A #3DBenchy has been produced on the RepRap Micron.
It’s clearly not the best #3DBenchy you have ever seen, but there’s quite a story behind it. It is only 0.650mm long!
The miniature #3DBenchy was produced on the still-in-development RepRap Micron. This is an open-source 3D printer design for microscopic 3D printing.
RepRap developed the first designs for inexpensive desktop FFF systems many years ago, and from their efforts, the industry grew to the size it is today. It’s from that project that the notion of a device reproducing itself came from.
This particular print was the first time a #3DBenchy was attempted, and apparently, the job took some 13 hours to complete, according to project leader Vik Olliver.
RepRap Micron is intended to develop an open-source 3D printer that can produce structures as small as one single micron (0.001mm) or even smaller.
The project envisions a bright future for this type of technology:
“If micron-scale manufacturing can be achieved by RepRap-like technology, it is likely that these fields will be advanced in the same way that manufacturing was by the RepRap. The biological sciences will gain from inexpensive, rapidly evolving equipment. The microelectronics field will regain the potential for independent communities to develop on the micron scale and break away from its fixation on silicon as its main platform. As with 3D printing, there will certainly be new developments in fields that do not currently even exist.”
Some say that 3D printing technology has plateaued, but that’s clearly not the case.
Via RepRap Blog and RepRap Micron
