On 3D Printing

Motorola Mobility, a Google company, is building a 3D printed modular phone, and has partnered with 3D Systems for commercial fulfillment. More »

The Captured Dimensions pop-up studio was located in the Smithsonian Castle and featured approximately 80 digital cameras all connected to 3D software. More »

Microsoft expanded their support for 3D printing by launching a Windows 8 app called 3D Builder. It includes a library of objects you can edit and 3D print. More »

3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) announced the availability of the Sense 3D scanner, the first 3D scanner designed for the consumer and optimized for 3D printing. More »

With rumors circling that 3D Systems will be purchased by IBM, the stock soars. We look at why IBM might be interested in the 3D printing giant. More »

Search Results for: 3d printer

3D Printing Will Be As Disruptive As the PC, Thanks to Piracy

September 11, 2012 News

The Economist published a feature on the intellectual property implications of 3D printing. Remember Napster and shareware? 3D printing will be as disruptive as the PC.

The machines, called 3D printers, have existed in industry for years. But at a cost of $100,000 to $1m, few individuals could ever afford one. Fortunately, like everything digital, their price has fallen. So much so, industrial 3D printers can now be had for $15,000, and home versions for little more than $1,000 (or half that in kit form). “In many ways, today’s 3D printing community resembles the personal computing community of the early 1990s,” says Michael Weinberg, a staff lawyer at Public Knowledge, an advocacy group in Washington, DC.

This disruption will require a change in business model. The question is whether manufacturers will adapt.

Manufacturers are likely to behave much like the record industry did when its own business model—based on selling pricey CD albums that few music fans wanted instead of cheap single tracks they craved—came under attack from file-swapping technology and MP3 software. The manufacturers’ most likely recourse will be to embrace copyright, rather than patent, law, because many of their patents will have expired. Patents apply for only 20 years while copyright continues for 70 years after the creator’s death.

Will regulation create obstacles to innovation?

Today’s 3D printing crowd—tucked away in garages, basements, small workshops and university labs—needs to keep a keen eye on such policy debates as they grow. “There will be a time when impacted legacy industries [will] demand some sort of DMCA for 3D printing,” says Mr Weinberg. If the tinkerers wait until that day, it will be too late.

Read the full feature at The Economist.

Piracy photo by robotson used under Creative Commons license.

3D Printing a Futuristic Airplane Cabin: Innovation at Airbus

September 8, 2012 News

Could you 3D print an airplane? Some engineers at Airbus seem to think so, at least by 2050 and with a really big 3D printer.

Bastian Schaefer, a cabin engineer with Airbus, has been working for the last two years on a concept cabin that envisions what the future of flight would look like from the passenger’s perspective. From that came a radical concept: build the aircraft itself from the ground up with a 3D printer that’s very large in deed, ie. as big as an aircraft hangar. That probably sounds like a long shot, since the biggest 3D printers today are about the size of a dining table. But the Airbus design comes with a roadmap, from 3D-printing small components now, through to the plane as a whole around 2050.

Why use 3D printing at all? Airbus parent EADS has been looking into using the process, known as additive layer manufacturing, for making aircraft for some time because it’s potentially cheaper, and can result in components that are 65% ligher than with traditional manufacturing methods. Airbus’ concept plane is also so dizzyingly complicated that it requires radical manufacturing methods: from the curved fuselage to the bionic structure, to the transparent skin that gives passengers a panoramic view of the sky and clouds around them.

The challenges are many. First, you need a 3D printer big enough to print airplane parts. Second, you need to incorporate precise, lightweight materials into the additive manufacturing construction. And third, this novel design needs to pass stringent regulation in the aviation industry.

Again the engineers are on the case.

EADS has been experimenting with 3D printing and famously printed an “Airbike” last year. Schaefer, who has been with Airbus for six years, started working on the transparent concept cabin project around the same time as the Airbike project in 2010, calling on colleagues from different departments at Airbus. “We have an opportunity to do something different,” he told them.

He and other industrial designers, tech- and trend-scouts started brainstorming and came up with the current, 3D printed concept design. He has around 10 people working on the project with him, including industrial designers and tech scouts, all trying to push the technology forward.

Below is a video showcasing the Airbus concept cabin, which incorporates many of these new design ideas.

Via Forbes.

Airplane cabin photo by WexDub used under Creative Commons license.

TechCrunch Hardware Hackathon: 3D Printing Hackers Unite

September 5, 2012 News

TechCrunch is hosting its annual Disrupt Hackathon this weekend and is looking for hardware hackers to join the event.

Do you have hardware project that’s been simmering on the back burner because you can’t get access to a 3D printer? Come on down to the Disrupt Hackathon and use one of the MakerBots and Raspberry Pis we’ll have on site for anyone to use. Build toys, robots, Arduino cases, or whatever you want and enter the Disrupt Hackathon as an inaugural hardware hacker. We dare you.

The best hardware hack as chosen by the judges wins a brand new Replicator courtesy of MakerBot – a $2,000 value.

The event has been hosted in NY and San Francisco. Join them on September 8 in San Francisco for your chance to build some 3D printing hacks.

Via TechCrunch.

TechCrunch Disrupt photo by Scott Beale used under Creative Commons license.

Fab Lab of the Week: MidSouth Makers Opens 3D Printing Workshop

September 4, 2012 Fab Labs

This week’s featured Fab Lab is MidSouth Makers in Memphis, Tennessee.

Here is the mission of MidSouth Makers from their website:

Midsouth Makers aims to sustain the first ever hackerspace within the greater Memphis area. The goal of this hackerspace is bring in builders, tinkers, artists, makers, and doers together under one roof to form a makerspace. By bringing together these people a common place can be established to meet and discuss ideas, explore various technical endeavors, and communicate these thoughts with individuals from various backgrounds. Ultimately we seek to further our knowledge as individuals and as a group by learning what we can from each other.

MidSouth Makers was written up in local publication The Commercial Appeal:

Several members of MidSouth Makers have been building their own 3D printers in the last year. Typically, 3D printing technology, which has been around about 10 years, has been the toy of large-scale manufacturers, whose equipment costs in the tens of thousands. MidSouth Makers’ President Daniel Hess said there’s really no reason the little guy can’t get in on the action.

Hess spent about $800 on parts for his printer and bought $100 worth of plastic. However, the printer may use as little as 50 cents’ worth of plastic on each project.

Most of the printers in MidSouth Makers like it because it’s fun and they can raise some funds for their group by doing 3D Printing Build-Off events in other cities.

The group of 33 members was founded in January 2010. Members pay monthly dues to have 24/7 access to a 1,500-square-foot shop, all of the tools inside it, and the know-how of other members.

Many, like Hess, used to get in trouble with their spouses for tearing apart equipment in their living rooms. Some makers have more entrepreneurial hopes.

Maker photo by midsouthmakers used Creative Commons license.