Jim Smith of Grass Roots Engineering has been working on 3D printing technology for quite a while, building such amazing machines as shown in the image at left. But now he’s made a big announcement: Since I started this website in December 2010, it has received a lot of attention, especially from my NPR… Continue reading 3D Systems Acquires … Jim!
fab at home
Jeffrey Lipton Explains 3D Printing
3D Printing researcher Jeffrey Lipton delivers a 5 minute talk introducing 3D printing at Ignite Ithaca. Jeffrey works on the Fab@Home project, one of several open source 3D printer development initiatives. In the talk Lipton explains in a rather excited manner that the introduction of 3D printing technology will produce another manufacturing revolution, transitioning… Continue reading Jeffrey Lipton Explains 3D Printing
Printed Meats!
Following up on last week’s post regarding the amazing feats of the Cornell Computational Synthesis Lab’s work on Food Printing, this week they have more spectacular announcements. They’ve been working with the French Culinary Institute to produce what is perhaps the most advanced forms of printed food yet. In this example they’ve managed to… Continue reading Printed Meats!
FabLab Ignites Fab@School
The Fab@Home guys at Cornell have won a major contest in the education sector, as they were recently named one of eight winners in the third annual Digital Media and Learning competition. The competition attempts to dramatically change how education works in the 21st century: President Obama has called for a renewed focus on… Continue reading FabLab Ignites Fab@School
The Most Popular 3D Printer Brands & Manufacturers?
A strange post appeared last week on Red Chill Media where they listed their thoughts on the “Top 4 Most Popular 3D Printer Brands & Manufacturers”. Their list included: Objet Z Corporation Desktop Factory (!) Dimension/Stratasys We’re not sure we’d agree with this list, particularly item 3, Desktop Factory. While DT was highly touted and… Continue reading The Most Popular 3D Printer Brands & Manufacturers?
Make Anything!
That’s the tagline for the new Fab@Home website, just unveiled in the past few days: Fab@Home will change the way we live. It is a platform of printers and programs which can produce functional 3D objects. It is designed to fit on your desktop and within your budget. Fab@Home is supported by a global,… Continue reading Make Anything!
The Homemade 3D Printer
Those new to the concept of 3D printing are often even more amazed to find out that it’s entirely possible to actually build a 3D printer yourself! It’s not particularly easy and you must have very reasonable hardware talent, but definitely possible. You’ll need to select a method of depositing print media from many… Continue reading The Homemade 3D Printer
Fab@Home Video
With all the buzz lately around MakerBot, RepRap and other kits, don’t forget about Fab@Home, one of the senior kit initiatives. We’ve found a video that shows the entire Fab@Home sequence, from assembly of the printer itself to printing operations. Printed: Cup, Watchband, Chocolate! Via YouTube
Two Routes to Low Cost
Fluid Forms poses an interesting question: how to obtain an inexpensive 3D printer. They correctly point out the two possible courses of action for obtaining inexpensive 3D printing solutions: Commercial units, such as the Desktop Factory and MCOR printers. Open Source hardware solutions such as RepRap, Fab@Home and the recently announced MakerBot The problem,… Continue reading Two Routes to Low Cost
We’re Not Big Enough!
The 3D Print market is clearly at a very early stage of development. As such, there are fewer buyers than in a mature market. This means the costs of R&D must be absorbed by those fewer buyers. In other words, it’s gonna be expensive until there’s a lot more of us. To put this in… Continue reading We’re Not Big Enough!
New Fab at Home Video
We’ve posted videos of the Fab@Home project’s devices before, but this one shows a complete animation of the device itself, with all necessary parts exploded before your eyes. Via Next VDOhttp://nextvdo.com/2008/03/15/fabhome-personal-fabber-3d-printer/
The Fabaroni
Ok, we’ve heard of expensive media for 3D printers, paper, sugar and other wacky stuff going in “raw” and coming out as usable 3D objects. Today it’s pasta dough! The Fabaroni home-made 3D printer is capable of printing 3D objects with a moving head, much like other inexpensive 3D printers. In fact, it “loosely follows… Continue reading The Fabaroni
Buy Your Own Fab – Today!
It’s getting dangerously close to that holiday season, and what better gift than your own fab? What, you don’t have $40,000 for a Z-Corp? Neither do we. Sure, we’ve heard about the DesktopFactory $5000 3D printer, but who’s seen them in the stores? Meanwhile, you could always build your own Fab@Home or RepRap 3D printer… Continue reading Buy Your Own Fab – Today!
Wall Street Journal Covers Fab@Home
The Wall Street Journal Online has published a new video that introduces the concept of personal fabbing. They focus on the MIT Fab@Home project (which we covered earlier) and discuss the future implications of personal manufacturing. The video demonstrates some unusual techniques, such as embedding electronics during printing – resulting in a working flashlight (after… Continue reading Wall Street Journal Covers Fab@Home
PopMech on Fab at Home
Popular Mechanics magazine has discovered Fabbing and has published an interesting article and video mostly focused on the Fab@Home project. Fab at Home is a very worthy project, but as you watch the video it’s apparent that it’s primary target is techies. Nevertheless, the video suggests unusual uses of the fab: printing chocolate, batteries, circuits… Continue reading PopMech on Fab at Home