nozzle, but long enough to provide the needed extra rigidity and reinforcement. It provides structural strength of 85MPa and excellent layer adhesion with virtually no warping.
This batch of the latest 3D printing materials features materials that are resistant to electrostatic discharge (ESD), UV and weather, are composites, or contain graphene or carbon fiber for strength and durability. Most are black, but several come in other colors, too.
One of the new materials is a steel-filled filament, which is still relatively unusual, from colorFabb.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Time for Monumental Thinking in Additive
http://advancedmanufacturing.org/time-monumental-thinking-additive-stl-file-format/
The limits of CAD and CAE tools and the STL file format are holding manufacturers back
As additive manufacturing emerges from a long infancy, the industry is grappling with a key challenge: A file format and design tools from the 20th century are being asked to do 21st century jobs.
“The industry was a hobby industry for 25 years and it’s starting to grow up,” said Kirk Rogers, technology leader at GE.
“You made a 3D model and it had a cool factor—Mickey Mouse or a little chess piece—it was awesome to look at,” said Kenneth Church, CEO of the R&D engineering firm Sciperio, as well as the 3D printing firm nScrypt. “What if I made it functional? Then the niche was rapid prototyping—get something out there and see how it fits. Then we moved from rapid prototyping to small-lot manufacturing.”
But to fulfill what industry leaders say is its destiny, the technology involved must mature.
Three decades after Chuck Hull invented the 3D printer and founded 3D Systems, that paradigm has shifted—at least in additive manufacturing (AM).
Today’s high-end 3D printers have the capability to be more precise than the software and format used to design printable objects.
“If you get down to two microns and you find the error is in your STL model, then in a sense you’re defeating yourself by making the machine tools better,”
“STL is just triangle geometry—nothing else,” said Justin Kidder, director of software architecture at Dassault Systemes.
“STL is a very simple format designed to work on a computer of almost 30 years ago,” Rogers said.
“It has not transitioned well into those other genres,” Church said.
As for widespread use of a file format to replace STL, Met-L-Flo President Carl Dekker predicted as long as 15 years. “I don’t want to believe that answer,” he said. “But historically, seeing how long it takes things to be adopted and become integrated, I fear it’s going to be a decade or maybe a decade and a half. I hope it’s going to be a lot faster than that.”
“An ideal timeline is yesterday,” Kidder said. “But realistically it’s going to take time for adoption to grow in the market.”
Simple was good, for a time
The STL format did solve the major issue in the 1980s—simplifying CAD data, Dekker said.
Using STL, a design in CAD is exported as an STL file, which describes a three-dimensional object as a series of linked triangles. The data has to go through at least one additional step to slicer software that converts the digital 3D models into printing instructions.
“Circles can’t be cut nicely into one or two triangles,” Rogers said. “It takes 20 or 30 triangles or more to get the right resolution of that circular shape, which causes file sizes to blow up huge when trying to represent complex geometry to something the printer would understand.”
“I saw there were things people were having to do to make 3D printing work that weren’t productive. STL is not efficient for 3D printing. It’s error prone.”
Two replacements emerging
Key players in the industry have come together to develop replacements for STL: AMF and 3MF.
Each format makes it easier to represent other geometric shapes, such as arcs, Dekker said.
Unlike STL, 3MF and AMF files also represent material, texture, colors, authorship and other critical data concisely and unambiguously within the file itself, Kidder said.
“The data lives with the file,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Pancakes
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/24/open-source-pancakes/
It is definitely a first world problem: What do you do when creating a custom pancake requires you to put a design on an SD card and plug it into your pancake printer? This is what was nagging at [drtorq]. Granted, since he works for a publication called “The Stack” maybe a pancake printer isn’t so surprising. [drtorq] built the custom PancakeBOT software on Linux as a start to his hacking on the flapjack creating robot.
We’ve seen a lot of chocolate printers. Gummy bears are printable, too.
3D printed PANCAKES! – PancakeBOT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8agFyPCo8UE
This pancake maker is too cool not to share.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed GoPro Toy Car Mount
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/24/3d-printed-gopro-toy-car-mount/
There’s been a spate of YouTube videos of people strapping GoPro cameras onto things recently. [Ruiz] at [Adafruit] is looking to contribute to this trend with this tutorial on 3D printing a GoPro Session toy car mount. The entire toy car mount is 3D printed, except for the axles, which are made of the unprinted filament with melted ends to hold the wheels in place.
https://learn.adafruit.com/hot-wheels-gopro-3d-printed-car-mount/overview
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Big 3D Printer Built Using The Power of Procrastination
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/26/a-big-3d-printer-built-using-the-power-of-procrastination/
When we wrote about [Dan Beaven]’s resin printer a while back he enthusiastically ensured us that, thanks to the recent wave of attention, he would finally finish the project. That’s why today we are covering his entirely unrelated 2 cubic foot print volume FDM printer.
Big F’n 3D Printer
https://3dprintzothar.blogspot.fi/2016/11/big-fn-3d-printer.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Parametric 3D Printable Wheels And Treads
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/28/parametric-3d-printable-wheels-and-treads/
When it comes to robotic platforms, there is one constant problem: wheels. Wheels have infinite variety for every purpose imaginable, but if you buy a wheeled robotic chassis you have exactly one choice. Even if you go down to the local Horror Freight, there’s only about five or six different wheels available, all of which will quickly disintegrate.
To solve this problem, [Audrey] created OpenWheel, a system of parametric, 3D-printable wheels, tweels, tires, and tracks for robotics and more.
Like all good parametric 3D-printable designs, OpenWheel is written in OpenSCAD. These aren’t 3D designs; they’re code that compiles into printable objects, with variables to set the radius, thickness, diameter of the axle, bolt pattern, and everything else that goes into the shape of a wheel.
OpenWheel : parametric OSH wheels/tyres/tracks
https://hackaday.io/project/16024-openwheel-parametric-osh-wheelstyrestracks
Openwheel provides parametric open source wheels, tyres and tank tracks completely 3D printable, with lots of options, for robots and more
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dawn of the Tripteron 3D Printer
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/30/dawn-of-the-tripteron-3d-printer/
Cartesian 3D printers were the original. Then delta printers came along, and they were pretty cool too. Now, you can add tripteron printers to the mix. The tripteron is an odd mix of cartesian and delta. The system was invented at the robotics laboratory at Université Laval in Quebec, Canada. The team who created it say that it is “isotropic and fully decoupled, i.e. each of the actuators is controlling one Cartesian degree of freedom, independently from the others.” This means that driving the bot will be almost as simple as driving a standard X/Y/Z Cartesian printer.
A few people have experimented with tripteron printers over the years, but as far as we can see, no one has ever demonstrated a working model.
[Apsu] admits that he still has a way to go in his research – especially improving the arm and joint implementation. However, he’s quite pleased that his creation has gone from a collection of parts to a new type 3D printer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t Leave 3D Printers Unattended – They Can Catch Fire
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/07/dont-leave-3d-printers-unattended-they-can-catch-fire/
The holidays are almost here, and with that comes the traditional Mass Consumption of Consumer Goods and Gift Exchange. 3D printers are getting really good and really cheap, and it’s inevitable that a lot of 3D printers will be given as gifts this year. Be careful if you’re giving or receiving one of these printers: they can cause fires as [Ben Hencke] found out when diagnosing a problem with a printer he bought this year.
The printer in question is the Monoprice Maker Select V2, a Prusa i3 clone with impressive specs for a $300 printer. This printer is a rebranded Wanhao Duplicator i3
3D Printer Almost Fire
http://blog.lessdebug.com/2016/12/3d-printer-almost-fire.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sintering Sand WIth A Laser Cutter
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/07/sintering-sand-with-a-laser-cutter/
We are all used to Fused Deposition Modeling, or FDM, 3D printers. A nozzle squirts molten material under the control of a computer to make 3D objects. And even if they’re usually rather expensive we’re used to seeing printers that use Stereolithography (SLA), in which a light-catalysed liquid monomer is exposed layer-by layer to allow a 3D object to be drawn out. The real objects of desire though are unlikely to grace the average hackspace. Selective Laser Sintering 3D printers use a laser on a bed of powder to solidify a 3D object layer by layer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thirty Days Of 3D Printing Filament
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/10/thirty-days-of-3d-printing-filament/
Our first 3D printers only printed ABS and PLA plastic. Yeah, we heard about PVA for support structures, but no one could get them to stick. There was also polycarbonate, but you had to have an all metal hot end with a fan to print that stuff. Now there’s a lot of variety out there: flexible, wood and stone, nylon, PETG, and more.
If you are still printing with just the old standards, you might enjoy [all3dp’s] comparison chart of 30 different filament types–that’s enough for one day a month–well at least for four months.
There’s even magnetic PLA
https://all3dp.com/best-3d-printer-filament-types-pla-abs-pet-exotic-wood-metal/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The 3D-Printed Mutoscope You’ve Always Wanted
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/10/the-3d-printed-mutoscope-youve-always-wanted/
[John] got his hands on a 3D printer, and did what any hacker with a new toy would, printed himself a Mutoscope. (A what?) A Mutoscope is an early flip-book based motion picture machine, and in this case it displays 24 frames from “A Clockwork Orange”. [John]’s 3D-printed machine is, not coincidentally we assume, printed in orange plastic.
3D Printed Flip Book Machine
http://failtryagain.com/2016/10/30/3d-printed-flip-book-machine/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maybe You Can Print in Metal
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/09/maybe-you-can-print-in-metal/
Let’s face it. Printing in plastic is old hat. It is fun. It is useful. But it isn’t really all that exotic anymore. The real dream is to print using metal. There are printers that handle metal in different ways, but they aren’t usually practical for the conventional hacker. Even a “cheap” metal printer costs over $100,000. But there are ways you can almost get there with a pretty garden-variety printer.
There’s no shortage of people mixing things into PLA filament. If you have a metal hot end and don’t mind wearing out nozzles, you can get PLA filament with various percentages of metal powder in it. You can get filament that is 50% to 85% metal and produce things that almost seem like they are made from metals.
Let’s face it. Printing in plastic is old hat. It is fun. It is useful. But it isn’t really all that exotic anymore. The real dream is to print using metal. There are printers that handle metal in different ways, but they aren’t usually practical for the conventional hacker. Even a “cheap” metal printer costs over $100,000. But there are ways you can almost get there with a pretty garden-variety printer.
There’s no shortage of people mixing things into PLA filament. If you have a metal hot end and don’t mind wearing out nozzles, you can get PLA filament with various percentages of metal powder in it. You can get filament that is 50% to 85% metal and produce things that almost seem like they are made from metals.
If you do nothing, you still wind up with a metal-like print. If you have access to a kiln, though, you can put your part in at nearly 1000 degrees C along with the company’s proprietary “magic black powder.” This removes nearly all the PLA and leaves a completely (99.9%) metal object.
3D printing metal with a desktop machine
https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/3d-printing-metal-desktop-machine-100341/
Since launching on Kickstarter in 2015, The Virtual Foundry’s Filamet™ copper and bronze 90% metal filament has been used to make stunning models that look as though they could have been cast rather than 3D printed. We decided to use some of the material and put it to the test.
How does it work?
Filamet™ is designed to be compatible with any desktop FFF/FDM 3D printer using an all-metal hot end. It is extruded in the same manner as plastic PLA, but at a slower-pace to allow for adequate melting of the metal content. We ran the filament through one of the printers here at 3DPI to get a better feel for the material and found during the printing stage no additional adjustments were required. The main difference is what you can do once the print run is complete.
The 3D print can be put into an kiln and fired by using Virtual Foundry’s Magic Black Powder (they wouldn’t reveal the magic in the secret sauce unfortunately). Firing in the kiln at temperatures of up to 989.2 degrees Celsius removes the binding material from the filament leaving a heavier part of almost 100% metal.
Virtual Foundry’s Filamet™ material is a welcome challenge to the more established methods of metal additive manufacturing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Snap Your World in a Whole New Way
XYZprinting
3D Scanner€ 229.00
http://eu.xyzprinting.com/eu_en/Product/3D-Scanner#spec_single
Three Scanning Modes : Head, Object, and Body scanning mode are available in the updated version of XYZscan Handy. Maximum scan volume reaches 100(D) x 100(W) x 200(H) cm. Large objects can also be scanned in Body mode.
Powered by Intel® RealSense™, the XYZprinting 3D Scanner is fast in both scanning ability and processing speed. It allows for a 0.1 – 0.7 meter operating range, and the quality resolution of 640 x 480 at 30FPS.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inside the Printrbot Printrhub
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/16/inside-the-printrbot-printrhub/
A new version of the Printrbot Simple was released this summer, and this sleek new model includes a few highly desirable features. The metal enclosure was improved, linear rails added, a power switch was thrown in, and the biggest feature — a touch screen — makes headless printing easy.
Adding a usable display and achieving reliable WiFi are big engineering challenges, and thanks to the Internet of Things it’s only going to become more common to expect those features. How did the Printrbot team implement this? [Philip Shuster] recently released a write-up of how the Printrbot Printrhub came together.
https://github.com/Printrbot/Printrhub
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Circuit Boards… Sort Of
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/17/3d-printed-circuit-boards-sort-of/
SCADboard is an OpenSCAD library that lets you create 3D printable circuit boards…sort of. The library lays out like a breadboard with two bus bars on each side and a grid of rows and columns. OpenSCAD modules provide a way to create a board, ICs, LEDs, wires and other fundamental components.
The catch? You can print it, but there’s no electrical conductivity. There are little troughs for you to include wires. The authors suggest you twist the wires together. You can solder them, but if you do, you have to be careful not to get the plastic board hot enough to melt.
SCADBoard Library
An OpenSCAD Library for Making 3D Printed Circuit Boards
https://scadboard.wordpress.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 20
3D printed wind instruments
http://semiengineering.com/manufacturing-bits-dec-20/
With a 3D printer, researchers devised 16 free-form wind instruments in various shapes, such as a star, bunny, snowman, dragon, horse, pig, cat and sheep. There is even a way to make a doughnut instrument.
For this, researchers developed a technology called Printone, a tool that turns three-dimensional shapes into a musical instrument with a target set of frequencies.
There are some challenges with this technology. For example, the resonance frequency must be accurate for a given hole in the wind instrument. And it must enable different shapes with various hole configurations.
“Our tool imports existing polygonal meshes, which specifies the exterior shape of the instrument. The tool automatically hollows out the shape to generate an internal cavity,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Greeting Cards
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/20/3d-printed-greeting-cards/
T’is the season to hack, and the maker brigade won’t disappoint — there’s no better way to crank out a few cute holiday tchotchkes than to fire up the 3D printer. [Niklas Roy] has released gDraw, a software package that creates G-code to print out 2D drawings on your 3D printer.
The interface is simple, allowing the quick and easy creation of basic vector drawings. The program then converts the paths in the drawing to a G-code representation that your printer follows to squirt them out in plastic. Think of it as the 3D printed equivalent of the “Stroke Path” tool in Photoshop.
http://www.niklasroy.com/articles/194/gdraw-free-software-for-you
Tomi Engdahl says:
Collider Prints Hollow Shells, Fills Them
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/21/collider-prints-hollow-shells-fills-them/
3D printing is full of innovations made by small firms who’ve tweaked the same basic ideas just a little bit, but come up with radically different outcomes. Collider, a small startup based in Chattanooga TN, is producing a DLP resin printer that prints hollow molds and then fills them.
That’s really all there is to it. The Orchid machine prints a thin shell using a photocuring resin, and uses this shell as the mold for various two-part thermoset materials: think epoxies, urethanes, and silicones. The part cures and the shell is dissolved away, leaving a solid molded part with the material properties that you chose.
This is a great idea for a couple of reasons. DLP-based resin printers can have very fine features, but they’re slow as dirt when a lot of surface area needs to be cured. By making thin-walled molds, this stage can go faster.
While we’re sure that there’s a market for these kind of machines in small-scale manufacturing, this is also an eminently DIY procedure.
More: http://www.collidertech.com/about
Tomi Engdahl says:
IKEA Table 3D Printer
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/22/ikea-table-3d-printer/
In this Instructable, [Wayne Mason-Drust] shares the step by step guide on how to make a cool, good-looking, 3D printer based on the Ikea LACK table. From an Ikea lantern weather station to a fully printed CNC based on an Ikea table, it’s almost safe to say that a 3D printer Ikea hack was overdue.
The idea to use a Ikea table as a base for a 3D printer first came to [Wayne] as he used this table to support other 3D printer he had working in his business.
PRINTTABLE the Affordable, Attractive IKEA Lack Table Hack to create a 3D Printer
http://www.instructables.com/id/PRINTTABLE-the-Affordable-Attractive-IKEA-Lack-Tab/
Tomi Engdahl says:
P38 Lightning 3D Printed RC Plane
The latest and greatest plane that I’m making from 3dLabPrint .com
https://hackaday.io/project/19165-p38-lightning-3d-printed-rc-plane
Tomi Engdahl says:
EasyWelder: welder for plastic filaments
Finally, a tool dedicated to 3D printing, to bring together more plastic filaments
https://hackaday.io/project/5726-easywelder-welder-for-plastic-filaments
3D printers use as raw material plastic filament of about 360 m long, coiled. With a coil, we can make some items. But when there remain only a few meters, it is often impossible to use it. This filament is then unusable or discarded. Considering the price, it’s infuriating.
It also happens that the filament breaks during printing or on the coil.
The current size of the filament coils do not allow to print large parts. The best solution would be to link together the filaments of each coil. Thus, the size of the printable parts would be no more limited.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Liar’s 3D Printing: Multiple Colors with One Extruder
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/27/liars-3d-printing-multiple-colors-with-one-extruder/
Good 3D printers now have multiple hot ends. You ought to be able to print in different colors or print support material. However, a lot of us don’t have multiple hot ends. Turns out, you don’t have to have multiple hot ends to print in multiple colors. To accomplish that you need a lot of patience and the willingness to tell bald-faced lies. Don’t worry, though, you’ll only be lying to some computer hardware and software, so that doesn’t count.
You may have seen people talk about putting a pause between layers to switch from one color to another. That works, but it limits your options.
Keep in mind, with hobby-grade printers, multiple color printing has a lot of problems even if you do have multiple extruders. This isn’t a panacea. But you can get results on par with a similar printer that has multiple heads.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing With Yarn and Silicone
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/24/3d-printing-with-yarn-and-silicone/
[Seyi Sosanya] made what amounts to a 3D printer, but one that prints in a unique way: wrapping yarn around pillars and then post-dipping them in a silicone glue. The result is a tough, flexible 3D mesh that’s lightweight and looks fairly resilient. We’re not at all sure what it’s good for, but watching the video about the project (embedded below) makes us want to try our hand at this sort of thing.
http://www.sosafresh.com/3d-weaver/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Future of 3D Printing Starts with Business
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1331038&
3D printing technology at the business level, particularly in manufacturing, is quickly emerging as the place where the real promise lies at least in the near future.
This article is part of EDN and EE Times’ Hot Technologies: Looking ahead to 2017 feature, where our editors examine some of the hot trends and technologies in 2016 that promise to shape technology news in 2017 and beyond.
3D printing has been the stuff of Geeks and Makers Faires for quite a while. However, the application of 3D printing technology at the business level, particularly in manufacturing, is quickly emerging as the place where the real promise lies at least in the near future.
“Factors such as 3D printing evolving from developing prototypes to end-user products, mass customization, production of complex parts, government investments in 3D printing projects, and improvements in manufacturing efficiency are expected to drive the growth of the 3D printing market,” according to a new market research report 3D Printing Market from MarketsandMarkets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing & Additive Manufacturing Will Grow in 2017: Manufacturing Processes
In 2017, we’ll see more 3D printing and additive manufacturing (AM) processes made for large-scale pieces and final production parts.
https://www.designnews.com/3d-printing/3d-printing-additive-manufacturing-will-grow-2017-manufacturing-processes/170944489146209?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20161229.tst004c
Tomi Engdahl says:
RooBee One, an open-source SLA/DLP 3D printer
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/01/roobee-one-an-open-source-sladlp-3d-printer/
[Aldric Negrier] is no stranger to the 3D printing world. Having built a few already, he designed and built an SLA/DLP 3D printer, named RooBee One, sharing the plans on Instructables. He also published tons of other stuff, like a 3D Printed Syringe Pump Rack and a 3D Scanning Rig And DIY Turntable. It’s really worth while going through his whole Instructables repository.
http://www.instructables.com/id/RooBee-One-SLA-DLP-Aluminum-Frame-3D-Printer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fully 3D Printed Snow Blower
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/30/fully-3d-printed-snow-blower/
For anyone living in cooler climates, the annual onslaught of snow means many hours shoveling driveways and sidewalks. After a light snow, shoveling might seem a waste of time, while a snow blower would be overkill. If only there were a happy middle ground that required minimal effort; perhaps an RC snow groomer with a 3D printed snow blower would work.
RC ADVENTURES – AMAZiNG 3D Printed Snow Blower – Tree Branch Clog – MUST SEE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WCegg23qY0
Tomi Engdahl says:
Molding VS 3D printing costs
http://www.apsx.com/APSX-PIM-s/110.htm
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lost PLA Casting Brings out the Beauty of Macromolecules
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/02/lost-pla-casting-brings-out-the-beauty-of-macromolecules/
Biochemistry texts are loaded with images of the proteins, nucleic acids, and other biopolymers that make up life. Depictions of the 3D structure of macromolecules based on crystallography and models of their most favorable thermodynamic conformations are important tools. And some are just plain beautiful, which is why artist [Mike Tyka] has taken to using lost-PLA casting to create sculptures of macromolecules from bronze, copper, and glass
3D printing glass and bronze: Lost-PLA casting
http://mtyka.github.io/art/2016/12/11/lostpla-casting-glass.html
For a few years now I have been experimenting with casting glass and occasionally bronze from 3D printed positive models. Specifically I use this technique to make sculptures of protein molecules rendered as their solvent accessible surface, which are created from their scientifically precise chrystallographic coordinates.
Once I’ve chosen a candidate I build an initial model using a molecular editor such as RasMol or PyMol. PyMol’s volume function is quite good.
Finally I calculate a solvent accessible area and save the coordinates and faces as an .stl or .obj file.
These raw models I then load into Blender for further editing.
I also prepare the models for printing. Since macromolecules don’t have a flat surface I almost always cut the model into two parts, creating a large surface for each half to be printed on. Choosing the cut plane is critical
I then print each part on a typical PLA extrusion printer.
I almost always choose clear PLA, because it burns out the cleanest.
Generally I manipulate the PLA using soldering irons which work great when small parts of the model need to be repaired, fused, remove or added.
When the model is ready and smooth, I attach the sprues and air vents.
To make the actual mold I’ve tried two different ways, both work and it sort of depends on gut feeling and the shape of the piece as to which I’ll choose. The first involves building a wall around the piece that’s stuck to the base plate.
The second way involves taking a suitably sized cardboard box and a plastic bag. I line the inside of the cardboard with the bag, taping it to the side. Later I will fill the “bucket” with plaster and then lower the piece down into it from the top, hanging from the support board.
For glass casting the mold mix is 1:1:1 silica:plaster:water, by weight.
For many molds I will first do a face coat and then finish the mold in second pour.
Now that the mold is poured, I generally let it air dry for a few days. After the first 24 hrs I take off the box or container that held the plaster, aiding drying.
The burnout protocol plateaus at several temperatures. First 230 to dry the mold completely. Then at 500 to drive off all the chemically bound water and start melting the PLA. At the end of this stage the bulk of the PLA will have melted and dripped out into the pan, so I will open the kiln and empty the pan. The program then ascends to 700. At this temperature PLA will evaporate rapidly and carbon deposits will also oxidize away.
At this point the mold is ready for casting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Derek Schulte: Path Planning for 3D Printers
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/03/derek-schulte-path-planning-for-3d-printers/
[Derek Schulte] designed and sells a consumer 3D printer, and that gives him a lot of insight into what makes them tick. His printer, the New Matter MOD-t, is different from the 3D printer that you’re using now in a few different ways. Most interestingly, it uses closed-loop feedback and DC motors instead of steppers, and it uses a fairly beefy 32-bit ARM processor instead of the glorified Arduino Uno that’s running many printers out there.
The first of these choices meant that [Derek] had to write his own motor control and path planning software
https://newmatter.com/mod-t/
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIT’s Foundry Interface Is the Photoshop of 3D Printing
https://www.designnews.com/3d-printing/mits-foundry-interface-photoshop-3d-printing/2943634447155?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170104.tst004t
A team of researchers at MIT have developed a system for designing multi-material objects that it hopes will do for 3D printing what Photoshop did for graphic design.
The technology to 3D print with multiple materials is still an expensive prospect. Last year, researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) introduced MultiFab, a printer that can create multi-material objects in a single print run. At the time of its introduction, MultiFab was lauded as a reasonable cost alternative to existing multi-material printers with $250,000 price tags.
Costs aside, another problem has plagued multi-material 3D printing – a lack of solutions with interfaces user-friendly enough for non-programmers to cope with. MIT’s CSAIL has addressed this problem, as well, with the introduction of Foundry, a system for custom designing a variety of 3D-printed objects with multiple materials that doesn’t require a PhD in programming to understand.
“Even though there are some generative tools out there (e.g., ones that produce lattice geometries), there are no design tools that output material compositions,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing Will Grow in 2017: New and Better Materials
https://www.designnews.com/materials-assembly/3d-printing-and-additive-manufacturing-will-grow-2017-new-and-better-materials/191795147946197?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170103.tst004t
In 2017, materials for 3D printing and additive manufacturing (AM) will be getting better and more closely fine-tuned for higher-quality and larger end-production parts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Custom Sensor Head Turns 3D Printer into Capacitive Scanner
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/13/custom-sensor-head-turns-3d-printer-into-capacitive-scanner/
The best thing about owning a 3D printer or CNC router may not just be what you can additively or subtractively create with it. With a little imagination you can turn your machine into a 3D scanner, and using capacitive sensors to image items turns out to be an interesting project.
Capacitive Scanning
https://nelsonslog.com/2016/12/10/multispectral-scanning/
The sensor is an FDC2212 mated to a MSP430F5528.
The sensing elements are two 20mm squares side by side. Each square is one side of the FDC2122 resonant tank, meaning that this is reading in a differential capacitance configuration. The sensing elements are surrounded by individual shields on 3 sides and above.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Print Your E-Drum Pads
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/16/3d-print-your-e-drum-pads/
E-drum with small 3D printer and thick paper
http://www.instructables.com/id/E-drum-With-Small-3D-Printer-and-Thick-Paper/
This is prototype of 8 inch pad for e-drum.
It is made from multiple parts. I did not want to make drums with conspicuous bolts to connect the parts. Therefore, as much as possible, the joint part was made inconspicuous and designed to look like one part. Why? That’s because it is cool.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3d Printing Musical Instruments
http://www.instructables.com/id/3d-Printing-Musical-Instruments/
I think 3d printing will change music. It allows to easily make parts on demand, we can make whole instruments without being an experienced craftsman and even go beyond what is possible with wood or metal!
So how do you use 3d printing for musical instruments? My project showed that you can print:
an entire instrument
functional parts of an instrument
decorations for instruments
utilities for music
completely new unimagined sounds
Tomi Engdahl says:
Good Penmanship With A 3D Printer
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/17/good-penmanship-with-a-3d-printer/
[Chris Mitchell] was going to make his own plotter for doing cursive writing for cards but realized he might be able to use his 3D printer to do the writing instead. But then he couldn’t find any suitable software so he did what you’re supposed to do in this situation, he wrote his own called 3DWriter. He even 3D printed a holder so he could attach a pen to the side of the extruder. When not in use as a plotter he simply retracts the pen tip.
The software is written in C# for Windows and is available on GitHub along with a detailed write-up.
3DWriter
Use your 3D Printer with a pen to write letters, birthday cards etc
https://hackaday.io/project/19357-3dwriter
Use your 3D Printer with a pen to write letters, birthday cards etc
https://github.com/boy1dr/3DWriter
3DWriter
Use your 3D Printer with a pen to write letters, birthday cards etc
I couldn’t find any small programs that i could use to write letters using my 3D Printer as a plotter so i wrote one. After mucking about with different fonts i found a fontset called the Hershey fonts. These are the only fonts used in this application since they are primarily stroke based fonts rather than outline fonts that every other program i tried had.
Video demo over on youtube https://youtu.be/yK_YGwMRR40
Tomi Engdahl says:
RigTig’s Big 3D Printer
A DIY 3D printer (big volume, inexpensive, lightweight and portable).
https://hackaday.io/project/13420-rigtigs-big-3d-printer
RigTig’s Big 3D Printer (RB3DP) is a machine for placing material in 3 dimensions. The effector (printing head) hangs from three strings. The length of each string is adjusted by a small stepper motor, so the effector moves in 3D space.
The weight of the effector is counter-balanced by weights on pulleys on each string, so the small stepper does not need to provide much torque to actually position each string.
Details
RB3DP
Print volume is big: 1 to 100+ cubic metres.
Cost is small: less than US$100.
Speed is slow.
Accuracy is low.
It is a work-in-progress.
Inexpensive
The DIY cost to make a RB3DP is significantly less than one hundred dollars (USD100), plus 3D printed parts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printer with Tilted Bed
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/19/3d-printer-with-tilted-bed/
[Oliver Tolar] and [Denis Herrmann], two students from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), designed and produced a 3D printer prototype that has a movable printing bed that can tilt. By tilting, objects with critical overhangs can be printed without the additional support material. The printer has six axes, three axes control the print head as usual and three other axes control the printing bed, allowing a wider range of movements.
The students claim that besides saving on the support material this printer can actually save time while printing objects that need a lot of support since, we assume, it’s faster to tilt the bed than to print the support itself.
In normal 3D printers the plate is always horizontal and the print object is built up in horizontal layers.
Having the software controlling the bed properly was more difficult than the assembly of the printer, they said.
3D-Drucker mit beweglicher Druckplatte
https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/3D-Drucker-mit-beweglicher-Druckplatte-3594506.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Multiextrusion 3D Printing and OpenSCAD
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/20/multiextrusion-and-openscad/
In a recent posting called Liar’s 3D Printing, I showed you how you can print with multiple filament colors even if your printer only has one extruder and hot end. It isn’t easy, though, and a lot of models you’ll find on sites like Thingiverse are way too complicated to give good results. An object with 800 layers, each with two colors is going to take a lot of filament changes and only the most patient among us will tolerate that.
What that means is you are likely to want to make your own models. The question is, how? The answer is, of course, lots of different ways. I’m going to cover how I did the two models I showed last time using OpenSCAD
http://hackaday.com/2016/12/27/liars-3d-printing-multiple-colors-with-one-extruder/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Let’s Prototype! This Filament End Needs 80 Decibels
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/27/lets-prototype-this-filament-end-needs-80-decibels/
Reaching the end of a spool of filament when 3D printing is inevitable. The result ranges from minor annoyance to ruined print. Recently, I needed to print a number of large jobs that used just over half a spool of plastic each. Unwilling to start every print with a fresh spool (and shelve a 60% used one afterward), I had a problem to solve. What my 3D printer needed was filament monitor, or at least that’s what I thought.
My Assumed Need: A Filament Monitor
Actual Need: The Right Four Minutes
Prototype
An enclosure was designed as a sort of clamshell to hold the components. Magnets hold the shell together and also act as power connectors, so putting the halves together (or pulling them apart) serves as the main power switch. Two CR2032 coin cells power a small 80+ decibel buzzer, controlled by a roller switch. When the device is not shrieking, it consumes no power.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The very first 3D-printed car to cross the auction block is a sight to behold.
http://www.motor1.com/news/134035/3d-printed-ford-torino-auctioned/
You are looking at one of the first 3D-printed cars in the world, a non-running vehicle that was auctioned without a reserve earlier this week during the 2017 Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale event organized in Arizona. The creator’s source of inspiration was a 1971 Ford Torino reinterpreted with a rather polarizing design. Someone did appreciate the peculiar styling by agreeing to pay $5,500 to own it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing Makes Electronics A Snap
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/26/3d-printing-makes-electronics-a-snap/
A few years back, a new method appeared: Snap Circuits. The name almost says it all. A baseboard has mounting holes for different components. All the components make their electrical connections and mechanical connections through a common snap like you might find on clothing. Even the wires are little segments with snaps at both ends.
One problem with any system like this is how to integrate custom components. Of course, with the snaps, that’s not very hard, but [Chuck Hellebuyck] got creative with TinkerCad and worked out how to 3D print custom modules for the system.
3D Printed Custom SnapCircuits Electronic Module using Tinkercad and Snaps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzwHynsUClI
Chuck uses his Tinkercad skills to design a custom Snap Circuits electronic module and then adds some Anorak snaps to make it work. The design was printed on his Flashforge Dreamer 3D printer. He shows you step by step how he designed it, printed it and assembled it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Increase The Range Of An ESP8266 With Duct Tape
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/30/increase-the-range-of-an-esp8266-with-duct-tape/
For the longest time now, I’ve wanted to build a real, proper radio telescope. To me, this means a large parabolic reflector, a feed horn made of brass sheet, coat hanger wire, and at least for the initial experiments, an RTL-SDR dongle.
I decided to 3D print a small model of this dish. In creating this model, I inadvertently created the perfect WiFi antenna for an ESP8266 module using nothing but 3D printed parts, a bit of epoxy, and duct tape.
The design of a parabolic WiFi antenna isn’t that much different from the design of an optical telescope. In fact, nothing is different save for the frequency of light we’re looking at. A rule of thumb for optics is that a perfect reflector needs to have a surface finish within 1/10th to 1/20th of the wavelength of light the reflector will be used at. For a visible light telescope at a wavelength of 400 nanometers, this means a parabolic mirror needs to have a surface finish that is perfect to within 40 nanometers. That’s the size of viruses, but it’s still something that can be made with cerium oxide, pitch, and a second block of glass.
WiFi, on the other hand, has a wavelength of 12.5 centimeters, and the surface of a parabolic WiFi antenna needs to be perfect within only a millimeter or two. This is easily attainable with a 3D printer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Bicycle From Stainless Steel!
http://hackaday.com/2017/02/03/3d-printed-bicycle-from-stainless-steel/
You wouldn’t 3D print a car, would you? That’d simply be impractical. However, if you’re a team of students attending the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands, you might be inclined to 3D print a stainless steel bicycle instead.
The TU Delft team collaborated with MX3D, a company that uses an articulated industrial robot arm with a welder for an effector, welding and building the Arc Bicycle, glob by molten glob.
3D-Printed Stainless Steel Arc Bicycle
http://www.urdesignmag.com/technology/2016/02/04/3d-printed-stainless-steel-arc-bicycle/
A student team from TU Delft in the Netherlands has designed and produced a fully functional 3D printed stainless steel bicycle. The designed frame demonstrates the potential of a new method for 3D printing metal. The students achieved the goal of their 3- month project by printing the frame of the bicycle with the help of MX3D in Amsterdam.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bottle Recycling 3D Printer
From a plastic bottle to a new 3D printed object in one process.
https://hackaday.io/project/9557-bottle-recycling-3d-printer
Tomi Engdahl says:
Erin Griffith / Fortune:
3D printing startup Desktop Metal raises $45M Series C from GV, BMW, and Lowe’s, valuing the startup at $305M pre-money
Google, BMW and Lowe’s Invest in Metal 3D Printing Startup
http://fortune.com/2017/02/06/desktop-metal-funding/
Two years after it was created, Desktop Metal, a 3D metal printing startup based in Burlington, Mass., is gearing up to take its first product into mass production. To do so, it’s gathered up a giant pile of venture capital from a group of noteworthy strategic investors.
The company has raised $45 million in new venture funding from the venture capital arms of Alphabet, BMW, and Lowe’s. The round values Desktop Metal at $305 million pre-money, up from its valuation of $100 million in April 2016.
The 3D printing industry is frequently knocked for not living up to its early hype. Fulop concedes that is true in when it comes to plastic 3D printing and consumer-facing printers, but notes that industrial 3D printing has thrived and metal 3D printing is especially ripe for disruption.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ingenious use of 3D Printer gives Simba the Mane he deserves
http://hackaday.com/2017/02/13/ingenious-use-of-3d-printer-gives-simba-the-mane-he-deserves/
Here at Hackaday, we love clever 3D prints. This amazing lion statue remixed by [ _primoz_], makes us feel no different. It is no secret that FDM 3D printers have come a long way, propelled by the enthusiastic support from the open source community.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Rockets are a Gas
http://hackaday.com/2017/02/12/3d-printed-rockets-are-a-gas/
We’ve probably all made matchstick rockets as kids. And around here anything that even vaguely looks like a rocket will get some imaginary flight time. But [austiwawa] is making some really cool 3D printed rockets that use common CO2 cartridges as a propellant.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2083869/#files
These rockets are designed to snugly hold 12g CO2 cartridges and are launched out of 3/4″ schedule 40 PVC pipe. For more information visit my YouTube channel!
Tomi Engdahl says:
More Layoffs at MakerBot
http://hackaday.com/2017/02/16/more-layoffs-at-makerbot/
MakerBot CEO [Nadav Goshen] announced that changes are needed to ensure product innovation and support long-term goals in a blog post published yesterday. To that end, MakerBot will reduce its staff by 30%. This follows a series of layoffs over a year ago that reduced the MakerBot workforce by 36%. With this latest series of layoffs, MakerBot has cut its workforce by over 50% in the span of two years.
In addition to these layoffs, the hardware and software teams will be combined.
Many in the 3D printer community have speculated MakerBot is pivoting from a hardware company to a software company. [Levin]’s promotion could be the first sign of this transition.
When discussing MakerBot, many will cite the documentary Print the Legend. While it is a good introduction to the beginnings of the desktop 3D printer industry, it is by no means complete. The documentary came out too early, it really doesn’t mention the un-open sourceness of MakerBot, the lawsuit with Form Labs wasn’t covered, and there wasn’t a word on how literally every other 3D printer manufacturer is selling more printers than MakerBot right now.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3557464/