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.
2,037 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Keep Your Nozzle Hot and Your Prints Cool
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/29/keep-your-nozzle-hot-and-your-prints-cool/
Despite tuning my extruder steps perfectly, and getting good results instantly on larger prints. I was still having a ton of trouble with smaller parts. PLA is the favored printing material for its low odor, low warping, and decent material properties. It also has many downside, but it’s biggest, for the end user, lies in its large glass transition temperature range. Like all thermoplastics, it shrinks when it cools, but because of this large range, it stays expanded and, getting deep into my reserve of technical terms, bendy for a long time. If you don’t cool it, the plastic will pile up in its expanded state and deform.
3D Printer Tool: Set Your Extruder Steps With Ease
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/27/3d-printer-tool-set-your-extruder-steps-with-ease/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This is My 3D Printed Brain!
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/30/this-is-my-3d-printed-brain/
This hack is a strange mixture of awesome and ghoulish. [Andrew Sink] created a 3D printed version of his brain. He received a CD from an MRI session that contained the data obtained by the scan. Not knowing what to do with it he created a model of his brain.
Converting an MRI Brain Scan into a 3D Printed Model
http://sinkhacks.com/converting-mri-brain-scan-into-a-3d-printed-model/
“If you’re interested, we can give you a CD with a copy of all the data from the MRI after the procedure. I guess you could use it for…something? Wait, why do you want it?”
Living in the future is pretty cool, right? After scheduling my brain MRI, I was told that I would be given a CD with a copy of all of the data collected from the procedure. I don’t really know how to interpret it, but I figured I’d be able to at least make a 3D printed model out of it.
The technician informed me the machine I would be scanned with was the Siemens Magnetom Sonata. The process took about an hour, most of which was spent in the tube.
You’ll need Blender, netfabb, and OsiriX (Mac-only software). Blender can be substituted for any CAD program, but Blender is the easiest for me to work with (I’m slowly graduating from TinkerCAD!). In addition, OsiriX is OS X only, but there are other free and open-source DICOM viewers for PC.
The CD contained about a dozen different scans of my brain. Each scan was focused on a different part of my brain, so each was missing a different part.
The model still requires a good bit of adjusting in OsiriX, as you want to isolate the brain while removing the skull, skin, and eyes. Easier said than done; this process took me about an hour.
Once finished, I exported the .STL and checked it in NetFabb. Everything looked solid, so it was time to start the clean-up.
Using Blender, I cleaned up the floating bits of skull
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tribed 3D Printer Configuration Doesn’t Ever Need To Be Leveled
http://hackaday.com/2016/01/31/tribed-3d-printer-configuration-doesnt-ever-need-to-be-leveled/
[Jeremie]’s approach is pretty clever. Since you can define any plane mathematically with three points, he has three Z-axis lead screws. This lets him tilt the bed at any angle he likes. Once he had the mechanics in place, he added some force sensitive resistors, an Arduino, and wrote an extension for the popular Marlin firmware.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Research Sheds Light on 3D Printing Fumes
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/3d-printing-fumes-new-science/
A few years back, there were some studies on the chemical and particle emissions coming out of the hotends of 3D printers. Although they galvanized a lot of people in the community, the science wasn’t entirely conclusive — one paper made it sound like you needed a hazmat suit for 3D printing, and the other suggested that cooking a meal in a kitchen was worse for you. That’s because they were measuring different things.
This new research paper on the emissions of 3D printers covers all the bases. They examined a variety of different materials printed in different printers. They also measured both chemical emissions and Ultrafine Particles (UFP) which can be hazardous even when the material itself is not.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emissions of Ultrafine Particles and Volatile Organic Compounds from Commercially Available Desktop Three-Dimensional Printers with Multiple Filaments
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b04983
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finnish motorist stunned spare parts price EUR 120 – made self-3D-printed for EUR 0.30
Charging the door opening handle Nissan in LEAF electric car goes according to Nissin easily broken.
Nissin asked new spare parts for Nissan evening he was told that a small plastic spare part received only by purchasing a package of € 120, which involved belong to the opening handle in addition to mounting brackets, cables and bonnet flap. A single opening of the handle was not possible to buy.
Last Saturday, Nissi decided to design a part of yourself. After a few hours of which were ready to be printed – material costs, which are around € 0.30.
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/autot/2016013121045731_au.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists Print in 4D
http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/1198-ntb/news/news/23841-scientists-print-in-4d
Scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have brought a fourth dimension to their microscale 3D printing technology.
Inspired by plants, which respond and change their form over time according to environmental stimuli, the team’s 4D-printed hydrogel composite structures change shape upon immersion in water.
“We have now gone beyond integrating form and function to create transformable architectures,” said Jennifer Lewis, Sc.D., senior author on the new study.
Importantly, the hydrogel composites contain cellulose fibrils that are derived from wood and are similar to the microstructures that enable shape changes in plants.
Combined with a proprietary mathematical model developed by the team that predicts how a 4D object must be printed to achieve prescribed transformable shape
Tomi Engdahl says:
Super Detailed 3d Scans With Photogrammetry
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/03/super-detailed-3d-scans-with-photogrammetry/
Photogrammetry is a real word, and [shapespeare] built himself a nice setup to take high-res 3d scans using it. A good set of images for photogrammetry are: in sharp focus, well lit, precisely indexed, and have a uniform background.
Build a DIY Desktop 3d Scanner with infinite resolution.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-DIY-Desktop-3d-Scanner-With-Infinite-Resol/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making Parametric Models in Fusion 360
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/02/making-parametric-models-in-fusion-360/
We all know and love OpenSCAD for its sweet sweet parametrical goodness. However, it’s possible to get some of that same goodness out of Fusion 360. To do this we will be making a mathematical model of our object and then we’ll change variables to get different geometry. It’s simpler than it sounds.
Even if you don’t use Fusion 360 it’s good to have an idea of how different design tools work. This is web-based 3D Modeling software produced by Autodesk. One of the nice features is that it lets me share my models with others.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fully Printed CNC On an IKEA Table
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/02/fully-printed-cnc-on-an-ikea-table/
It seems that many 3D printer owners just aren’t getting the same buzz they used to off their 3D printers, and are taking steps to procure heavier machines. And making them in their home laboratories with, you guessed it, their 3D printers.
Following the pattern, [Michael Reitter], designed a 3D printable CNC around a IKEA MALM table.
We’re not certain how much plastic this build takes, but it looks to be a lot.
rBot – fully 3D printed CNC
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1195229
Tomi Engdahl says:
Beyond the Liberator: A 3D-Printed Plastic 9mm Semi-Auto Pistol
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/16/02/04/0138233/beyond-the-liberator-a-3d-printed-plastic-9mm-semi-auto-pistol
Profiled at Ars Technica is the (mostly) 3D-printed semi-auto pistol design from a West Virginia maker known as Derwood. The PLA-based design, which Derwood calls the Shuty MP-1, isn’t quite all-plastic; like others that are roughly similar, it utilizes metal for a few parts that aren’t practical in plastic.
Unlike Cody Wilson’s single-shot Liberator pistol (mentioned here a few times before), the design files are not available for download — at least not yet
Law & Disorder / Civilization & Discontents
New 3D-printed 9mm semi-automatic pistol debuts
“The goal was to keep it simple so that anyone could build it. It is now to that point.”
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/new-3d-printed-9mm-semi-automatic-pistol-debuts/
On Sunday, a West Virginia carpenter who goes by the name “Derwood” released a new video of his “Shuty-MP1″ firearm, a small semi-automatic 9mm weapon that is almost entirely 3D-printed with inexpensive PLA plastic. The only parts of the gun that are metal are the steel barrel and springs.
Derwood’s gun illustrates the evolution of 3D-printed firearms, which have rapidly evolved in nearly three years since the debut of the simple Liberator and the printed AR-15 lower receiver.
“The first model required some welding and machining, and the goal was to keep it simple so that anyone could build it,” he added. “It is now to that point.”
The Shuty-MP1 appears to be largely based on the AR-15 lower design but with a much smaller upper.
Derwood is part of a group called FOSSCAD, which is “dedicated to the datalove of open source CAD, 3d-printing, awesomeness, and firearms.” However he has not yet released the relevant CAD files that would allow anyone to duplicate his design.
The United States Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 allows anyone to manufacture their own firearm without a license, but manufacturing such weaponry for sale or transfer does require a federal license.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s New in 3D Printing, Part III: the Software
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/whats-new-3d-printing-part-iii-software
This article is the third part of a four-part series that examines some of the changes in 3D printing that have occurred in the past three years since my first articles on the subject. Because this is Linux Journal, instead of discussing the entire 3D printing world, I’m focusing on the sections of the topic most relevant to open source and open hardware. In the first article, I gave a general overview on the current state of 3D printing. In the second, I covered what’s changed in 3D printing hardware during the past three years, including the shift away from open hardware and which printers still hold onto their open hardware roots. In this article, I discuss the changes in 3D printing software, and then in the final piece, I’ll walk through setting up OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi to control your printer remotely.
The software side of 3D printing three years ago was a model example of the power of open-source software. Just about any popular hobbyist printer you could choose used open-source software, all the way from the firmware (often Marlin) on the Arduino-based boards, to the software that sent Gcode to the printers (the Printrun suite of tools), to the slicers that took 3D models and converted them into the Gcode the printer understood (Slic3r and Repetier among others), to the software you could use to create the 3D models to begin with (OpenSCAD, FreeCAD and Blender, among others). All of this software ran on Linux, so you could work with every part of the 3D printing life cycle without proprietary software. As interest in 3D printing grew, the open nature of all the software helped drive a lot of the innovation we see today.
Unfortunately, if not predictably, as 3D printing grew in popularity and new companies entered the market driven more by profit than by the health of the community, we saw the software side of 3D printing close up and become proprietary, just as we saw with the hardware side. In many cases, a company would enter the market with a proprietary 3D printer but still rely on open-source software to drive it to buy time to write up a proprietary alternative.
All this talk of proprietary software might make the software side of 3D printing seem rather bleak, but among all those clouds is some silver lining. While Printrun and Slic3r still are running strong, Ultimaker, the creator of the open hardware Ultimaker line of 3D printers, has released its own slicing and printer control software called Cura that has become the popular choice among many in the 3D printing community. Cura combines the 3D printer control features of Printrun (with a similar control panel, in fact) with a fast slicer and a sophisticated interface that makes it easy to view, rotate and scale 3D models before you print. Ultimaker even provides packages for a number of common Linux distributions so you don’t have to bother building the software if you don’t want to.
Although Cura was created for the Ultimaker printers, at startup, it launches a wizard that contains calibration settings for a number of popular 3D printers, including the full Printrbot line among others
Those basic printing presets are geared toward Ultimaker printers, so if you use a different printer, you probably will want to switch over to the advanced settings view
The CAD world from the open-source perspective is one area that is still relatively similar to what it was three years ago. Tools like OpenSCAD and Blender still dominate, and OpenSCAD has seen variants like OpenJSCad that uses JavaScript as the language to build 3D objects. Most of the growth in CAD software appears to be on the free-in-cost-but-proprietary front from companies like AutoCAD that aim to provide a simple set of CAD features in a desktop or Web tool as an introduction to its more sophisticated suite of CAD software for sale down the line.
Three years ago, the primary site you would use to share and download 3D printed objects was Thingiverse. Although Thingiverse is still a popular choice, there was some community backlash a few years ago due to some changes to its Terms of Use
One result of this controversy was that a number of other sites sprang up to share 3D models. The most notable one for the Open Source community is probably YouMagine, which is run by Ultimaker and is a popular choice by those in the Open Source community for sharing models.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How a 3-D Printer May Have Changed the Outcome of Super Bowl 50
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/how-a-3-d-printer-may-have-changed-the-outcome-of-super-bowl-50/
A few minutes after the Carolina Panthers punched their ticket to Super Bowl 50 with a blowout win over the Arizona Cardinals, reporters asked stud linebacker Thomas Davis how his arm was feeling. “Yeah, it’s broken,” he replied.
He wants to play, too, injuries be damned. The day after the game, a surgeon installed a 5.5-inch plate and a dozen screws in his arm. In theory, the surgery would allow him to play long before the bone healed—though it’s still supposed to set you back for six weeks, according to one expert in the field.
Desperate to play, Davis and the Panthers started exploring their options. On the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 27, they called Whiteclouds, a 3-D printing outfit in Utah. “Someone knew someone who knew us,” says company CEO Jerry Ropelato, as if he’s still unsure exactly how it happened. The Panthers had two questions: Can you make Davis a brace he can wear during the game? And can you do it, like, yesterday?
Whiteclouds doesn’t make medical devices, per se. It’s the world’s largest full-color 3-D printing facility, and can print just about anything you can imagine. It has kiosks in Target stores where you scan your face and make yourself into an action figure. It’s worked with NASA, Dreamworks, and Marvel. Its 53 employees know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to 3-D printing, but this was a new one.
They didn’t have time to prototype and iterate, or to stress-test their designs. They didn’t have time to do anything beyond make something. Anything. And fast. “[The team] wanted it on a plane the next day,” Ropelato says.
Using a hastily-made 3-D scan of Davis’ arm, and working through a company called 3-D Elite, Ropelato’s crew set to work designing a brace everyone thought might work. It had to be breathable enough to be comfortable to wear, and as light as possible
Whiteclouds has a whole design methodology, which it promptly tossed out the window. “If you were doing this brace,” Ropelato says, “you might have a whole team of experts doing their various testing, and math calculations from an engineering perspective. A lot of this was just bypassed, it was just quickly, dive in and get this thing done.”
The brace runs almost the length of Davis’ formidable forearm, and took a full 30 hours to print. They shipped it to Davis last Friday night. By Monday, at the media day ahead of the Super Bowl, Davis had already tried it out. “It was a light day” of practice, he told reporters, “but I took every opportunity to hit it on something.”
There’s still no final word on whether Davis will play, of course, though his comments make him sound hell-bent on doing exactly that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thermaltake Gets On The 3D Printing Bandwagon
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/08/thermaltake-gets-on-the-3d-printing-bandwagon/
We’re interested by a move from Thermaltake, a manufacturer of computer cases, fans, and power supplies. Thermaltake has released a computer case designed to be modded by those with a 3D printer. They released a set of models that fits the new case. These are all hosted on a service much like Thingiverse. So if you want a single SSD or a whole rack, print the model. Watercooling? There’s a model for that. In concept, it’s very cool.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Solder Stencils with a 3D Printer
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/08/solder-stencils-with-a-3d-printer/
If you are soldering with paste, a stencil makes life a lot easier. Sure, you can apply paste by hand with a syringe, but a modern PCB might have hundreds or even thousands of pads. Like a lot of us, [Robert Kirberich] doesn’t like paying to have stencils made and he wondered if he could use his 3D printer to make stencils. He found the answer was yes.
[Robert] uses a hot plate to do soldering and Python to build the application to convert two Gerber files into an STL that will cause your printer to produce a workable stencil.
The Python code converts the Gerbers into .scad files processed by OpenSCAD.
Solder-stencil.me
Create 3d-printable STL solder stencils form Gerber files
https://hackaday.io/project/9550-solder-stencilme
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Triumph of Open Design and the Birth of a FormLabs Aftermarket
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/10/the-triumph-of-open-design-and-the-birth-of-a-formlabs-aftermarket/
Whilst designing hardware, it’s easy to shut the doors, close the blinds, and bury ourselves deeply into an after-hours design session. Although it’s tempting to fly solo, it’s likely that we’ll encounter bugs that others have handled, or perhaps we’ll realize that we forgot to add a handy feature that someone else could’ve noticed before we sent the darned PCB files out for fab. All that said, if we probe the community around us and ask for feedback, we can produce a project that’s far more functional and feature-complete in less time than if we were to design solo. Who knows? With enough eyes giving feedback on your project, maybe others will get excited enough to want one for themselves! [Andrew Werby] and [Zak Timan] on the FormLabs forums did just that: through months of iterative design and discussion on the FormLabs forums, they’ve created the first 3rd party glass resin tank that’s altogether sturdier, longer-lasting, more scratch-resistant, and less distorting than the original resin tank. And guess what? After months of trials through a few brave customers, you too can be the proud owner such a tank as they’re now up for sale on [Zak’s] website.
https://www.zvatindustries.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finns want to 3D print spare parts
Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre have launched focusing on digital spare parts of a research project together with 13 company. The project will examine new revenue models, the operational and technological potential now and in the future will be built, as well as the conditions for effective network.
The aim is to promote change, in which the traditional chain of spare parts for manufacturing and storage of transition to digitalization by means of a dynamic and value-added network model. Spare parts and related information is transferred and stored digitally. Parts manufacturing is done in 3D, print a necessary, normally close to the end users.
Industry, 3D-printed parts business is still underdeveloped, and there is no functioning focusing on spare parts networks. Challenges and development sites can be found, inter alia for security of critical parts, material supply, in matters related to information security, the digitization of large or complex parts and manufacture as well as the creation of functioning, especially the service.
The project aims to ensure that Finnish companies can lead the way in the international digital network of spare parts. the project is worth around EUR 1.4 million is part of the Tekes Industrial Internet program.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3961:suomalaiset-haluavat-varaosien-3d-tulostajiksi&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vantaa Energy Arena will be held April 15 to 16. The first days of the Nordic Council of 3D instant focus on the manufacture of the fair. The event will be held at NORDIC3DEXPO.
For the first time-held 3D Expo in face 3D professionals, service providers and enthusiasts. The visitor target groups are 3D printing and 3D technology to take advantage of companies, students, and enthusiasts in the field.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3962:3d-tulostus-saa-oman-messunsa&catid=13&Itemid=101
More: http://www.3dexpo.fi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Take Your 3D Printing to the Next Dimension
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/10/take-your-3d-printing-to-the-next-dimension/
In what is being hailed as the next great advancement in 3D printing, scientists have been able to get a 3D printed shape to change form when it is exposed to water, bringing 3D printing squarely into the realm of the fourth dimension. Although the only examples we’ve seen so far are with relatively flat prints (which arguably subtracts one “D” from the claim) the new procedure is one which is groundbreaking for the technology.
The process uses cellulose fibers which, when aligned in a particular way and exposed to water, swell in order to change shape. This is similar to how a bimetallic strip in a thermostat works, but they really took their inspiration from biological processes in plants that allow them to change shape according to environmental conditions.
Gorgeous New 4-D Printing Process Makes More Than Just Eye Candy
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/546126/gorgeous-new-4-d-printing-process-makes-more-than-just-eye-candy/
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s New in 3D Printing, Part III: the Software
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/whats-new-3d-printing-part-iii-software
Tomi Engdahl says:
Repairing a MakerBot Mightyboard Clone
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/13/repairing-a-makerbot-mightyboard-clone/
It can be argued that MakerBot, a company that makes popular 3D printers, hit its pinnacle with the introduction of the Replicator 2. It was designed well and completely open source, including the motherboard that drove the printer – known as the Mightyboard. China quickly picked up on the success of the Replicator 2 and copy/pasted several of their own versions (at a much cheaper sale price). One of these outfits is called Wanhao, and their version of the Replicator 2 is called..wait for it…the Duplicator!
Their version of the Mighyboard is identical to the original, minus a few nickle and dime components.
Fixing Wanhao Duplicator 4S MightyBoard
http://www.arvydas.co.uk/2016/02/fixing-wanhao-duplicator-4s-mightyboard/
Tomi Engdahl says:
iQ by Intel:
3D Fashion Technology Brings Sci-Fi to the Runways — An Eagle Borg costume made of leatherette and plastic turned fashion designer Monica Vaverová into a 3D printing pioneer in the Czech Republic. — Once she sashayed into the digital future, designer Monica Vaverová found herself …
3D Fashion Technology Brings Sci-Fi to the Runways
http://iq.intel.com/3d-fashion-technology-brings-sci-fi-to-the-runways/
An Eagle Borg costume made of leatherette and plastic turned fashion designer Monica Vaverová into a 3D printing pioneer in the Czech Republic.
Once she sashayed into the digital future, designer Monica Vaverová found herself on the precipice of a rising fashion-technology trend. After using a computer and 3D printer to bring her idea for an eagle cyborg costume to life, the designer was inspired. It unleashed her desire to incorporate technology deeper into her next sci-fi inspired designs.
In October 2015, Vaverová became one of the first designers in the Czech Republic to use 3D fashion technology at a fashion show. Her white and gold glossy Eagle Borg bodysuit was made with lycra and leatherette, and adorned with elements fabricated by a 3D printer, including a gravity-defying helmet and decorative shoulder covering.
3D printing started the trend to infuse technology into fashion and allowed designers to transform sketches into real-life objects. As Vaverová’s work shows, 3D fashion technology brings new dimensions to garments, allowing people to create their own clothes or costumes once only seen in science fiction movies or comic books.
Michael Schmidt created one of the most famous 3D-printed dresses for Dita von Teese in 2013. The black robe decorated with Swarovski crystals broke new ground for other 3D dress designs worn by global celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Björk.
Today, 3D printing is common in the fashion industry, from haute couture dresses to personalized running shoes. 3D printing remains a springboard for many fashion designers eager to turn their ideas into reality quickly and affordably.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Super Sizing the Printrbot Metal Simple
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/14/super-sizing-the-printrbot-metal-simple/
The Printrbot Simple Metal is a good 3D printer, with a few qualifications. More accurately, the Printrbot Simple Metal is a good first 3D printer. It’s robust, takes a beating, can produce high-quality prints, and is a great introduction to 3D printing for just $600. There are limitations to the Printbot Simple Metal, the most important is the relatively small 150mm cubed build volume.
[ken.do] wanted to print large parts, specifically scale aircraft wings and panels. While the Printrbot can’t handle these things normally, the design of the printer does lend itself to increasing the size of the build volume to 500mm long and 500mm high.
Printrbot ‘SuperSize Me” Mod
Transforming the humble 150x150x150mm stock print bed of a printrbot simple metal to a whopping 500x500x150mm
https://hackaday.io/project/8992-printrbot-supersize-me-mod
Tomi Engdahl says:
A 3D Printed Jet Engine Appears to Function
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/15/a-3d-printed-jet-engine-appears-to-function/
[amazingdiyprojects] has been working on a 3D printable jet engine. You may remember seeing a 3D printed jet engine grace our front page back in October. That one was beautiful didn’t function. This one flips those values around. [amazingdiyprojects] seems to make a living from selling plans for his projects, so naturally most of the details of the build are hidden from us. But from what we can see in the video clips there are some really interesting solutions here.
3D printed jet engine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X_ctwt8PT4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Incredible 3D Printer Can Make Bone, Cartilage, and Muscle
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a19443/3d-printer-bone-cartilidge-and-muscle/
A team of biomedical researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has just completed an invention 10 years in the making. It’s a 3D printer that can craft relatively simple tissues like cartilage into large complex shapes—like an infant’s ear. Using cartridges that are brimming with biodegradable plastic and human cells bound up in gel, this new kind of 3D printer builds complex chunks of growing muscle, cartilage, and even bone. When implanted into animals, these simple fabricated tissues survive and thrive indefinitely.
The scientists led by Anthony Atala surmounted two particularly thorny challenges that have long impeded the futuristic goal of printing living human tissues. First, their new device manufactures large, stable chunks of printed tissue that don’t fall apart. Second, it keeps those large structures alive and growing. The new 3D printer is unveiled and outlined today in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
“This is the first bioprinter that can print tissue at the large scales relevant for human implantation.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Kell / Fortune:
Mattel’s ThingMaker, a 3D-printer and app enabling kids to make toys, is available for pre-order on Amazon for $299, will ship this fall — Mattel Is Using 3D Printing to Resurrect An Old Hit — Mattel kicked off New York Toy Fair with a big announcement: the world’s largest toy maker …
Mattel Is Using 3D Printing to Resurrect An Old Hit
http://fortune.com/2016/02/12/mattel-3d-printing-toys/
ThingMaker is making a comeback.
Mattel kicked off New York Toy Fair with a big announcement: the world’s largest toy maker is embracing the still-evolving 3D printing technology.
The Barbie and Hot Wheels maker gave Fortune an early peak at the ThingMaker 3D-printer, a system that allows kids and their parents to print action figures, jewelry, and wearables at home. The system is available for preorder on Amazon today but won’t ship until this fall. It should retail at $299.
Mattel MAT 3.99% is embracing a manufacturing process that comes with risks and rewards for the toy industry. In 3D printing, computerized machines layer material to create three-dimensional objects. The technology can allow Mattel and rival companies to become more nimble, especially to create fast prototypes or on the retail side, gives consumers more customization options with fancy technology. But more problematically, if the technology progresses too aggressively, it could result in people making their own toys and figures at home.
To Mattel’s credit, it made several wise choices when it came to the construction of the ThingMaker 3D-printer. The company partnered with software firm Autodesk ADSK 3.84% to build the accompanying app that can send commands to the printer. Mattel also told Fortune that the app, which runs on iOS and Android devices, isn’t just compatible with the Mattel-made printer.
“In the 3D printing world today, most things are collectable. These are toys,”
“In today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever for families to transcend the digital world and make their ideas real,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teaching a CNC New Tricks
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/16/teaching-a-cnc-new-tricks/
Computer Numeric Control technology has been around for a long time. It’s at the heart of our 3D printers, laser cutters / etchers and CNC milling machines. They all work the same way — you begin with a CAD program and make some type of design. Then the computer converts the file into a set of XYZ coordinates and moves a tool head accordingly. Now let us pose to ourselves a most interesting question. What if you reversed the process? What if you could take a CNC’d object and convert it into XYZ coordinates?
This is precisely what [dave] is attempting to do. He’s made a basic CNC outfit and installed encoders on the steppers. He then manually moves the tool head to trace out an object. At the same time, the encoders are feeding the coordinates to a computer for recording. The idea is to replay the coordinates to see if the CNC can replicate the object.
Trainable CNC Paths
http://sandsprite.com/blogs/index.php?uid=13
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D-Printed Ear Comes To Life After Implantation In Mice
http://science.slashdot.org/story/16/02/17/1823250/3d-printed-ear-comes-to-life-after-implantation-in-mice
3D printed tissues and organs have shown real potential in addressing shortages of available donor tissue for people in need of transplants, but having them take root and survive after implantation has proven difficult to achieve. In a positive move for the technology, researchers used a newly-developed 3D printer to produce human-scale muscle structures that matured into functional tissue after being implanted into animals.
3D-printed ear, bone and muscle structures come to life after implantation in mice
http://www.gizmag.com/3d-printed-ear-implantation/41869/
A baby-sized ear structure was bioprinted and implanted in a mouse and went on to show signs of vascularization one and two months later
3D printed tissues and organs have shown real potential in addressing shortages of available donor tissue for people in need of transplants, but having them take root and survive after implantation has proven difficult to achieve. In a positive move for the technology, researchers have used with a newly-developed 3D printer to produce human-scale muscle structures that matured into functional tissue after being implanted into animals.
Researchers have been exploring bioprinting as a means of replacing damaged tissue for several years now. The difficulty in replicating the complexities of human tissue has proven no simple undertaking, however, with scientists testing the waters with specialized bio-inks and various purpose-built printers in an effort to produce usable, engineered tissue.
Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have taken this latter path to engineering structures of adequate size and strength to implant in the human body.
The water-based gels were optimized to promote cell growth and health. This, combined with micro-channels that allow nutrients and oxygen from the body to permeate the structure, allows the system to remain alive while it develops a system of blood vessels.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ThingMaker Is for Kids, But You’ll Want This 3-D Printer for Yourself
http://www.wired.com/2016/02/thingmaker-is-for-kids-but-youll-want-this-3-d-printer-for-yourself/
A 3-D printer in every household was never going to happen, for so many reasons. But a machine that lets kids design and create their own toys with a few taps on a screen? Now we’re talking.
That 3-D printer is Mattel’s new ThingMaker. To be more precise, it’s a machine paired with some savvy software by Autodesk that makes printing toys and jewelry a snap. (Literally: The pieces are designed to snap together in a wide range of configurations). It’s also the first 3-D printer with a chance of going truly mainstream, potentially bringing the entire consumer industry along with it.
There’s already a market for 3-D printers—it’s just not in people’s homes. Technology analyst firm Canalys’s Joe Kempton estimates that total sales of the devices and the materials and services accompanying them hit $1.8 billion in the first half of 2015 and expects that number to top $20 billion by 2019. Two-thirds of 3-D printers are shipped to the enterprise market, which also generates a whopping 85 percent of the revenue.
“Businesses, particularly those focused on the automotive, aerospace, and medical sectors are investing huge sums of money into 3-D printing,” says Kempton.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The OpenR/C Project
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/19/the-openrc-project/
Daniel Norée] started the OpenR/C project back in 2012 when he bought a Thing-O-Matic. In search of a project to test out his new printer, he set his sights on a remote controlled car, which as he put it,”… seemed like the perfect candidate, as it presents a lot of challenges with somewhat intricate moving parts along with the need for a certain level of precision and durability.”
After releasing his second design, the OpenR/C Truggy, he realized a community was forming around this idea, and needed a place to communicate
OpenRC 1:10 4WD Truggy Concept RC Car
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:42198
Tomi Engdahl says:
Good Vibrations in 3D-Printed Clay
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/20/good-vibrations-in-3d-printed-clay/
An engineer with a 3D printer wants everything to be rigid and precise. Wobble induced by flex in the z-axis feedscrews, for instance, makes telltale wavy patterns in the surface that match exactly the screw pitch. Nobody likes those, right? Certainly not an engineer!
good_vibrations-shot0008_thumbnailBut one man’s surface irregularity is another man’s ornamentation. The details we have are sparse, but from looking at the video (also inlined below the break) it’s clear enough: [Olivier van Herpt] and [Ricky van Broekhoven] stuck a vibrating woofer underneath the print bed of their ceramic printer, and use it to intentionally ruin their smooth surface. And they do so to great artistic effect!
https://vimeo.com/142682057
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Hackaday: Selling CAD Prints That Are Not Yours
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/22/ask-hackaday-selling-cad-prints-that-are-not-yours/
[Louise] tried out her new E3D Cyclops dual extrusion system by printing a superb model dragon. The piece was sculpted in Blender, stands 13cm tall and can be made without supports. It’s an impressive piece of artwork that reflects the maker’s skill, dedication and hard work. She shared her creation on the popular Thingiverse website which allows others to download the file for use on their own 3D printer. You can imagine her surprise when she stumbled upon her work being sold on eBay.
It turns out that the owner of the eBay store is not just selling [Louise]’s work, he’s selling thousands of other models taken from the Thingiverse site. This sketchy and highly unethical business model has not gone unnoticed
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cute, Hackable, 3D Printable Robot Family
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/20/cute-hackable-3d-printable-robot-family/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kicking The Tires Before You Buy: 3d Printers
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/22/kicking-the-tires-before-you-buy-3d-printers/
So you’re looking to buy your first 3D printer, and your index finger is quivering over that 300 US Dollar printer on Amazon.com. Stop! You’re about to have a bad time. 3D printing has come a long way, but most 3D printers are designed through witchcraft, legends, and tall tales rather than any rigorous engineering process. I would say most 3D printer designs are either just plain bad, or designed by a team of Chinese engineers applying all their ingenuity to cost cutting. There are a few that are well designed, and there is a comparatively higher price tag attached.
I’ll start by going through some of the myths and legends that show up in 3D printers. After that I’ll go through some of the common, mostly gimmick, features that typically hinder your printer’s ability, rather than adding any useful function. Next I’ll go onto the things that will actually make your printer better. Finally, I’ll add some special consideration if you’re a beginner buying your first printer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Turn Your Laser Cutter Into An SLS 3D Printer
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/23/turn-your-laser-cutter-into-a-sls-3d-printer/
Filament style 3D printers are great, but typically are rather size limited. Laser sintering printers offer huge print beds, but also come with quarter million dollar price tags. What are we supposed to do? Well, thanks to OpenSLS, it might just be possible to turn your laser cutter into your very own SLS 3D printer.
We’ve covered OpenSLS a few times before, but it looks like it’s finally becoming a more polished (and usable) solution. A research article was just recently published on the Open-Source Selective Laser Sintering (OpenSLS0 of Nylon and Biocompatible Polycaprolactone (PDF) that goes over the design and construction of a powder handling module that drops right into a laser cutter.
Open-Source Selective Laser Sintering (OpenSLS) of Nylon and Biocompatible Polycaprolactone
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0147399#pone-0147399-g001
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s New in 3D Printing, Part IV: OctoPrint
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/whats-new-3d-printing-part-iv-octoprint?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+linuxjournalcom+%28Linux+Journal+-+The+Original+Magazine+of+the+Linux+Community%29
In the past, the process to print a 3D object involved creating or downloading a 3D model in STL format, using slicing software to convert that STL file to the GCODE language your printer understood, and then using other host software that knew how to communicate to the printer (like Pronterface) to load that GCODE and send it to the printer. More recently, there has been software that combines the slicing and host software into one interface (like Cura), and while that’s certainly convenient, it also means that the computer you have connected to the 3D printer to control it must stay connected throughout the entire print.
Although many printers these days support loading GCODE onto an SD card for “headless” printing, in my opinion, OctoPrint is an even better approach. OctoPrint combines 3D printer control software with a Web interface so you can control your printer and monitor its progress over the network. Even better, although OctoPrint can run on any Linux machine, the OctoPi distribution is a customized SD card image designed to run OctoPrint off a Raspberry Pi.
Once your Raspberry Pi is on the network, you can access the OctoPrint Web interface
Tomi Engdahl says:
Design Analysis: Core XY vs H-Bot
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/29/design-analysis-core-xy-vs-h-bot/
Hackaday writer [Joshua Vasquez] wrote about the mechanical difference between the Core-XY and H-Bot movements commonly used in 3D printers on his personal website. There are so many things a beginning mechanical designer can overlook when setting out to make a movement.
The Core-XY movement is one of our favorites. It keeps the motors stationary. It’s compact, precise, repeatable, and linear.
CoreXY
The Two-Axis Gantry–Part 2
http://www.doublejumpelectric.com/projects/core_xy/2014-07-15-core_xy/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting it Right by Getting it Wrong: RepRap and the Evolution of 3D Printing
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/02/getting-it-right-by-getting-it-wrong-reprap-and-the-evolution-of-3d-printing/
The beginning of the DIY 3D printing movement was a heady time. There was a vision of a post-scarcity world in which everything could and would be made at home, for free. Printers printing other printers would ensure the exponential growth that would put a 3D printer in every home. As it says on the front page: “RepRap is humanity’s first general-purpose self-replicating manufacturing machine.” Well, kinda.
The overarching goal of RepRap — getting 3D printers in as many peoples’ hands as possible — is worthy.
But one foundational RepRap idea(l) is wrong, and unfortunately it’s in the name: replication. The original plan was that RepRap printers would print other printers and soon everyone on Earth would have one. In reality, an infinitesimal percentage of RepRap owners print other printers, and the cost of a mass-produced, commercial RepRap spinoff is much less than it would cost me to print you one and source the parts. Because of economies of scale, replicating 3D printers one at a time is just wasteful. Five years ago, this was a controversial stance in the community.
On the other hand, the openness of the RepRap community has fostered great advances in the state of the DIY 3D printing art.
One of the key early design goals for the RepRap was to be able to replicate quickly, which would lead to the exponential growth of RepRaps around the globe. Adrian Bowyer, the founder of the RepRap project, gave a keynote address at the Seventh National Conference on Rapid Design, Prototyping & Manufacturing
All current engineering production generates goods in an arithmetic progression. Sometimes this is very fast − suppose an injection moulding machine makes plastic combs at the rate of 10,000 an hour. Suppose further that a RepRap machine can make one copy of itself a day, and also just one comb. After merely 18 days, the RepRap machines will be making more combs than the injection moulder, assuming people give them house-room.
Ten years later, the RepRap project is a phenomenal success
Almost nobody is printing RepRap parts because they are, like I am, trying to keep the machine working while printing the cool stuff that they wanted in the first place.
Another part of the RepRap’s founding inspiration was biological, and this was implicated in the view the RepRaps had to replicate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiny 3-D Printed Building Shares Its Energy With an (Also 3-D Printed) SUV
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/additive-manufacturing-integrated-energy-structure/
In January, the big-name architects behind 1 World Trade Center rolled into the International Builders Conference with researchers from a small lab in Tennessee. They brought with them a most unusual building, a white tubelike structure that looked something like the convergence of an Airstream and a fish. It had ribs and gills and a slick black SUV like a Jeep. It looked like a Conestoga wagon from the future.
They called it the Additive Manufacturing Integrated Energy Structure, a mouthful more easily called AMIE 1.0.
It’s one of the largest carbon fiber structures ever created with a 3-D printer
and shares energy with the SUV, which also was 3-D printed. The project offers a glimpse at how architects think we might live off-the-grid in the future.
3-D printing has become increasingly common in small-scale applications, but architects and engineers are still figuring out how to use the technology for things like houses and infrastructure. China’s WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Company made headlines last year when it 3-D printed a five-story apartment building. Joris Laarman, a Dutch designer known for 3-D printed furniture, plans to tackle a bigger, more ambitious project in Amsterdam with a footbridge using additive manufacturing techniques.
3-D printing at this scale is fraught with challenges. One of the biggest issues is strength.
When 3-D printing a continuous structure, large sections of unreinforced plastic can crack under loads that a traditional building would support safely.
The AMIE project addressed the strength issue by printing the structure in pieces.
Integrated Energy
But the 3-D printed building is only half the story. From the beginning, Oak Ridge scientists Johney Green and Roderick Jackson saw AMIE as a chance to reimagine how we produce, store, and consume energy. Their plan: Connect two of the biggest energy sinks that people encounter on a daily basis—their house and their car—with an “integrated energy” system. In other words, they wanted the building and the vehicle to be capable of passing electricity back and forth.
That’s exactly what the AMIE project does. Both the building and the SUV can generate and store energy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
World’s Smallest Cordless Power Tools, 3D Printed of Course
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/03/worlds-smallest-cordless-power-tools-3d-printed-of-course/
There isn’t much information we could find on this one (sorry, no source files that we know of), but this little hack is so playful and fun, we just had to share it with you. [Lance Abernethy] has built both a working cordless drill, and circular saw using nothing more than a 3D printer, what seems to be a pager-type vibration motor, a tactile switch and a coin cell battery – you can see them both working in the video after the break.
[Lance] used an Ultimaker 2, running a 0.25mm nozzle, and printing at a 0.04mm layer height in PLA. As you would expect, the 0.25mm nozzle is needed for such small parts – it’s also close to the limit of what extruder can still squeeze plastic through. it greatly increases the chance of blocked or clogged nozzles.
New Zealand Man 3D Prints the World’s Smallest Working Drill — Just 7.5mm Wide
http://3dprint.com/51677/3d-printed-smallest-drill/
idea was to create the world’s smallest working drill, and he would do this using his Ultimaker 2 3D printer. To start off, he used a CAD software package called Onshape 3D. He drew the outer shell of the drill, using his “normal” size drill as a reference
Once he had the design just the way he wanted it, he 3D printed it on his Ultimaker 2, using a 0.25mm nozzle and a 0.04mm layer height. He also set his printer to print very slowly, at just 10mm per second. Printed without any support, the 3-piece drill took about 25 minutes to completely print out. The drill consists of two halves plus a 3D printed chuck which is pressed onto the motor shaft. Abernethy uses a hearing aid battery for power, a small button, and a miniature motor. For wiring, he stripped out a headphone cable. While 3D printing was really quite easy, assembling the drill was another story.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Easy 3D modeling tool
3D printer technology, announces the launch of a specialized XYZprinting XYZmaker programs intended for the new 3D-design. The latest version of the program is specifically designed for beginners.
XYZmaker offers users a huge range of ready-made templates as well as the easy-to-use tools to create their own 3D these models
XYZmaker XYZprintingin suitable for all printer models. Models developed tool can be used to store .stl-, .obj-, .amf- and .ply-formats.
XYZmaker is a free download for all XYZprinting printer owners.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4071:helppo-mallinnustyokalu-3d-tulostajille&catid=13&Itemid=101
More: http://eu.xyzprinting.com/eu_en/Product/XYZmaker
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP’s first 3D printer is delivered at the end of this year. Major publication of has been prepared long and hard, as the first notification printer came in 2014.
HP CFO Cathie Lesjakin, the company is planning a 3D printers only to companies, not the consumer market. The aim is that the mills can reduce costs by making their products themselves.
HP printers are based on a “multi-jet” technology, which combines the traditional 3D printing technology, new materials and techniques. Multi-jet printer spraying materials to absorb the liquid, whereupon the product is cured by means of heat. The process is repeated several times.
3D printers aroused the enthusiasm was at its peak in 2014, but has since collapsed.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/hp-suuntaa-3d-tulostimensa-vain-yrityksille-pian-markkinoilla-6310963
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printers: You Know You Want One
http://www.eeweb.com/news/3d-printers-you-know-you-want-one
3D printers are undeniably cool. The fused deposition modeling (FDM) printer, for example, is the coolest thing in our office (even more so than the 3D-printed Curiosity rover on Gary’s desk). In this printer, a thin filament of plastic is melted and then immediately solidified as it comes out of the nozzle, creating a shape as the nozzle moves around. The FDM printer is the most common 3D printer currently available. SLA 3D printers, or resin printers, have superior resolution but are considerably more expensive. Two less popular options are the selective laser sintering and melting processes, which are great for metal, but cost significantly more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D printed bones made using bone powder may be on the horizon
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/tech-edge/4441519/3D-printed-bones-made-using-bone-powder-may-be-on-the-horizon?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160307&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160307&elqTrackId=cf4cc4fd43404fc8bb6d1732f966d8e1&elq=3e84ffd54ab14e57a0fedaa09d8fc430&elqaid=31195&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27267
Developments in the medical world are underway that are equal parts fascinating, inspirational, and possibly even macabre.
Additive manufacturing — creating three-dimensional solid objects from a digital file — has become a billon-dollar industry whose potential is limited only by the imaginations of individuals with access to a 3D printer. Within that market, 3D bioprinting, which involves fabricating replacement tissues and organs for patients layer by layer to create a three-dimensional structure, is rapidly evolving in its own right. Numerous companies, including Organovo, Cyfuse Biomedical, and BioBots, are active in the space and making incredible strides to improve outcomes for patients dealing with a range of illnesses and injuries. The specialty now has its own conferences, including the 3D Bioprinting Conference held recently in the Netherlands and a July 2016 event in Singapore.
Currently, objects 3D printed for medical implant applications are made of plastic, ceramic, or metal. A team of researchers at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, however, is working to develop potentially implantable bones made using a material comprising finely ground bones layered thousands of times with biological glue
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Hackaday: Is PLA Biodegradable?
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/08/ask-hackaday-is-pla-biodegradable/
The most popular plastic for 3D printers is PLA – polylactic acid – a plastic that’s either derived from corn starch, inedible plant detritus, or sugar cane, depending where in the world it was manufactured. Being derived from natural materials, PLA is marketed as being biodegradable
To answer the question, ‘is PLA biodegradable,’ the most accurate answer is, ‘maybe’. Three data points in uncontrolled environments isn’t enough to draw any conclusions. There are, undoubtedly, more forgotten 3D prints out there, and more data to back up the claim of PLA being biodegradable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing Will Rock Manufacturing
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329113&
A world full of 3D printers that can make almost anything probably will be an almost inconceivably complex place, where products and blueprints are designed, customized, made and sold by an uncountable number of companies and home printers offering a dizzying array of products.
Most products we use every day are made of many parts. They result from many manufacturing steps performed by different machines, each with its own operator. Each machine and operator does a certain job, such as cutting, drilling or milling, then passes the part to another machine and operator that perform another job, and on and on along an assembly line until the part is complete. Eventually, all of the parts are assembled into a final product, either by machine or by hand.
3D printing replaces all of these steps with fundamentally different machines and materials that substantially simplify the manufacturing process
As the technology advances, anyone will be able to make anything, thereby democratizing manufacturing. Also, it is no more expensive, per part, to 3D print one part versus a million parts, to customize every part instead of making them all the same, and to make highly complex parts. Because 3D printing may eliminate the need for centralized mass production where labor costs are low, tens of thousands of 3D printing fabricators will pop up all over the world, making customized parts and products regionally.
Before 3D printing, products were designed so that they could be made with traditional manufacturing methods which is called design for manufacturing. 3D printing eliminates such limitations and enables manufacturing for design. This allows designers to create products that never existed before, and to give existing products a radically different look and feel.
Suppose a customer starts 3D printing its own spare parts rather than buying them from the OEM. Some OEMs will adapt. Maybe they will start selling 3D printable digital blueprints rather than making parts. They may become digital design companies and close their factories.
Other OEMs will not adapt
Some companies may be unable to adapt
Certain elements need to fall into place for a 3D printing revolution. We need 3D printers with large build platforms as well as printers that support high speed or scale of production
Tomi Engdahl says:
MRRF: Jellybox, a STEM-Oriented Printer
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/19/mrrf-jellybox-a-stem-oriented-printer/
We are excited to hear [Filip] and [Ladi] give a presentation about Jellybox, a STEM-driven project he started to bring 3D printing into education in a comprehensive and hands-on way.
Building a Jellybox printer is about as easy as it gets, and takes about 4-6 hours depending on your skill level. The laser-cut clear acrylic panels are connected with zip ties that lock around 90° plastic brackets.
The Jellybox is open-source; both the extruder and the hot end can be swapped out in a flash.
IMade3D offers one- and two-day intensive courses in the DC area that cover building a Jellybox and learning some things about 3D modeling. The kit is included in the price of admission.
http://www.imade3d.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
MRRF 3D Printing Spectacular
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/19/mrrf-3d-printing-spectacular/
New Printers
MRRF is not really a trade show. Yes, there are companies here (Google is picking up the tab for Chinese food tonight), but this is assuredly a community-based event around open source hardware. That said, Lulzbot is here, SeeMeCNC is hosting, E3D, and Ultimachine are all here. This year, there are a few new printers.
Lulzbot’s Taz 6 – the latest update to their flagship printer made its first public appearance at MRRF this year. A product update from Lulzbot isn’t like a product announcement from a normal company. Lulzbot is using rapid prototyping for manufacturing (!). They can iterate quickly and release two new printers in the time it takes Stratasys to come up with a design. This also means the releases are incremental.
Tomi Engdahl says:
P.Y.O. SI (Print your own surgical instruments)
https://hackaday.io/project/10274-pyo-si-print-your-own-surgical-instruments
The project idea is to design custom surgical instruments like retractors both in size or shape and 3d print them
My idea for this project is to bring access to surgical instruments to everybody who can use a 3d printer. A database of pre-made instruments can be available on sites like thingiverse. This gives at least two possibilities: cheap availability of instruments in countries with less resources or custom instruments for specific purpouses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microswitch (without lever)
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1382326
This is an opensource 3D printed microswitch, the first in a series of common electronic components we are developing to share for people who want to download and print out components faster than they could go to the store and buy them, or order them and have them delivered.
Follow the projects on Hackaday IO here: https://hackaday.io/project/9942-opensource-3d-printed-electronic-components