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Entries in reprap (27)

Monday
Aug162010

3D Printing in Multiple Materials - at Home

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There are many differences between commercial 3D printers and hobbyist equivalents, including build quality, size, ability to print in color, etc., but now there's one item that might be crossed off the list: the ability to print in more than one material. 
 
The RepRap team are working on a "head changer" that would enable two or more materials to be used during a single print operation. Imagine printing tweezers with a silicone grip - which was actually accomplished in the image above. The approach is to use a "bowden" extruder and build a carriage for several of them. 
 
In their post, they describe a model that supports up to three such extruders, but the build quality is somewhat degraded. Needless to say, it's very early in development, but when successful, it will bring many more options to low-cost 3D printing operators. 
 

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Monday
Jul052010

Breeding RepRaps

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The premise behind the RepRap project is to build a machine that can reproduce itself. While it's not quite able to accomplish that task entirely, it can produce a great many of its own parts.
 
That's exactly what's going on at the University of Washington, where they seem to have set up a "RepRap Breeding Center". So far a team of two students have produced three working RepRap Mendel units within one class term. From Open3DP:
 
In a post quarter meeting, we predict that we could fabricate about one Mendel a week with a slightly larger team of players.   We coined the concept of  our lab becoming a “Rep Rap Breeding Center”. 
 
It seems that RepRaps and in particular the Mendel version, have gone viral. What might the population of RepRaps be today? 
 

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Saturday
Apr172010

The Most Popular 3D Printer Brands & Manufacturers?

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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:
  1. Objet
  2. Z Corporation
  3. Desktop Factory (!)
  4. Dimension/Stratasys
We're not sure we'd agree with this list, particularly item 3, Desktop Factory. While DT was highly touted and did good work, they ceased to exist some time ago, after being absorbed by industry giant 3D Systems (hm, where are 3D Systems on the list?) 
 
So who are the leading 3D print vendors these days? We'd have to split this into two very distinct categories: Commercial, where high-quality devices demand high prices, and Hobbyist, where incredibly inexpensive gear is used by a large and growing crowd. 
 
First, our list of commercial 3D printer vendors:
 
 
And our list of hobbyist 3D printer vendors/projects:
 
 
No, they're not ranked. We have no way of knowing the relative size of these organizations. How would you measure them, anyway? Annual revenue? That would disqualify the open source projects. Media Coverage? Number of prints? Features & quality? All of these organizations offer benefits and challenges, and you must choose the one that fits your needs best. As for us, we decided to list them using an undebatable system: alphabetical. Enjoy!
 
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Sunday
Mar212010

3D Printing Experimentation with Replibot

There are many inventive hobbyists who are making very good use of the 3D printing knowledgesphere. That knowledge includes hardware, software, electronics, design, tools, models, examples, help, tutorials and services. For those who are not satisfied with the current offerings, they often dig in deep in attempts to find better solutions by leveraging all available resources. 
 
One such example is Replibot, where we find numerous posts on various experiments including detailed descriptions and images, all intended to improve the techniques. Their discoveries and improvements make their way back into the knowledgesphere where they are then used by others in a continual process of improvement. 
 
Where will we be in five years?
 
Wednesday
Mar172010

RepRap Explained

Dr. Adrian Bowyer of the University of Bath and the father of the RepRap 3D printer takes us on a video tour of RepRap, including the new Mendel RepRap model. Bowyer speaks enthusiastically on the device, tools for 3D modelling and 3D model repositories. 
 
The Mendel RepRap is physically smaller than its predecessor model, Darwin, yet has a greater build size. Smaller on the outside, bigger on the inside. Both models are able to reproduce approximately half of their own parts, the remainder being electronics and critical metal parts. The Mendel version produces better quality objects, but Bowyer says the big issue is the "human ease of assembly" of the device, so that is what his team is concentrating on. 
 
The build material used by RepRap is typically plant based plastic (polylactic acid, made from starch), which is "easy to make on your own, but with one tricky step." The tricky step involves drying the material to less than 10ppm of water, which would indeed be tricky!
 
Other build materials discussed include ABS and HDPE. the common plastic used in milk bottles. The strategy is to design an accompanying "Shredder" that can eat the milk bottles or other similar plastic sources to produce new build material. As Bowyer demonstrates, you'll be able to shred your 3D printed shoes and print new ones as they wear out or you change size! The shredding component is still being designed, but as the project is entirely open source, perhaps someone else may be working on it.  
 
A brief discussion of experimental circuit boards showed two techniques, both of which have some limitations. One circuit board involved printing grooves that are subsequently filled with molten solder. It's not quite ready for general use yet, but we're very pleased this is being developed. 
 
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Saturday
Feb062010

RepRap Grandchild Produced

Maker Erik de Bruijn has already persuaded his RepRap 3D printer to produce parts for a "child" printer, as have others using the RepRap design. That's one of the main objectives for the RepRap project: a self-replicating machine. This was first accomplished in mid-2008, as we reported then
 
On Friday Erik announced on Twitter the next brave step:
 
It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE! My second #RepRap child! My first RepRap grandchild!
 
We're not sure if this is in fact the *very* first RepRap grandchild, but it's quite an accomplishment, nevertheless. Erik continues:
 
It's name is Leo. His father's name is Charles, both from the Darwin family. #RepRap It will be demonstrated at #FOSDEM
 
FOSDEM is the Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting, taking place today and tomorrow. 
 

 

Tuesday
Feb022010

$100K For a Better 3D Printer!

The Foresight institute has announced their version of the X-Prize, the Kartik M. Gada Humanitarian Innovation Prize. The idea is to award a hardworking team who can develop a drastically improved RepRap 3D printer design. There will be an interim award of USD$20,000 on December 31st, 2012 and a grand prize of USD$80,000 on December 31st, 2015. The interim award requires teams to meet the following startling characteristics:

  • Print at least three different materials, including one that is usefully electrically conductive.
  • The ability to print electronic circuit boards.
  • Print beds must be of a material which may be reused with minimal refurbishment for at least 20 print cycles.
  • Maintain a total materials and parts cost under $200 and that 90% of the volume of the printer parts be printed.
  • Demonstrate a build volume of the printer above 300x300x100mm in order to insure that items daily utility can be printed.
  • The capacity to print a full set of parts for a complete replica of itself within 10 days unattended save for clearing no more than one printer head jam.
  • The ability to print autonomously without a PC attached.
  • Uses no more than 60 watts of electrical power.


If that weren't enough, the grand prize characteristics are even more amazing:

  • That the cost of the material used for printing does not exceed $4/kilogram.
  • The capacity to print a full set of parts for a complete replica of itself within 7 days, including the time for reloading, and clearing of printer head jams.
  • Maintain a total materials and parts cost under $200 and that 90% of the volume of the printer parts be printed.


If these lofty goals can be achieved, it will be a momentous change, as many commercial barriers will have been broken. They're clearly trying to drive the technology to a point where commercial ventures will strongly take hold. Thank you, Foresight Institute!

Good luck to all teams!

Via Foresight Institute and Make

Saturday
Jan302010

The Tyee on 3D Printing

There's a long article introducing 3D printing concepts appearing at The Tyee, a British Columbia-based electronic newsmagazine: "The Replicator, No Longer a Star Trek Dream". The article contains interviews with Neil Gershenfeld, Director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, Adrian Bowyer, inventor of the RepRap, Fab Lab users, a RepRap owner, University of Missouri Professor Dr. Gabor Forgacs, and several educational institutions who use the technology. All of this and videos from TED, Fab Lab, the uPrint, RepRap and Organ printing in one place. Enjoy!