Veteran 3D Printers

i.Materialise reports they have some rather old 3D printers still in operation at their site. These stereolithography printers (3D Systems SLA 250's) were apparently originally installed in 1990 - and are still used to produce parts for clients. To put it in perspective, these devices are so old you could buy them a beer - legally! 

 

Carefully engineered devices, such as these from 3D Systems, clearly can last a very long time. Hobbyist devices are quite different, as they are often built with less-than-precision parts. But that's ok, because the hobbyist that built the printer can obviously rebuild the kit, too. Not so in the commercial world, where high-priced devices must be put to work as much as possible to recover their acquisition cost. 

 

In the case of i.Materialise, we suspect this machine has paid for itself several times over by now. It should be buying us beers! 

 

Via i.Materialise (Hat tip to Joris)

Materialise Rescues Itself

Interesting story from i.Materialise, where Joris explains that some two years ago, a tripod lever was catastrophically damaged. Rather than buying a new tripod and unable to acquire a replacement lever, they decided to "eat their own dog food" by designing and printing a replacement part. 

 

A suitable design was prepared and the lever was printed in Alumide, a semi-metallic compound that provides sufficient strength for this application. The part has apparently survived to this day. 

 

This seems like the obvious solution for a company that makes a living printing parts, but you wonder about the mental transition everyone must make into a world where objects can be readily made. People tend to cling to old views: I need to read the PAPER newspaper; Music comes on CDs; Things come from the store. No longer true. But old habits persist. How long will it take for the general population to go first to the 3D printer for things, versus heading out to the store? 

 

Via i.Materialise

Materialise Touts 3D Printing Services Over Hobby 3D Printers

Ok, that might be totally predictable: a big 3D print services vendor promotes the use of services instead of using your own low-cost 3D printer (such as a RepRap, RapMan or MakerBot). Here's their take: 

 

If you happen to be a 'maker', and love the creative experience like we do, then you definitely welcome the chance to spend a week or so assembling, testing, and debugging the MakerBot. It's roughly similar to our experience years ago building ham radios from surplus electronic parts.

 

But, if your main interest is in creating the finished parts, and in seeing your creation manifest itself as an actual physical thing, you might be a little put off by going the MakerBot route.

 

They also cite: 

• Material strength is greater from services
• Cost of hobby options if you're only printing a few objects
• Part quality and finish is superior from a service
• Ability to print more varied objects with support material

 

Ok, we give up; those points are likely true. But you just don't have the same love for a service that you do with a hand built RepRap (and built again. And rebuilt yet again.) 

 

[UPDATE] We were contacted today by Martijn Joris, BD Manager for i.materialise, who disagreed with the report above. He says: 

 

I regret to read this, because we don’t share the opinion that is stated on our name at all. The person you stated is not an employee of Materialise, he is a journalist who talked to an i.materialise employee. The opinion he shares are therefore not ours.

We are very enthusiastic about fablab printers and we really support people that use it. In my opinion, we have one great interest, which is to make production of unique models accessible for everyone. in that sense, we don’t see the existence of fablab printers as competition, well in contrary. It’s just the same as with 2d printing, where most people own one at home, but still use a service when they need something else.

That is our opinion as well: there are many reasons to use print services, just as there are reasons to own your own hobby printer. As a consumer of 3D printing, you must choose the route that is most appropriate for your own situation. You might want the one-time cost and quality and reliability of a service or you might want your own printer if you intend to print a great many objects - or if you like rebuilding hobby 3D printers. Where's our soldering  station? 

 

Via Robot Dreams

Prototek Manufacturing

CNBC and Fox Business News recently aired a segment of "21st Century Business" in which Prototek Sales Manager Dennis Rocheford explained a bit about his company. Originally in the sheet metal rapid prototyping prototyping business, they've been expanding their capability and now include stereolithography and 3D printing with ZCorp machinery.

Prototek is a large rapid prototyping company that provides a wide variety of rapid prototyping capabilities, including engineering, CNC laser/punch/form/bend/machining, shearing, graining, welding, finishing, etc.

Two interesting aspects to this: We can see a traditional manufacturing company starting to introduce new 3D manufacturing methods beside the traditional CNC equipment; Mainstream media is picking up on the technology once again.

Via Prototek

Print Your Guitar

Every one of us is a specialist in something, and our belief is that great things happen when different specialists intersect to combine the expertise from different disciplines. One such collision recently took place at RedEyeOnDemand, a popular 3D print service.

It turns out that Tim Thellin and several co-workers at RedEye are hobby musicians, and they decided to put the two skills together. They experimented with different guitar styles and build materials, and eventually came up with a variety of interesting instruments:

It started out as a gimmick to build something really different that would stand out for use at tradeshows. So, we made our first two telecaster style guitars out of PC-ISO and ABSi red materials. The sleek, translucent look of the PC-ISO only added to its rigidness and durability. Then, we chose ABSi red to build something in a different color that we could send to Stratasys' European sales office for use as samples and at their tradeshows. We quickly learned how easy it was to create custom designs with intricate geometries using the FDM technology.

We couldn't stop with single color projects, so we worked on a truly custom design and build a double S-shaped guitar for Stratasys using ABS black and blue. We further enhanced the complexity using PolyJet Clear and Vero White for the knobs.

To accomplish this, Tim first purchased an actual guitar so that he could reuse the non-printable bits as well as get some hints about dimensions and layouts. The video shows some of the process undertaken and the resulting rather unconventional guitar. Future designs are limited only by their imagination.

Amazing stuff, but we're wondering whether this opens up a legal question: what happens if someone buys an object and then precisely copies it? Could that be considered "personal use" by means of making a "backup copy" of the object? Whose Stratocaster is that?

Via YouTube and RedEye On Demand

3D Ping Pong by Materialise

Materialise, one of the larger 3D print services recently did an experiment using their new "Extreme" stereolithography material. They call it extreme because it's quite robust, with an impact strength of 0.45J/cm.

How robust, you might ask? Apparently strong enough to make ping pong paddles from the material and play a real game with them: "Even smashing is possible!" Don't believe us? Watch the video.

The material would be great for snap-lock parts or extra-durable cases. We're wondering when this robustness will make its way from stereolithography into 3D printers.

Via Materialise

Darwin's Ring

Multiple tips arrived this week directing us to a rather amazing design: FluidForm's Evolve Ring Silver, designed by Michal Piasecki and Krystian Kwiecinski. Not only does this item look very attractive, it also has a scientific heritage: The design was machine generated by Artificial Intelligence software, specifically a genetic algorithm. GAs use simulations of reproducing generations to gradually "evolve" a solution.

Piasecki and Kwiecinski designed a GA specifically to produce such rings and this is their result.

But it doesn't end there. This GA is evidently to become part of Fluid Forms' standard service. In other words you'll soon be able to use the GA as a "ring configurator" to generate a unique ring of your own! They say this is mass customization, and it is.

But it's also Customized Evolution. Your solution, grown in seconds.

Via FluidForms and Michal Piasecki (Hat tip to Andreas, Bryan and Kerry)

Matt is BetaMaterialised

Matt Sinclair of We Dont Do Retro writes of his experience using the beta 3D printing service from Materialise, called "i.materialise".

The beta service proudly announces their manifesto:

We love 3D printing and are excited by amazing designs. That's why we developed the i.materialise platform. An online service making 3D printing as easy as printing on paper.

That, of course, is the goal of every 3D printing service: to make it easy to do. It's quite difficult, and each service attempts to tackle that mountain in a different way.

Matt's experience was based on his attempt to print a potentially challenging children's book character. Among his findings:

• Unspecified file limits, and had to guess at maximum resolution - but it turns out there are no limits
• Expressed concerns regarding whether i.materialise is correctly determining the feasibility of printing a pathological object. However, it's apparently fixed manually if necessary
• Orientation is apparently non-changable, at least for now, meaning you cannot use the standard trick of rotating the object to take advantage of higher resolutions along one axis of printing
• Encountered difficulties in attempting to use the color capabilities of i.materialise's ZCorp printer due to the monocolor preview

We're with Matt on this one: is this a service for professional designers or consumers? While it appears to be an excellent service, it seems to have a little of each in it. Some 3D print services are so clear on their target market that non-targeted visitors would immediately recognize they don't belong there. But this is a beta service and the purpose is to test and improve the service, so stay tuned!

Via We Don't Do Retro and i.materialise (Hat tip to Bart)