3D Systems In USA Today

A great piece on 3D printing appeared recently in USA Today. While the piece says nothing we haven’t already known about here, there is something to notice: USA Today is a very consumer-oriented publication. It’s about as mass-media as you can get and still be a newspaper.    The fact that such a publication has… Continue reading 3D Systems In USA Today

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3D Printing In Antarctica?

Hundreds of thousands of readers from an amazing 185 countries and territories have visited Fabbaloo since our inception in 2007, but only two visits have ever originated from Antarctica.    We’re wondering whether 3D printing could play a significant role at the bottom of the world in the research stations, which are often cut off… Continue reading 3D Printing In Antarctica?

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Unfold Imagines Streetside 3D Printing

Several design firms specialize in doing amazing things with 3D printing and one of them is Belgium-based Unfold. Their new concept is streetside 3D printing. What? Yeah, it’s exactly that – a street vendor that prints arbitrary stuff on demand. Not hot dogs, but objects.     Possible? Technically yes, but we suspect the clientele… Continue reading Unfold Imagines Streetside 3D Printing

Stamp Your Website!

  Recently we described Shapeways’ new rubber stamp service, where images are transformed by software and 3D printing into a custom rubber stamp. But now we find a truly innovative use of rubber stamps that brings that pre-20th century technology into the 21st. It all has to do with something called “QR Codes”. They are… Continue reading Stamp Your Website!

Keith Prints a Puck

   Keith’s Electronics Blog has a series of posts on the development of an “LED Puck”. What does it do? Special Purpose Lighting: Power goes out and you need to enough light to shut down the UPS-protected computers? LED puck. Camping and you need to find your gear inside your tent? Puck. Kidnapped and locked… Continue reading Keith Prints a Puck

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Shapeways on Rails

No, they’re not producing a magical 3D development framework with a ton of plugins. At least not that we know of. No, they’ve just joined up with Beneluxspoor.net, a community of European model railroad enthusiasts. We’ve written about the application of 3D printing to model railways before, and it seems to be a natural fit.… Continue reading Shapeways on Rails

Better Than Cheap

  Intent Design, a UK-based design firm specializing in retail environments recently acquired a Z Corp ZPrinter 450. As readers will recall, the 450 is one of Z Corp’s popular units, capable of rapidly popping out stunning colored objects according to the models fed to it. As many other design firms have discovered, Intent Design… Continue reading Better Than Cheap

3D Printing Wins the Race(s)

Two recent articles show the potential for custom designed objects in competitive racing. BMW’s F1 team uses several rapid prototyping techniques to create the unique parts used in their Formula One race cars. A series of videos shows many of the techniques, resulting ultimately in the curing of strong carbon-fibre parts placed on the vehicles.… Continue reading 3D Printing Wins the Race(s)

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Rocks From 3D

After a few hints of 3D printing entering the jewelry manufacturing space, we bumped into an article from the All About Rocks blog. They say: The world of Jewelry Manufacturing is right now entering a phase of evolution, the old arts of sketching, modeling, reviewing and restarting that long time consuming process until satisfaction are… Continue reading Rocks From 3D

More’a Coraline

Last week we posted the inside details of how the popular movie Coraline was produced. The makers of the film shunned conventional CGI techniques and went with a traditional stop-motion approach with a twist: many model components were produced on an Objet Connex500 3D printer. This enabled them to make many, many more custom components… Continue reading More’a Coraline

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Tape Wrangling

We’ve all struggled with a roll of packing tape, trying frantically to find the edge of the tape. Finally we realize we need one of those tape dispensers, you know the kind – they look like a pistol and can swiftly tape up anything placed within arm’s length. We’ve seen many different designs for such… Continue reading Tape Wrangling

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Entire House Produced on 3D Printer

The catch: it’s a home for a hermit crab. Yes, 3D printing has produced pre-fab replacement homes for “needy hermit crabs”. It’s actually not a laughing matter, as hermit crabs habitually reside in leftover shells from other creatures, discarding and replacing them as the crab grows in size. The problem these days is that there… Continue reading Entire House Produced on 3D Printer

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Jay Leno Wants A 3D Printer!

How mainstream is this? Late night host Jay Leno, one of the world’s most notable car fanatics. As the owner of very large number of vehicles, he has a problem that anyone with a collection of old things may have: “I can’t get a replacement part!” In a video on Jay Leno’s Garage, Jay describes… Continue reading Jay Leno Wants A 3D Printer!

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DiMora’s V16 Engine Powered By 3D Printer

  Admit it – you need a 1200-HP car, just like us. But now they’re being made much more efficiently due to the use of ProMetal‘s “Rapid Casting Technology”, which can build molds and casting cores of sand directly from 3D models. DiMora Motors is using this new approach to build the startling 1200-HP motor… Continue reading DiMora’s V16 Engine Powered By 3D Printer

Print Your Baby!

  Most women would expect to proceed normally through their pregnancy, but perhaps a few 3D geek fathers would prefer to print their baby instead. Faster, safer, choice of materials, etc. Now it turns out you can actually do this! Well, in plastic or bronze at least. The London Ultrasound Centre in the UK offers… Continue reading Print Your Baby!

3D Printing on the High Seas

You might think you can’t seriously print an entire boat with current 3D printing tech, but Robotboat thinks otherwise. Their ingenious plan: print miniature robotically controlled boats! Robotboat is a startup company intending on producing “advanced robotic boats for the global oceanographic surveillance market”. They intend on using 3D printing to rapidly produce unique hull… Continue reading 3D Printing on the High Seas

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Can You Print a Stadium?

  Yes you can, although it will be a touch smaller than you’d expect. That’s precisely what HOK Sport is doing. They are one of the world’s leading architectural firms specializing in major sports facilities. Among their projects is the London 2012 Olympic Stadium. According to a recent Z Corp press release, HOK recently acquired… Continue reading Can You Print a Stadium?

Digital Stone Rises in China

We’ve seen examples of interesting uses previously, and here’s another one. Four sculptors were to build exhibits for the Digital Stone Exhibition in China. The purpose of the exhibition was to demonstrate the links between the 21st century digital world and traditional stone carving techniques. Western artists first produced some 20 3D models, “Digitally Sculpting”.… Continue reading Digital Stone Rises in China

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Print That Chopper!

Stratasys’s service division, RedEye RPM produced a rather eye-catching surprise at the recent Autodesk University conference in Las Vegas. Yes, it was a complete, life-size custom designed motorcycle made entirely from parts produced on a 3D printer. According to their press release: The prototype chopper included many fully functional parts, including: articulating steering, illuminating headlights,… Continue reading Print That Chopper!

Guitar Technology Fabbed

GooCart reports on a musical adventure involving his ’98 R8 honeyburst guitar and 3D printing. Evidently the pick guard did not fit, so he “scanned the ’53 GT guard into my 3d software and modified it for the R8, then I used our 3d printer for this cutting template”. The new part (pictured) will be… Continue reading Guitar Technology Fabbed

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Two Hours to Stargate!

Madox has done the impossible – building a real Stargate in less than two hours! Heh, it’s not a *real* Stargate, but it is a true 3D object you can hold in your hand. And the iris does open and close, mostly. What’s this all about? Engineer Madox observed the recent 66% off materials cost… Continue reading Two Hours to Stargate!

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ReFabbing!

Tipster Jean-François Allie points us at a couple of very interesting projects that exploit 3D fabbing in a way we hadn’t considered: ReFabbing! The idea springs from observation of tremendous waste deposits of unused manufactured gear. For example, what happens with that old toothbrush, cell phone or other non-functional plastic thingy? They get thrown into… Continue reading ReFabbing!

Individual Olympic Shoes Fabbed

3D Systems recently assisted Loughborough University in the UK to produce highly customized shoe soles for olympic athletes. Researchers observed that the margin of victory in recent Olympic track events has been vanishingly small, sometimes as low as 0.01 seconds. You can’t get much closer than that. But a close margin of victory means that… Continue reading Individual Olympic Shoes Fabbed

A Jeweler’s First Time

MadeByDan reports on his first experience using 3D print technology. Ironically, it was not jewelry that came out of the printer, but instead o a simple platter. We expect that he’ll soon be printing jewelry models too. He used Shapeways, a popular 3D print service. Here’s the part we found most interesting: I thought it… Continue reading A Jeweler’s First Time

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Sell Property With 3D

We know that architectural firms produce 3D printed models of their designs in order to sell the proposal to a client, but what about more common realty activities? The estatepromo service goes all out by providing full 3D services to “Investors, Developers and Estate Agents”. They use “3D models, architecture visualisations and 3D printing” to… Continue reading Sell Property With 3D

Equipping Your Lab Via 3D Fabbing

Plausible Accuracy proposes a question: Labs often require specialized or one-time parts, jigs or other components. Typically they are roughed together, sometimes “straight out of the trash bin”. The post suggests that lab workers are by definition, “Tinkerers”, and that they are constantly called upon to solve small and unique experimental construction issues. The idea… Continue reading Equipping Your Lab Via 3D Fabbing

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Tiny 3D Trains

An intriguing discussion is taking place on Trainboard.com, a place for model railway engineers to discuss, well, model trains! User ppuinn asks, “Has anyone used 3D printers to make structures for their model railroad?” We think that is an excellent question, since railway engineers will have need for all manner of small plastic building items,… Continue reading Tiny 3D Trains

The Tooth Fabber

This one is so obvious we didn’t even think of it until mjarkiver wrote up his recent experience at the dentist. We’ve all been there before, where a section of a tooth is to be replaced. Typically, the remaining surface on the tooth is prepped by leveling and smoothing. Then a mold is obtained by… Continue reading The Tooth Fabber

3D Yoyo

  “Have you ever made a Yoyo with a 3D printer”, asks bollweevil in this Yoyonation forum discussion. Yoyo enthusiasts know their yoyos, and many custom build them. Now, they consider using a 3D printer to do so. The result is interesting, as YoMattSta replies: “Yes, I have. I made 2 yoyos on a 3d… Continue reading 3D Yoyo