Carbon3D – Malta 3D Printing

Objects That Couldn't Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

Objects That Couldn’t Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

3D printing isn’t just for making unique stuffed animals or weird fake meat. It allows us to fabricate objects we never could with traditional manufacturing. Here are some of the incredible things we can print now, which were nearly impossible to make before.

Personalized Car Parts

3D printing can make car parts that are custom-built for the driver’s body and comfort: an ergonomic steering wheel, for example. Last month, Fortune reported Ford’s partnership with California-based 3D printing company Carbon3D. The automakers themselves can benefit from 3D printed parts, too. Instead of the ol’ Ford assembly line, engineers can make manufacturing and design more iterative with 3D printed materials, since prototyping suddenly becomes faster and cheaper and testing becomes more frequent and thorough.

You see, many products—from drinking cups to video game consoles to car parts—are created in a process called “injection molding.” That’s when a material, like glass or metal or plastic, is poured into a mold that forms the product. But with 3D printing, you can design a crazy object on your computer, and it can be turned into reality.

“3D printing bridges the gap between the digital and the physical world,” says Jonathan Jaglom, CEO of 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot, “and lets you design pretty much anything in digital form and then instantly turn it into a physical object.”

Objects That Couldn't Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

Lighter Airplanes

There have been lots of materials used to make planes lighter, and thus more fuel efficient and greener. But 3D-printed materials can cut weight by up to 55%, according to Airbus, which announced its involvement with 3D printing last year.

In February, Australian researchers unveiled the first 3D-printed jet engine in the world.

Objects That Couldn't Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

3D-printed polymers often have “high strength to weight ratios,” says Kristine Relja, marketing manager at Carbon3D, the same company that’s working with Ford on the 3D-printed car parts. 3D-printed plane parts use that strength-to-weight ratio to their advantage. It gives them an edge over traditional materials, like the aluminum often found in seat frames.

“If the arm rest of each seat of a plane were replaced with a high strength to weight ratio part, the overall weight of the plane would drop, increasing fuel efficiency and lowering the overall cost of the plane,” Relja says.

Objects That Couldn't Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

Detailed Molds of Your Jaw

Possibly the arena 3D printing handedly dominates is personal health. Our bodies are unbelievably individualized, idiosyncratic flesh bags filled with biological items uniquely shaped to each person. Since customization is so critical, especially in surgical implants, 3D printing can really shine here.

Objects That Couldn't Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

Let’s start with dental trays: Those molds of your chompers that’re made with gross cement stuff that you have to leave in your mouth for minutes on end. They’re useful because they can help dentists and orthodontists create appliances like retainers or braces, and can give them a three dimensional, kinesthetic mold of your mouth.

Over at Stratasys, the 3D printing company that owns MakerBot, 3D-printed dental trays are going from CAD file to model, blazing trails in orthodontics. It gives orthodontists and dentists a cheap, accurate glimpse into a patient’s maw. It’s way easier than those nasty physical impressions with the cement, and way less gag-inducing.

Customized Surgical Stents

Stents are those little tubes surgeons stick in the hollow parts of your body—a blood vessel or artery, say—to hold it open and allow it to function properly. Usually, they’re mesh, but stents that are 3D-printed can have an edge, since they’re able to be customized more and are made with cheaper, flexible polymers that can dissolve safely into the bloodstream in a couple years.

At the Children’s Hospital of Michigan in the Detroit Medical Center, a 17-year-old girl was suffering from an aortic aneurysm, a potentially fatal heart condition that was discovered with a precautionary EKG. That’s when Dr. Daisuke Kobayashi and his team turned to 3D printing. A 3D printed model of her heart allowed the doctors to know exactly where to put stents in an otherwise delicate operation for a young patient.

In other cases, the surgical stents themselves are 3D printed: University of Michigan doctors have also implanted 3D-printed stents just above infant boys’ lungs to open their airways help them breathe normally on their own. The advantage of using 3D printing here is that doctors were able to create custom stents that could fit the kids’ individual anatomies, quickly and cheaply.

Objects That Couldn't Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

Buckyballs

No, not the tiny magnetic choking hazards. We’re talking about models of Buckminsterfullerene, the molecule. It’s every chemistry teacher’s dream. 3D printers can produce tangible, big models of molecules. And they’re accurate, too. This type of complex geometry is really hard to pull off with injection molding. The closest thing we had before was basically popsicle sticks and Elmer’s.

3D printing not only helps us learn more about what molecules look like by making lifesized models of them—it also helps us make actual molecules. Earlier this year, Dr. Martin Burke at the University of Illinois led the construction of a “molecule-making machine”: It’s a machine that synthesizes small, organic molecules by welding over 200 pre-made “building blocks” and then 3D printing billions of organic compound combinations. This could “revolutionize organic chemistry,” the paper in the journal Science reported, significantly speeding up the process to test new drugs.

What’s cool about 3D printing is that it makes ambitiously designed objects way more feasible. Specifically, 3D printing can make those “complex geometries” that injection molding can’t: That is, stuff that’s in obscure shapes, like long twisty mobius strips or zillion-sided polygons.

Replacement Parts for Your Organs

3D printing can be used to make surgically-implanted hardware that protects or supports damaged organs. This could lead the way to custom repairs for damaged tracheas or windpipes, for instance. Sometimes part of a windpipe needs to be removed, but the two remaining ends need to be joined together—if they can’t be joined together, the patient may die.

3D bioprinting to the rescue! It can replicate the mechanical properties of the trachea. That’s right: a living, biological tracheal replacement can be made from a mix of 3D printing and tissue engineering. That’s what the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research did. They modified a 3D printer to use a syringe filled with living cells that produce collagen and cartilage. Within hours, bioengineered tracheas can be created on-the-spot quickly and cheaply. And that’s a key strength for 3D printing: fast prototypes.

Objects That Couldn't Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

Organs and Bones

The most futuristic use of for these magical printers? They could, one day, create internal organs. That’s a literal lifesaver for folks who need an organ transplant. Also possibly available: eyes, blood vessels, noses, ears, skin, and bones. Even hearts.

Objects That Couldn't Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

And this isn’t just science fiction. In 2013, medical company Organovo started selling 3D-printed liver tissue. It’ll be a while before a fully functioning liver can be printed, but it’s a big step in the right direction, even if it just means prototypes and experimental liver-like structures.

As if that wasn’t incredible enough, we can also create replicas of people’s existing internal organs. With the help of CT scan data, docs can whip up three dimensional, touchable copies of individuals’ guts, in all their nuanced, unique glory. This can help medical professionals better find tumors or other irregularities. (Not to mention it could possibly take the gross awesomeness out of biology class dissections.)

And already, companies are creating cheap, 3D-printed prosthetic limbs for kids. A whole generation is growing up with 3D printing — not just as a toy, but a vital part of their bodies.

Objects That Couldn't Be Made Before 3D Printers Existed

gizmodo.com

by Bryan Lufkin | 8/11/15 4:34pm

3D printed future – did you think about it ?

Posted on 20/08/201507/09/2015 by aneczka2307

https://hbr.org/2015/05/the-time-to-think-about-the-3d-printed-future-is-now

MAY15_06_28731679_horz_b

The Time to Think About the 3D Printed Future Is Now

3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, is likely to revolutionize business in the next several years. Often dismissed in the popular mindset as a tool for home-based “makers” of toys and trinkets, the technology is gaining momentum in large-scale industry. Already it has moved well beyond prototyping and, as I explain in a new HBR article, it will increasingly be used to produce high-volume parts and products in several industries.

Since I prepared that article, new developments have only strengthened the case for a 3-D future – and heightened the urgency for management teams to adjust their strategies. Impressive next-generation technologies are overcoming the last generation’s drawbacks while adding new capabilities. This progress will speed up adoption and propel more experimentation and practical application. What was a niche technique is morphing into a broad-based movement driven by multiple technologies and many kinds of companies.

Many of the new developments have to do with broadening the science underpinning additive manufacturing. Early generations drew from physics and engineering. The new technologies are expanding the playbook into chemistry.Continuous light interface production, or CLIP, uses chemical reactions to better control the transformation of liquids into solids. Instead of slowly putting down a layer of material and then curing it, CLIP creates a monolithic product in what is essentially a continuous process. CLIP greatly speeds up production and boosts the material strength of the final product by cutting down on the problems created by layers. The inventors, who publicly announced this new approach in March, say they were inspired by the film “Terminator 2” – specifically the scene where a robot reshapes itself after having melted into a puddle.

Another promising development is multi-jet fusion. This technology starts with a plastic or metal powder, but instead of solidifying the powder with a laser, it uses chemicals sprayed from 30,000 tiny nozzles at a rate of 350 million dots per second. These chemicals speed the shaping and hardening of the powder by a UV lamp. But importantly, in the future, the chemicals can also change the powdered material’s properties – adding color, elasticity, bacteria-resistance, hardness, and texture to the final product. And because the high-tech nozzles spray so quickly and precisely, the curing takes only a tenth of the time of existing 3D processes. Typical of next generation advances, it integrates a number of techniques that had been used separately.

Even more intriguing, though probably still years away, is what MIT calls 4-D printing, where the fourth dimension is time. These are objects embedded with “memory materials” that react to light or heat to form new shapes after delivery to the consumer. Imagine a piece of furniture that arrives flat, but then reshapes itself into a chair when exposed to sunlight.

And these are just the general-purpose technologies. Also emerging isxerographic micro-assembly, which promises to greatly improve computer chip manufacture by implanting components of chips with electrical charges and putting them in a highly conductive fluid. Electrical fields can then assemble these “chiplets” into full chips with greater capabilities and fewer defects than conventional chip production. Likewise in bio-printing, researchers are adding magnetic nanoparticles to living cells and then using magnetic fields to assemble the cells into artificial tumors and functioning tissues.

Big players are involved now in pushing additive manufacturing to the next level. Early phases of 3D printing involved startup companies with investments in the low seven digits. Stratasys and 3D Systems grew into industry leaders with approximately $1 billion in revenues each. Now we’re seeing much bigger stakes. Hewlett-Packard developed multi-jet fusion, leveraging its expertise in printer head technology to leapfrog the industry. CLIP comes from a startup,Carbon3D, but one with $40 million in funding from a VC group led by mainstay Sequoia Capital. MIT is investing heavily in 4-D printing. Xerox, which invented xerographic micro-assembly, had been testing the waters with an investment in startup 3D Systems. Once it saw the potential, it launched a major internal program leveraging many facets of its electronics expertise as well.

These organizations are putting their reputations as well as major capital investments on the line, and have a lot to lose if these technologies turn out to be vaporware. Carbon3D promises to release its first commercial printer by December of this year, while HP has a target date of January 2016.

The market is taking these claims seriously, as well. Both 3D Systems and Stratasys have seen their stock prices slide in recent months, in part because the market is worried about the next generation of technologies and the resources that giants like HP are putting behind them. Realizing they can’t spend like the giants, the early leaders have started shifting their R&D away from hardware and moving toward software, services, and consulting. The 3D printing ecosystem is still very much in flux.

In the midst of all this change, new strategies are required. Even if some of these new technologies fail to pan out, there’s so much activity going on, so much money and creativity now being applied, that we can safely expect the pace of additive manufacturing to pick up. That has two major implications for strategists. One is that timelines based on earlier generations of additive manufacturing may be too conservative. If the new technologies dramatically boost the speed and strength of 3D printing, then adoption rates will jump. The cost advantage of conventional “subtractive” manufacturing will disappear sooner than expected. The new capabilities to customize products will also be highly attractive. Digital platforms that coordinate 3D printing ecosystems will emerge sooner. Instead of moving incrementally to adopt 3D techniques into their organization, companies may need to pick up the pace.

Second, strategists will have to consider not only which technology to run with, but also whether to collaborate with these next generation pioneers. By partnering with, say, HP or Carbon3D, companies stand to gain earlier access. But they may also increase the risk if their chosen technology fails to meet its promise on schedule. Working with current 3D technologies, such as extrusion-, stereolithographic- and sintering-based methods has better odds but a smaller payoff. Such decisions could lead to internal strife between converts to each camp. Companies could invest in both, but then they face the challenge of timing the switch over to the next generation, and the complexity of transitioning people and the organization from one to another, as well as the specter of writing off investments before they have been recaptured.

All of this is on top of the new level of complexity that 3D printing has brought to manufacturing generally. What’s the proper mix of traditional “subtractive” methods with the new additive approaches. How much risk should a firm take on now, versus what’s the risk if you wait? And all of this raises the possibility of reshoring some operations, affecting established relationships with host governments and local unions.

Strategists, fasten your seat belts for a fun but bumpy ride. Here’s where you show what you’re made of.

hbr.org

by Richard D’Aveni | MAY 06, 2015

‘Membrane based’ 3D printer

Posted on 19/08/201501/09/2015 by aneczka2307

http://3dprint.com/54864/super-fast-3d-printer/

Student Creates Super Fast ‘Membrane Based’ 3D Printer – Prints 40 x 40 x 100 mm Objects at 10 Microns in 12 Minutes

It is truly amazing how quickly the 3D printing space is developing. Just two weeks ago we stood stunned as a company called Carbon3D unveiled a new breakthrough 3D printing process called CLIP. This process can supposedly print objects 25-100 times faster than other SLA 3D printers. Then just a week after that, Gizmo 3D unveiled another super fast SLA-based 3D printer which looks to challenge Carbon3D as far as speed and resolution go. Then just earlier this week we reported on a Chinese company, called Prismlab, which has shown off their incredibly fast SLA line of 3D printers, rumored to be able to print 2,712.27 cm³ of material per hour.

Now, 3DPrint.com has discovered yet another super fast SLA 3D printer created not by a large company, but by a college student named Bo Pang. Pang, a University of Buffalo student, majoring in Industrial Engineering, and graduating with a degree of Master of Science in May, has been researching 3D printing for the past 2 years.

It was also 2 years ago that Pang got the idea of creating a “continuous 3D printing process,” one which could greatly speed up 3D printing in general. The printer Pang has created was designed and fabricated last summer, and it’s just now that he is unveiling it to the world.

“Our machine is mostly similar with Carbon3D’s, but there is one important way in which we are very different,” Pang tells 3DPrint.com. “The Carbon3D machine uses an oxygen-permeable window to create a ‘dead zone’ (a thin layer of uncured resin between the window and the object). This dead zone guarantees the part can grow without stopping, and this is the key to the CLIP process. For our machine, we don’t use that oxygen-permeable window, but we instead use a special membrane to create that thin layer of uncured resin. There are 2 advantages of this special membrane. First, this membrane is much less expensive than the oxygen-permeable window, as it only costs about 1/100 of the price of the oxygen-permeable window. Second, this membrane is very easy to mold, meaning we can make this membrane almost any shape we want.”

So how fast is Pang’s innovative new 3D printer? Very! Featuring a relatively small build volume, it can print with an incredible X-Y axis resolution of 15 microns, and a Z-axis resolution of just 10 microns. He was able to 3D print a miniature Eiffel Tower measuring 10 x 10 x 20 mm in just 7 minutes and 26 seconds, a cubed truss measuring 7 x 7 x 7 mm in just 2 minutes and 7 seconds, and a larger 40 x 40 x 100 mm Eiffel Tower in just 12 minutes and 6 seconds (seen on videos provided).

While Pang’s invention is quite impressive, he is still working out some issues that his new system is experiencing.

“There are still some short-comings, and I guess even Carbon3D can’t solve this problem now,” Pang tells us. “The continuous process can print truss structures very well because there is a very small suction force for these prints. But for solid parts, like a cylinder, this process doesn’t perform well. When you’re printing solid parts, the suction force between part and the bottom of the tank will be extremely large. How to overcome this force is the key to printing solid parts. We just got an idea today for a solution to this problem, but we need time to test it. I believe we can figure it out soon.”

As for the cost of creating this unique 3D printer, Pang tells us he would estimate that it costs much less than $3,000. As for when he would plan to bring this printer to market, that still remains up in the air. Currently he just considers it a research project, but says that if he can obtain the right resources, he will consider mass production. He also said that he may consider using crowdfunding in order to raise money for the project.

Without a doubt, this is another super fast 3D printer that could challenge the likes of Carbon3D. While the build volume is pretty small, Pang tells us that he thinks that with some calibration he can expand this quite a bit. His next project is to attempt to 3D print a part measuring 50 x 50 x 140 mm in dimensions.

Pang himself is set to graduate from the University of Buffalo this May, and he has hopes of finding a job somewhere related to 3D printing. He feels that he has a very in-depth knowledge of the technology and could help many companies looking for someone with an interest and education in the field.

“I mainly focus on design, as well as build and calibrate new concept 3D printers, especially for the hardware and testing part,” Pang tells us. “I am also skilled in CAD software and hand-on skills. I have enthusiasm within the realm of 3D printings, I really hope I can work in this area for my whole career.”

Certainly any employer would be lucky to obtain the experience and knowledge that Pang has to offer. If anyone has any interest in speaking to Pang about a job opening, you can contact him via phone at (716) 435-7766, or on his LinkedIn account. (Note: the test was initially started on an EnvisionTec 3D printer, which Pang tells us is a very reliable printer).

What do you think about Pang’s new 3D printer? Will this be something that revolutionizes the desktop 3D printing space? Discuss in the Super Fast SLA 3D printer forum thread on 3DPB.com.

3dprint.com

by EDDIE KRASSENSTEIN | APRIL 2, 2015

The future of 3D printing

Posted on 19/08/201531/08/2015 by aneczka2307

http://3dprint.com/54120/3d-printing-future-2/

3D Printing: The Next 5 years

The 3D printing field is expected to grow more than 14% annually to become an $8.4 billion industry by 2020, according to a 2013 report by MarketsandMarkets. Currently, North America and Asia-Pacific are the two largest 3D printing markets. Europe is following close behind and expected to overtake North America by 2020. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is poised to reinvent the way our culture brings an idea to life, shifting how we think about ideation and production. Let’s take a look at 3D printing and how additive manufacturing will revolutionize the technological futures of countless industries.

Disruptive Technologies

You can’t explore the use of 3D printing throughout industries without addressing disruptive innovation, the process of replacing old technologies by completely eradicating or coexisting with what existed before. Disruptive technology is defined as technology designed to create a new market by generating a unique set of standards that eventually overtake the existing market. 3D printing joins a list of disruptive technologies that includes smartphones, the Internet, cloud technology, and laparoscopic surgery.

For example, when Ford introduced the mass-produced automobile, it changed the horse and buggy culture of the Western world. Subsequently, electric cars are changing the future of today’s gasoline cars. The outcome influences the current market, but it’s the change in the ideation process that creates revolutionary effects.

User Convenience

“3D printing empowers the user — not just the business owner and investor,”according to Apple Rubber, a leading designer and manufacturer of rubber compounds and sealing technology. Apple Rubber’s manufacturing process doesn’t quite align with 3D printing just yet, due to price and the need to produce custom parts for specific applications. But as a proponent of 3D printing, the company is keeping a close eye on how evolving 3D technologies can enhance Apple Rubber’s future and advocates its benefits.

“Inventors now have everything they need,” informs Andrew Rich, an Apple Rubber project engineer. “People can now design on their own home computer and print it out—not pay thousands of dollars to have larger companies make prototypes. Manufacturers may end up touching it in the production phase, but not early on. 3D printing is bringing innovation to the general public.”

3D printing provides equal opportunities and even consumer convenience. The technology enables consumers to go online where they can find prototypes and print the schematics right from their home. Being able to create your idea in the comfort of your home is shifting the creative assets of the world away from singular companies.

The New DIY

Since 3D printing allows prototyping to be accessible to individuals, it takes the first steps to democratize manufacturing. We can shift away from big business manufacturing to economical do-it-yourself production. For example, instead of a big biomedical firm investing millions into development, doctors at St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals in Manhattan were able to 3D print a trachea for implantation at a fraction of the cost, the Daily News reported. Using stem cells and 3D printing technology, Dr. Faiz Bhora created bioengineered tracheas. Dr. Faiz Bhora and his team printed a 3D silicone model of the trachea created from biologic material and based on CAT scan data, using a Fab@Home 3D printer (in only 15 minutes). The vision is to implant these 3D trachea models in human patients within a few years.

Even jewelers like David Wilkinson use 3D printing to render models of design concepts. The jewelry designer created a one-of-a-kind custom Legend of Zeldaengagement ring. The engagement ring was initially designed in Wings3D to replicate hero Link’s iconic weapon. Wilkinson refined the design and used a Minitech milling machine to give it a detailed 3D render. The band was cast in 14K white gold and the three-pronged Triforce head was made with 14K yellow gold. White stone diamond baguettes sparkle in each link along the band, and the lab-grown yellow sapphire stands out as the ring’s focal point.

Mainstream Resistance

The adoption of additive manufacturing is increasing dramatically, but there is still an overall resistance to its place in mainstream companies. Estimates vary, but all show that less than 10% of companies use additive manufacturing technologies, according to the report “Fostering Mainstream Adoption of Industrial 3D Printing.” Much of this has to do with the effect it will have on the process of idea generation and fulfillment. Using a 3D printer, a developer can go directly from idea to functional prototype without the need for a mockup team, parts runners, or interim managerial approval. It diminishes the strength of large companies and uses staff-intensive supportive departments. It places feet under smaller businesses embracing rapid innovation.

The Internet of Things

Our new digital world links human behavior to the devices we use every day. A smartphone can control our TV watching, the environment of our homes, and how often we work out. This Internet of Things is predicted to have 26 billion devices attached to it by the year 2020. Additive manufacturing is the development arm of the IoT — an interconnection of computing devices inside the framework of the Internet. IoT aims to enable automation through advanced connectivity of devices, systems, and services, from human heart monitor plants to field operation tools, explains 3DPrint.com.

In our “How Nano 3D Electronics Printing Will Drive the Internet of Things,” TE Edwards delves into how plastic printed electronics produced by 3D printing technologies are critical to developing IoT advancements. Within 10 years, plastic circuits could operate at the same performance levels of today’s silicon circuits. Also, plastic printed transistors will be essential for creating wearable electronics and other IoT innovations.

Terminator-Inspired 3D Printing: From Liquid to Object

Recently, developments in 3D printing have even innovated continuous liquid interface production. Materializing objects out of a pool of liquid can increase the production speed to up to 100 times faster than conventional 3D printing, according to the startup Carbon3D. The CLIP (Continuous Liquid Interface Production) technique uses photochemistry. Designs come from liquid resin, and the media is solidified into the object using light and water, according to IFLScience.com.

CLIP produces complex objects that can have microscopic features and incredible geometries crafted at radically fast speeds. “Growing” objects out of a pool of liquid opens a world of opportunity. In medicine, for example, this type of 3D production could even produce custom stents to treat weakened arteries.

shutterstock_235449427

Speed, opportunity for innovations, and the ability to design remotely position additive manufacturing as the most game-changing disruptive technology of our future. Let us know your thoughts on the future of 3D printing in the Disruptive Technology forum thread over at 3DPB.com.

3dprint.com

by HEIDI MILKERT | MARCH 28, 2015