Inspired by our previous post detailing MeshMixer, a fabulous 3D modelling tool that easily allows arbitrary 3D models to be pasted together, tipster Ken has found further examples of making things grow out of your head. And these have been printed! (Click for larger images) What causes people to want things protruding from their… Continue reading Things Growing Out Of Your Head
Ideas
Human Thermostat Used in 3D Printer
YouTube user Moonyjube posts a video in which they use a manual temperature control (a human with a switch) to moderate the warmth on their heated print bed. Why on earth would someone use manual feedback? Haven’t they installed the appropriate and commonly available hardware to do this automatically? The answer is found on the… Continue reading Human Thermostat Used in 3D Printer
Bits From Bytes Gets New Website and a RapChick!
We’ve been waiting to see what 3D Systems will do with their latest corporate acquisition, Bits From Bytes. BfB’s market is quite a diversion from 3D System’s normal industrial/commercial clientele. How will they take on this marketplace. This week we see two elements of their new strategy. First, 3D Systems has completely replaced the… Continue reading Bits From Bytes Gets New Website and a RapChick!
Gift Giving? How About Gift Making!
It seems that some of the popular media are starting to catch on to 3D Printing, with the notion that gifts can be made rather than purchased. Perhaps this is a reaction against the fear of oppressive crowds at the shops, but we think it’s a natural conclusion to 3D printing capability, which can produce… Continue reading Gift Giving? How About Gift Making!
Aluminum Bronze Casting Succeeds
Open3DP’s experimentation with metalcasting molds has paid off: one of their experimental hydroperm molds was used in traditional metalcasting (in this case poured aluminum bronze) at the Port Townsend Foundry and the successful results are apparent in the image above. According to Laura West and Dave Feathers: The mold was placed in a greensand… Continue reading Aluminum Bronze Casting Succeeds
Lunar Spin-Offs for 3D Printing?
We’ve been reading a discussion on OpenManufacturing about the discovery of various elements on the lunar surface by NASA’s LCROSS project. LCROSS was a pretty daring expedition to determine if water is present in ice form within permanently shaded polar craters: Place a spacecraft into Lunar orbit Separate into two spacecraft, orbiting on similar… Continue reading Lunar Spin-Offs for 3D Printing?
Printing A Car? Really?
After last week’s news that an entire car body was being produced on a 3D printer, we had an offline discussion with Joris Peels of i.Materialise on what this really meant. Obviously, the mass media would have everyone believe an Entire Car was printed, when in fact it was only the body – and then… Continue reading Printing A Car? Really?
Do 3D Printers Bypass Customs?
There could be several interesting effects on business and society when 3D printers become widespread, and we’ve discussed a few of them in the past, including possible crime, for example. But here’s another one to think about: Customs Control. Most countries have some level of customs controls, in which imported goods are inspected for… Continue reading Do 3D Printers Bypass Customs?
3D Printing Made In Space
We wrote about NASA’s interest in 3D space printing here and here, but now there is interest from an independent space printing company: Made In Space, recently founded by students from The Singularity University. At last week’s SSI Space Manufacturing Conference, several folks from Made in Space presented “3D Metal Printing in Space: Enabling… Continue reading 3D Printing Made In Space
Metalcasting Breakthrough
Those inventive folks at the University of Washington are at it again. This time they’ve been working on a simple formula for cementenous metalcasting. In other words, material with which you can make an effective mold for molten metal casts. At one point, they were using this recipe: 1000 parts VersaBond 250 parts Maltodextrin 250… Continue reading Metalcasting Breakthrough
Make $80,000 With Just an Idea
Personal manufacturing doesn’t have to take place on your premises using your own equipment. It can be outsourced to Ponoko, the personal manufacturing company. Ponoko posted a very interesting story of one of their users who managed to bootstrap his way to a cool USD$80,000 – starting from nothing! It started with an idea,… Continue reading Make $80,000 With Just an Idea
The Marble Challenge
Talk about difficult things to print: Scott Elliot of My SD300 3D Printer has been working on designs for marbles. Sure, one could easily print a sphere and call it a marble, but that’s just too easy. Scott is designing a two-piece snap-together model with embedded colors and a twisty design. As you might… Continue reading The Marble Challenge
Capture That Onion!
Last year artist David Bowen produced a fantastic kinetic artwork entitled “growth modeling device” in which a live onion plant is 3D scanned once every 24 hours, and then that scan is 3D printed. Amazingly, the 3D prints are then shuffled along a conveyor belt so you can see (and touch) the various stages of… Continue reading Capture That Onion!
The Ultimate Home 3D Printing Setup: Tools
Yesterday we described the foundation hardware you’d need for the ultimate home 3D printing setup, including printer, scanner and computer. But of course, you’ll need a variety of other minor items to actually make your ultimate printing life comfortable. Here’s our list, in no particular order: Block of Wood: You’ll be working on cutting… Continue reading The Ultimate Home 3D Printing Setup: Tools
The Ultimate Home 3D Printing Setup: Hardware
So you want to get into 3D Printing at home? What do you need? How do you get started? A printer, obviously, but what else might be useful in your ultimate configuration? Here are our ideas: A Low Cost 3D Printer: Lots of ultra-low cost (~USD$1000) options here, including kit-based RapMan or MakerBot, or… Continue reading The Ultimate Home 3D Printing Setup: Hardware
Hot Ice For Support Material?
What’s “Hot Ice”, you ask? It’s not exactly water, as you might suspect. Instead it’s a totally bizarre liquid-to-solid material that just might be useful for 3D printing as support material. This mysterious substance is very simply produced: mix sodium acetate crystals with water, and cool. The result is a clear liquid that appears to… Continue reading Hot Ice For Support Material?
Simplifying Mendel
The purpose of the RepRap project is to produce a 3D printer that can effectively reproduce itself. Fears of robot domination aside, this is a truly momentous project. However, it’s a difficult task to conceive of the most efficient machine design – the fewer and simpler parts required by the design means it’s easier to… Continue reading Simplifying Mendel
The Dome is Complete!
Some months ago we posted a request from maker Vernon Effalo who had commenced a project to crowdsource parts for his exterior dome project. Basically, he was paying USD$2 per icosahedron vertex connector, and he required 26 of them. We’re happy to announce that the project has now completed, and you can see Vernon… Continue reading The Dome is Complete!
Junior Veleso’s Homemade High Resolution 3D Printer
Junior’s making his own hi-res 3D printer, and he has the experience to do it, having previously converted an inkjet printer into a 3D powder-based version. He’s been blogging this journey since July 2010 and is providing all the information and discoveries to the public, “you agree to not make use of it for commercial… Continue reading Junior Veleso’s Homemade High Resolution 3D Printer
Cool Stuff Collective Covers 3D Printing
The Cool Stuff Collective is a new UK-based kids show, where, well, “cool stuff” is demonstrated to children by well-known presenter Sy Thomas. In their first episode of September 13th of this year, they demonstrated 3D printing, but in a followup on September 20th they showed a related technology: haptic design. We’ve covered haptics previously,… Continue reading Cool Stuff Collective Covers 3D Printing
The Opposite of a 3D Printer?
The opposite of a 3D printer would be a recycling machine. In other words, there should be a way to collect leftover material (or even leftover objects) and convert them back into a medium suitable for feedstock back into a personal manufacturing device for creation of new objects. No such universal device exists today… Continue reading The Opposite of a 3D Printer?
Has 3D Printing Hit The Knee Of The Curve?
We’re pondering a couple of recent developments in the low-end 3D printing space that may indicate a change of state in the low-end 3D printing world. First, Shapeways received a massive investment from top-ranked venture capital firms: USD$5M from Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures. We wrote, and still believe that this means Union… Continue reading Has 3D Printing Hit The Knee Of The Curve?
The Tribulations of Printing 3D Models
You’ve read yesterday’s post about where you might find amazing 3D models for printing, but you’re wondering what to do next. Is it as simple as downloading the model and printing it? Not exactly. Here’s some considerations: Are you legally permitted to print this model? What license was it distributed under? Best to check… Continue reading The Tribulations of Printing 3D Models
Free 3D Repositories
Your personal 3D printer sits idle while you ponder what to print. Should you go back to Thingiverse and print out another coat hook? Perhaps some spare MakerBot parts? Maybe you should fire up SketchUp or Blender and create a new 3D model of your own design. Nope, not tonight. You’re feeling lazy and… Continue reading Free 3D Repositories
Mom’s 3D Printer
Open3DP reacted to our reaction to MAKE’s post regarding the future of 3D printer manufacturers. MAKE suggested the hobbyist manufacturers would ultimately be eaten by cheap Asian factories, while we commented on the differences between the hobbyist and commercial 3D printer markets. Open3DP adds an analysis of material costs in the equation, suggesting that the… Continue reading Mom’s 3D Printer
Bespoke Makes Legs – Beautiful Legs
We’ve been waiting for something just like this: a startup company that takes full advantage of 3D printing technology to mass personalize an item for everyone. In the case of Bespoke Innovations, they supply one-of-a-kind prosthetics for individuals by leveraging 3D print technology from 3D Systems with an artistic flair: The Bespoke process is… Continue reading Bespoke Makes Legs – Beautiful Legs
The Manufacturing Revolution Visualized
There’s a great animation made specifically for the FULL PRINT3D exhibition by DHUB http://www.dhub-bcn.cat/ that visualizes what we think might happen in the future when 3D printing becomes widespread. Two images in the animation resonate strongly with us: The scene of billions of mass-manufactured cups representing what must be behind virtually every object we… Continue reading The Manufacturing Revolution Visualized
MakerBot’s Global Brain
Some companies still operate in 20th-century mode, but not MakerBot Industries. First they crowdsourced their manufacturing ops back to their own customers (which we still get a giggle about) and now they’re crowdsourcing their strategy by using true 21st century innovation management technology. What the heck does that mean? They’ve opened up a website… Continue reading MakerBot’s Global Brain
The Future Collision of 3D Printer Manufacturers
We read a provocative piece by Make that contrasted the approach by different 3D printer manufacturers. On one hand, we have MakerBot industries leveraging the power of community and open source techniques to improve their product; on the other we have PP2P’s (strongly) closed source Up! 3D printer. And on yet another hand, if we… Continue reading The Future Collision of 3D Printer Manufacturers
Tweaking the Bot
Adam Mayer describes a fascinating experiment with the MakerBot Cupcake CNC. As readers may recall, the ‘Bot extrudes hot plastic (ABS or PLA) in a consistent manner. By moving the build platform along the X, Y and Z axes appropriately, the desired object is formed. However, not everything can be built in this manner. Overhangs… Continue reading Tweaking the Bot
The Zaggo Box
MakerBot operator extraordinary Zaggo has been designing a new filament box for his *second* MakerBot. As usual, Zaggo has taken this task as an opportunity to enhance the design he’s already made for the senior MakerBot. The filament box neatly stores your input filament, be it ABS or PLA hidden underneath your MakerBot. Essential… Continue reading The Zaggo Box
The Freedom to Print
John of hackable:news complains that whenever they show off their 3D printer, viewers inevitably ask: “Could you print me this, could you print me that”. They just don’t realize how difficult it can be to produce a 3D object. Unless the exact object model is readily available (and findable) within a repository like Thingiverse or… Continue reading The Freedom to Print
Blurring the Distinction Between the Physical and the Virtual
An interesting essay by Portland-based Thomas Schreiber poses a variety of thoughts on the coming digital fabrication revolution. The highlights: The distance between idea (digital) and real (objects) is becoming very close, and soon will be almost zero as digital fabrication becomes widespread. Marxism’s definition of power, the means of production, was always relegated… Continue reading Blurring the Distinction Between the Physical and the Virtual
Wujec on 3D Printing
Tom Wujec, Fellow at AutoDesk, spoke at the Thinking Digital event earlier this year. In a video of his fascinating talk, Tom speaks of the nature of emerging technologies, specifically tech evolution and tech possibilities. He describes a special moment in the evolution of technology where the previously “impossible”, suddenly becomes possible. This is… Continue reading Wujec on 3D Printing
Calibration Mojo?
Quebec MakerBot operator Nicolas Gravel ponders better ways to calibrate his personal 3D printer. While he’s overcome all of the mechanical and technical difficulties in constructing his MakerBot kit, he’s stuck getting the calibration just right to permit great printouts. His idea: Why not having a couple of test pattern related to some important… Continue reading Calibration Mojo?
3D Printing in Multiple Materials – at Home
There are many differences between commercial 3D printers and hobbyist equivalents, including build quality, size, ability to print in color, etc., but now there’s one item that might be crossed off the list: the ability to print in more than one material. The RepRap team are working on a “head changer” that would enable… Continue reading 3D Printing in Multiple Materials – at Home
Hydrocolloid Printed Food
Researchers from Cornell University have been exploring a new angle on food printing: the use of hydrocolloids. What the heck is that? From their paper: Using a novel combination of hydrocolloids (xanthium gum and gelatin) and flavor agents, texture and flavor can be independently tuned to produce printing materials that simulate a broad range… Continue reading Hydrocolloid Printed Food
3D Printing Standards and Jailbroken Materials
A couple of interesting articles provoked some thinking about 3D printing standards. First, we have a post by the Open3DP folks, who complain that they’d like to use different types of print material in their 3D printers. They are, of course, known for experimenting with all kinds of unusual print materials. They suggest standards for… Continue reading 3D Printing Standards and Jailbroken Materials
ZCorp Questions Open Source Printers
A post from Olimpio DeMarco, VP of Research and Development at ZCorp questioned the possibility of using open source 3D printers for business use. He says: Who then is buying open source FDM printers? It isn’t clear to me that there is an industrial, true business application for open source 3DP. He’s probably… Continue reading ZCorp Questions Open Source Printers
3D Print an ATM Skimmer!
Attention Criminals: you’d better buy your own 3D printer; DO NOT use a 3D printing service to build parts for your bank job, or you’ll be apprehended. That’s exactly what happened at 3D printing service i.Materialise, whose sharp-eyed operators managed to catch what appeared to be the card slot of an ATM being printed!… Continue reading 3D Print an ATM Skimmer!
Materialise Touts 3D Printing Services Over Hobby 3D Printers
Ok, that might be totally predictable: a big 3D print services vendor promotes the use of services instead of using your own low-cost 3D printer (such as a RepRap, RapMan or MakerBot). Here’s their take: If you happen to be a ‘maker’, and love the creative experience like we do, then you definitely welcome… Continue reading Materialise Touts 3D Printing Services Over Hobby 3D Printers
Creaform Gets Certified
Handheld 3D laser scanner manufacturer Creaform has just achieved an interesting milestone: they’ve been certified by the Chinese National Institute of Metrology after extensive testing at NIM’s Beijing facility. What? You’ve never heard of NIM? Here’s what they are about: Founded in 1955, the National Institute of Metrology (NIM) is China’s national metrological institute… Continue reading Creaform Gets Certified
Hive45 On 3D Printing
Beer drinking Australian futurists Tristan Grace and Nathan Waters speculate about the future of 3D printing on their podcast, episode 24. They feel that the ultimate goal of 3D printing is in fact very small: nanotechnology. In other words, that’s printing individual atoms and molecules in the right arrangements to achieve virtually any conceivable object. … Continue reading Hive45 On 3D Printing
Fractal Tree Table
If the size of your 3D printer’s build chamber is too small, the answer is obvious: break your object into a series of smaller parts, print and assemble them. That or buying a bigger printer. But let’s turn this around: what if you don’t know how big your object is, and you just print… Continue reading Fractal Tree Table
Printing Sound
Contrasting opinions are a main feature of today’s communications. We read opposing viewpoints on and endless series topics, words versus words. But what if you could actually *see* the words colliding? That’s the question Canadian artist Eva Schindling set out to discover when she produced her work, “Liquid Sound Collisions”. The artist took two… Continue reading Printing Sound
Sintering the Moon
We just finished reading a paper describing the viability of using microwaves to fuse lunar soil (regoilith) into solid shapes, in the hopes of creating an effective way of building lunar structures for future astronauts and their bases. The chemistry and process are fascinating. It seems that most of the lunar regolith was formed… Continue reading Sintering the Moon
Printing the Disney Concert Hall – And Other Buildings
While watching a video of Sweet Onion Creations making a printout of the beautiful Disney Theater in Los Angeles, it became clear that one could find ready-made 3D models of many famous buildings. Sweet Onion Creations recommends using Google Earth to find such buildings, as it’s integrated with Google’s 3D Warehouse. We suspect there… Continue reading Printing the Disney Concert Hall – And Other Buildings
MakerBot Calibration Hoedown
Members of Kansas City’s Cowtown Computer Congress had an unusual event: 3D Printer Calibration Night. That’s right, members brought in their MakerBot 3D printers in an effort to properly calibrate their heater barrels, which are notoriously tricky to set right. Half a dozen MakerBots and a couple of RepRaps appear to be present in… Continue reading MakerBot Calibration Hoedown
Breeding RepRaps
The premise behind the RepRap project is to build a machine that can reproduce itself. While it’s not quite able to accomplish that task entirely, it can produce a great many of its own parts. That’s exactly what’s going on at the University of Washington, where they seem to have set up a “RepRap… Continue reading Breeding RepRaps
The Inevitable Obj Store
After re-reading Bradshaw, Bowyer and Haufe’s paper “The Intellectual Property Implications of Low-Cost 3D Printing”, we’ve been considering where this personal manufacturing space is heading. In the paper, the tangled intellectual property rights scenarios they described involved personal manufacturing of some sort. It occurred to us that at the end of the day, most manufactured… Continue reading The Inevitable Obj Store
IP Rights vs. Personal 3D Printing
At this early stage in inexpensive personal 3D printing, we’re still exploring the technology and what it means. While we see intellectual property confusion and carnage in the digital music and now text-based industries, some of us feel that a similar catastrophe will befall personal manufacturing. In the meantime, we continue to explore the space.… Continue reading IP Rights vs. Personal 3D Printing
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution
Kevin Carson has published a new book speaking to a vision of industrial revolution based on home-based manufacturing. This is a theme we’ve written about many times before, but we’ve not yet seen anyone take the concept into such detail as Carson’s nearly 400 page tome. Carson starts with the history of manufacturing, discussing… Continue reading The Homebrew Industrial Revolution
3D Memories?
We’ve written before about the sentimental value of 3D printed objects. Consider the notion of capturing 3D data from a pregnant woman’s ultrasound scan of her unborn child – and then reproducing the child in 3D even before it’s born! These and many other similar activities are quite possible these days with 3D print tech. … Continue reading 3D Memories?
MicroManufacturing with a MakerBot?
MakerBot operator Pete Hinzy asks an interesting question: who else out there is using their MakerBot or other type of low cost manufacturing equipment as a part of their business? What is your business model? Pricing structures, etc.? For certain, the MakerBot and similar low-cost 3D printers don’t offer typical commercial capabilities, such… Continue reading MicroManufacturing with a MakerBot?
Materialise Shapes F3 Euro Series Cars
3D service Materialise has been working with the Signature F3 Euro Series team to fine tune their racing cars, apparently quite successfully. The approach is to duplicate the aerodynamic scenario by testing a scale model of the proposed car design in a wind tunnel. By tweaking the shape of critical parts, the airflow can… Continue reading Materialise Shapes F3 Euro Series Cars
Do You Need an Atomic Force Microscope?
Sure, everyone needs an AFM! But what is it? From Wikipedia: Atomic force microscopy (AFM) or scanning force microscopy (SFM) is a very high-resolution type of scanning probe microscopy, with demonstrated resolution on the order of fractions of a nanometer, more than 1000 times better than the optical diffraction limit. The precursor to the… Continue reading Do You Need an Atomic Force Microscope?
Additive or Subtractive?
Something struck us the other day when thinking about the variety of 3D printing approaches. Traditional manufacturing is typically “subtractive”, in that you take a large chunk of material, say a granite cube, length of wood or a 17 tonne cube of solid titanium and go at it with tools, manual or automated. When the… Continue reading Additive or Subtractive?
A Distributed Manufacturing Experiment – Get Involved Now!
We received a note from Vernon Effalo of Effalo.com, who’s performing a very interesting experiment. He’s designed a unique geodesic dome connector (you know, the five-way joint for the arms of the dome) and wants you to build them for him. And it’s not begging – he’s willing to pay USD$2 per connector! So… Continue reading A Distributed Manufacturing Experiment – Get Involved Now!
Poor Man’s 3D Printing: Finishing
You’ve obtained or made a 3D model and printed it on a 3D print service or perhaps your own 3D printer. Now the question is, “how can I finish it at low cost?” While there are several professional commercial finishing services, they’re quite expensive and don’t fit the theme here. There are only two reasonable options: … Continue reading Poor Man’s 3D Printing: Finishing
Poor Man’s 3D Printing: The Print
In our previous article we provided ideas on how to prepare your 3D model at the lowest cost possible. But once you have the model ready to print, how do you get it done at low cost? There are three basic approaches: You Know Someone. That’s right – you just might happen to… Continue reading Poor Man’s 3D Printing: The Print
Poor Man’s 3D Printing: The Design
So you want to start 3D printing, but you have no money? It is possible to do 3D printing without much cash, and for starters you’d need to prepare your 3D model for printing. But how to do this without cash? Two ways: simply use a 3D model from a well-stocked repository or design a… Continue reading Poor Man’s 3D Printing: The Design
3D Printers are the New Cranes
Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG speculates on a spectacular use of Enrico Dini’s building-sized 3D printer: endless change and renewal as a building could have its own 3D printer constantly printing out new modules, rooms, floors and other components. By adding a tear-down function, the building would both birth and consume itself continuously. From Manaugh: … Continue reading 3D Printers are the New Cranes
DeviceKnit Discovers Good Uses
We were approached by John Ganotis, developer of DeviceKnit, a unique way to think about gadgets. Here’s how it works, according to John: We’ve been describing it as a “cookbook for gadgets.” In its first, simplest form its all about sharing applications for different electronics and gadgets people have. Users submit “implementations” as responses… Continue reading DeviceKnit Discovers Good Uses
3D Printing Solves The Innovator’s Dilemma?
In the classic business book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, author Clayton M. Christensen describes a scenario which happens all to often in large companies: Inventive staff come up with a new way to produce the product Management is not interested in backing the new way because even if it succeeded, the amount of revenue is… Continue reading 3D Printing Solves The Innovator’s Dilemma?
Up Against the Wall and Spread Your Legs!
Designer Tom Matten submitted a rather unusual design to 3D model repository Thingiverse the other week: a bong. According to the description: Maker Bong puts the smoker back in charge. Maker Bong gives the individual the ability to create what ever type of bong they desire, weather it be a steamroller, Hookah, or normal… Continue reading Up Against the Wall and Spread Your Legs!
3D Printed Gloves
Fabbing superstar Janne Kyttanen of Freedom of Creation has been commissioned to produce unique white 3D printed gloves, as shown here. The gloves were commissioned by the Design Hub Barcelona, are will be on display from 15 June 2010 to 28 February 2011 in at the Fabrication Laboratory exhibition. According to DHUB: The objects… Continue reading 3D Printed Gloves
The Infinite MakerBot
On your 2D paper printer, the print job is usually complete by the time you get your butt out of the chair and stroll over to the printer. Not so with a 3D printer, where you often must wait for many minutes, or even hours for a job to complete. When it’s done, you’ve probably… Continue reading The Infinite MakerBot
Five Things to 3D Print in 2050?
PrintCountry proposed “5 Ways Your Grandkids will Use 3D Printers in 2050” in a whimsical post recently. We thought about their list and came up with our own. But first, here’s PrintCountry’s assessment: Organs What if in 2050, no one will have to be on a waiting list for an organ transplant ever again?… Continue reading Five Things to 3D Print in 2050?
A 3D Idea: Printing The City
We’ve been fascinated by a video of Google’s new feature for their popular Google Earth product: 3D imagery. You might be surprised to realize that the image above is NOT a photograph of New York City, but was from a new version of Google Earth that incorporates street view images and superimposes them on 3D… Continue reading A 3D Idea: Printing The City
Gartner’s Jackie Fenn on 3D Printing
Fabbaloo interviewed Gartner Analyst Jackie Fenn, VP and Gartner Fellow covering Emerging Trends. Jackie writes on a variety of new technologies and approaches, one of which has been 3D printing. Jackie is the originator of Gartner’s famous Hype Cycle, which proposes that every technology follows a consistent pattern of interest through its lifecycle. Jackie’s… Continue reading Gartner’s Jackie Fenn on 3D Printing
What’s The Most Important Characteristic of a 3D Printer?
We found a survey link in our email from 3D Systems, one of the largest commercial manufacturers of 3D printers. 3D Systems is seeking to learn what their clients and prospects think is important in a 3D printer. We’re wondering that too. Therefore, we have duplicated 3D Systems’ key question in our very own… Continue reading What’s The Most Important Characteristic of a 3D Printer?
Forget Z Layers – Just Fold Instead!
The fundamental premise of 3D printing is layers. We add them a fraction of a millimetre at a time, be it with plastic, powder or some expensive goop, it is the basis of all 3D printing. Even the software assumes this is the case as it slices our 3D models into layers suitable for printing. … Continue reading Forget Z Layers – Just Fold Instead!
Open Hardware: Defined?
The results of a March 17th workshop on open hardware have been released. The event, termed “A workshop on legal tools for open source hardware”, started discussing ideas for open hardware licenses beyond the software-heritage open licenses commonly reused today. These software licenses (such as Creative Commons, GPL, etc.) do not necessarily account for the… Continue reading Open Hardware: Defined?
SMArchitecture
We ran across a very interesting operation: SMArchitecture, a “Kuwait and London based architectural & design R&D practice”. Their blog, written by Dr. Thomas Modeen describes their design experiments, which are often highly unusual and seem to have evolved from fabrication techniques. Some examples: The ‘Comet’ vase, which consists of a bundle of hollow,… Continue reading SMArchitecture
A Little World Idea
We’re checking out the new iPhone app from “Little World Gifts”, which is a rather cool idea. You browse a series of 3D “gifts” via your iPhone – and browsing means viewing in 3D using rotations, zoom, etc. Once you’ve selected something, you can pick one of your contacts and purchase the item to be… Continue reading A Little World Idea
Printing The Iron Man, And More
Blockbuster film Iron Man 2 has a direct 3D printing connection: Iron Man’s suit, as well as that of arch-nemesis Whiplash, were produced on a 3D printer. And they didn’t just print a mould for the suit parts, they printed the actual suit components. After a bit of paint, they were ready to be worn!… Continue reading Printing The Iron Man, And More
Hexapod Emerges from 3D Printer
Matt Bunting is a student who’s been interested in building robots for many years. Finally at the University of Arizona he was able to do so, partly by using the University’s Dimension 3D printer. The very complex leg assemblies were printed in eleven hours, using a great deal of support material. The design was such… Continue reading Hexapod Emerges from 3D Printer
3D Printing Aids Biohacking
These days people are fiddling with anything that can be made digital, and one of the more interesting digitizations recently is biology! DNA, those tiny molecular strands that define us all, are increasingly being investigated by, well, hackers. BBC News reports on this phenomenon, which has grown recently aided by technological developments. The idea… Continue reading 3D Printing Aids Biohacking
Digging Through eBay for 3D
Following up on our earlier article in which we sought out used 3D printers on eBay, we noticed that printers are not the only relevant 3D item you can find on eBay. We’ve located several instances of individuals selling print services via eBay, but we’d use them only if their price was less than… Continue reading Digging Through eBay for 3D
Print 3D in 2D
A new 3D print service has launched, SnapilyPro, but it’s not what you think: they print 3D models in 2D. The service accepts 3D photoshop PSD files and uses lenticular printing to produce a flat surface image that appears to move when you rotate the image. Why would you use a 2D print… Continue reading Print 3D in 2D
Looking for a Used 3D Printer?
The press typically covers announcements of new printers, but did you know you can find used 3D printers for sale at prices that are sometimes quite a bit lower than retail? We cruised through Ebay today to see what we could find: ZCorp Spectrum 510 for USD$20,000 3D Systems Actua 2100 Rapid Plastic Prototype… Continue reading Looking for a Used 3D Printer?
Microscopic Bacteria-Based 3D Printing
We didn’t see this one coming: corralling a herd of Magnetotactic bacteria to build a 3D pyramid. The process works due to the amazing magnetic properties of these tiny agents. They respond to magnetic fields by moving in the field’s direction by flapping their two flagella bundles generating up to a whole 4 piconewtons… Continue reading Microscopic Bacteria-Based 3D Printing
3D Printing The Roads
There’s a wonderful concept device produced by designers Hoyoung Lee, Doyoung Kim, and Hongku Kim called the “Road Printer”. Click on the image for larger detail. The idea is to have a solar-powered robot paint those nice lines on our roadways. This should be inexpensive and offer a lot more safety than having live crews… Continue reading 3D Printing The Roads
3Shape Focuses on Dentistry
The most popular software these days is that designed with the user in mind, where all aspects of the software are focused on delivering the function required by the user. When people see such software, they immediately resonate with it and are more likely to use it. There are countless examples of this effect. … Continue reading 3Shape Focuses on Dentistry
Is Hardware Open?
We think hardware could be truly open, but only if the correct legal frameworks are in place. And they likely are not. Software has gone through all this before, of course. In the 1960’s software was basically homemade, but then commercial software companies emerged and grew in the 1970’s and 80’s. However, in the… Continue reading Is Hardware Open?
OpenStructures
As the world slowly fills with advanced personal and commercial manufacturing equipment, we’re starting to see the emergence of systems to make the resulting manufactured objects fit together in organized ways. Projects such as SKDB and MakerBeam hope to help us locate and assemble independently designed objects. Another project in this area is OpenStructures: … Continue reading OpenStructures
The Battle of Big Thinking
We listened to an interesting presentation from John Wilshire on the topic of “Big”. He means the notion of mass production, mass consumption and the resulting mass media, where the goal is simply to have you “buy more” in a “big way”. It’s true. We’ve all been conditioned to think this way as that was… Continue reading The Battle of Big Thinking
Maker Culture
Great article on Maker Culture from Re/Creating Tampa, where they contrast 21st Century maker activities with historical events in the United States. They explain how inventions were largely the domain of the individual (think Benjamin Franklin, Eli Whitney, etc.) These renowned “individual gadgeteers” made a truly significant difference in the history of the United States… Continue reading Maker Culture
3D Printing is Not China on Your Desktop
A 2008 quote attributed to Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager at Google says: “Think of RepRap as a China on your desktop.” We strongly resonate with that image. Instead of receiving goods from China, which evidently manufactures all things these days, you can drop a 3D printer on your desk and manufacture things yourself.… Continue reading 3D Printing is Not China on Your Desktop
The Social Engineering-Knowledge Database
Bryan Bishop provides a great overview of the Social Engineering-Knowledge Database (SKDB) project in an article at HPlus Magazine. The premise of the project is to create a standard environment for the development of complex 3D models by leveraging models and instructions that already exist. This is very similar to the open source software industry,… Continue reading The Social Engineering-Knowledge Database
The New Means of Production
We’ve been reading a very interesting article by Greg J. Smith of Serial Consign, which discusses the implications of advanced personal manufacturing capabilities on art and design. Smith explains the basics for those who aren’t familiar with modern fabbing, but then goes to review thoughts by several designers, writers and analysts. A key concept we… Continue reading The New Means of Production
Seth Godin’s Vision
We read Seth Godin’s posts often, and recently completed his latest book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?. In the book Godin proposes that the industrial model that we’ve lived with for some 250 years is drawing to a close. With painful accuracy, he describes the fruitless struggles and frustrations many people face at work in the… Continue reading Seth Godin’s Vision
3D Printing: The Trends?
Which 3D printer manufacturers are most popular? That’s very hard to say, since internal company statistics are often difficult to find. However, Google is Our Friend in this case, since they offer a free trending service: Google Trends. Google Trends does not tell you which item is most popular. Instead they simply tell you the… Continue reading 3D Printing: The Trends?
Top 5 Reasons To Get Into the 3D Printer Market?
Channel Insider writes of five reasons they believe value added resellers should consider adding 3D printers to their catalog of products. Let’s examine their rationale: Reason # 1: Soaring Market Growth Who knew? The 3D printing market is in major growth mode. In a down economy, companies that want to stay afloat need to innovate… Continue reading Top 5 Reasons To Get Into the 3D Printer Market?
Sterling’s Kiosk
It’s possible that Science Fiction inspired the creation of 3D Printing; we’ll never know for sure. That inspiration continues today, as we recently listened to Starship Sofa’s rendition of Bruce Sterling’s amazing short story, “Kiosk”. Published to the web in 2008, this story follows the career of Borislav, a street-savvy Belgrade entrepreneur who somehow gets… Continue reading Sterling’s Kiosk