Type “A” personalities are known to be leaders, sometimes with an aggressive approach to life. San Francisco-based Type A Machines may take a bit of that attitude with their new product, the Series 1. It’s a personal 3D printer whose design takes it to another level. The Series 1 is a fully assembled unit,… Continue reading The Series 1 From Type A Machines
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Design of the Week: The Dragonbite Grip
This week’s chosen design is the Dragonbite grip pencil holder, which was recently chosen by i.Materialise as the winner of their Metal Accessories Challenge. The Dragonbite grip is both artistic and functional, as it securely holds your pencil in a way that offers comfortable writing. And it’s a dragon, too! Created by the… Continue reading Design of the Week: The Dragonbite Grip
3D Printing Tops Gartner’s List
Every year Gartner, one of the leading technology analyst firms, produces what they call “The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies”. It’s a chart plotting the position of various technologies on the Hype Cycle curve. The Hype Cycle is a theory proposing that technologies follow a series of stages in their lifecycle: Technology Trigger (the… Continue reading 3D Printing Tops Gartner’s List
The Second Generation Imagine 3D Printer
Essential Dynamics has announced a new version of their non-plastic 3D printer to replace their first model. The Imagine 3D printer is a little different from most commonly available personal 3D printers. It’s an extrusion based device that doesn’t use melted plastic as its material. Instead the Imagine uses any extrudable substance by mechanically… Continue reading The Second Generation Imagine 3D Printer
Google’s 3D Pasta Printer
Incredible as it might seem, Google apparently has a 3D printer in its kitchen – and it produces pasta, according to a report on WebProNews. In a video interview Google chef Bernard Faucher admits they operate some type of 3D printer in their kitchen to produce unique pasta shapes for hungry Google staffers. Faucher… Continue reading Google’s 3D Pasta Printer
3D Printers: How to Unlock Their Potential
With the explosive growth in affordable, office-oriented 3D printers, there is a flood of new users and a huge pool of prospective users. Being new to the technology, or perhaps distanced from it through service bureaus or centralized machines, the freshman class may not be tuned into all that 3D printers can do for them.… Continue reading 3D Printers: How to Unlock Their Potential
3D Systems Announces 2Q2012 Results
3D printing giant 3D Systems has announced their financial results for the second quarter of 2012, and it appears they’re doing just fine. Compared to this quarter last year, their revenues are up a huge 52%, growing to USD$83.6 million. Evidently all their businesses report growth in this quarter, indicating a very strong operation.… Continue reading 3D Systems Announces 2Q2012 Results
MakerBot’s New Colors
3D printer manufacturer MakerBot has announced the availability of no less than nine new colors of plastic filament, suitable for use in not only their 3D printers, but any others that use the same diameter of plastic filament. The new colors are pretty awesome: Slate Gray Stone Helsinki Sky (a very light blue)… Continue reading MakerBot’s New Colors
3D Printing Price Check
You’ve got a terrific model you want printed at high resolution in a great material. What do you do? You spend some of your valuable time checking out the prices at each of the 3D print services by tediously entering the specifications of your model into their price calculators. Or, you use 3D printing… Continue reading 3D Printing Price Check
i.Materialise Introduces Ceramics
3D print service i.Materialise has announced the availability of ceramics as a print material. They aren’t the first to introduce commercial ceramics print capability, but it’s an excellent capability improvement for them. Ceramics offers a few key advantages over other materials: Heat resistant up to 600C (1112F) Ultra-smooth finish with no visible… Continue reading i.Materialise Introduces Ceramics
The zSpace System
There’s something inherently difficult trying to do 3D modeling on a 2D display. We usually have the ability to spin models around and your mind has to do the “3Ding” of the subject, depending on the software you’re using. But is there a better way to do this? Apparently so, according to JF… Continue reading The zSpace System
Emma’s Story… And More
A wonderful story emerged last week when Stratasys published the story of Emma, a young girl with congenital biomechanical problems. She was unable to raise food to her mouth, among other issues. The story told how Emma’s doctors used 3D printing technology (from Stratasys) to produce a custom-fit armature that fits around Emma’s upper… Continue reading Emma’s Story… And More
Design Of The WeeK: Julia Vase #001 Aqua
This week’s selected design is Julia Vase #001 – Aqua by Virtox, also known as the Dutch artist Stijn van der Linden. Virtox has released this amazing design on Shapeways, where you can purchase a 3D printed version in a variety of materials, and also on Thingiverse and GrabCAD where you are free… Continue reading Design Of The WeeK: Julia Vase #001 Aqua
A 3D Printing Matrix
We’ve received a very cool chart from Tuan Tranpham containing most of the current 3D printing ecosystem, including all the related functions (Scanning, Printing, Software, etc) mapped into different categories of consumer and various levels of industrial. Yes, the chart is a bit hard to read here, but click on the image to see… Continue reading A 3D Printing Matrix
A 3D Printing Infographic
Sharing site Hightable offers a new infographic showing many details of the current state of 3D printing, including process overview, growth and industry usage. Here you see only a small extract; click the link below for the full version. Via Hightable
Cubify’s Robots
3D Systems now has robots! Well, not actual robots, but instead a system of 3D models that can be assembled into a huge variety of robot shapes. The robot pieces include arms, legs, torsos, etc., but also accessories such as ray guns and backpacks. The pieces are intended to be assembled and fit together… Continue reading Cubify’s Robots
How to Pick a 3D Printer Material
I’ve written two blog posts about the importance of materials to the future of 3D printing. The bottom line is that without a material that performs as needed, speed, cost and quality are irrelevant. Read More at Engineering.com
Hot Pop Factory
Two Toronto architects have used 3D printing technology to start a new business in their own home: designing and manufacturing jewelry. Matthew Compeau and Biying Miao have launched Hot Pop Factory, producer of striking 3D printed jewelry designs. Hot Pop Factory offers inexpensive necklace, earrings and rings based on a consistent design theme. But… Continue reading Hot Pop Factory
The Stone Spray 3D Printer
This is interesting: a sand-powered 3D printer called The Stone Spray Project. Created by Anna Kulik, Inder Shergill and Petr Novikov of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, this robotic-arm device mixes plain old sand with a liquid binder to gradually create arbitrary shapes out of sand, like the sand stool pictured above. … Continue reading The Stone Spray 3D Printer
Master’s Degree in Direct Manufacturing Offered
We’ve learned that the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and ELISAVA School of Design and Engineering of Barcelona now offer a Master’s Degree in Direct Manufacturing and New Materials for product design. The new spanish-language program begins this October, when study in “New Materials” begins. This is followed by study in “New Production Processes” in… Continue reading Master’s Degree in Direct Manufacturing Offered
Automated Mesh Articulation
When we write “Automated Mesh Articulation” you might be wondering what we’re on about. It’s an advanced technique developed by Harvard’s Moritz Baecher that inspects a 3D model to automatically identifies where “joints” should appear and outputs a new model with said joints. This means one could take any 3D model of a figurine… Continue reading Automated Mesh Articulation
Introducing Mak3D
Opening in “late August 2012”, Mak3D is billed as the “World’s first 3D printing co-working environment”. Located on London’s Brick Lane across from the notable Brick Lane Bakery, Mak3D will provide workspace and access to 3D equipment for makers. For £200 per month (USD$312), you’ll have access to the following: A 1000 sq ft.… Continue reading Introducing Mak3D
Pwdr: An Open Source Powder-Based 3D Printer
While the first open source personal 3D printers were plastic extrusion-based and recently we’ve seen several resin-based open source 3D printers emerge, we now see yet another 3D printing process appear in open source form: powder-based 3D printing. The open source Pwdr project includes design for hardware and software to build and operate a… Continue reading Pwdr: An Open Source Powder-Based 3D Printer
Saving The Past With The Future
Peter at RepRap Central tells a story some of us have lived through, although not nearly as dramatic. The story involves Malcolm Messiter, whose decades-old Robert Goble Harpsichord required some maintenance. Specifically, the string-plucking jacks, made of Delrin, were cracking and needed to be replaced. Worse, there were some 183 such jacks in the harpsichord. … Continue reading Saving The Past With The Future
3D Printed Weapons: The Aftermath
Inevitably, controversy erupted upon the revelation that 3D printing weapons is actually feasible. Let’s have a look at the implications. First, what changes with this discovery? It proves that 3D printer owners in their own homes (and we’d guess there must be at least 20,000 of you out there, with many, many more arriving… Continue reading 3D Printed Weapons: The Aftermath
Design of the Week: The Teeth Tea Cup
Artist Lily Su has produced a rather unusual tea cup. What makes it unusual? Two things. First, and most prominently, is the teethy edge along the rim of the cup. We’re certain you’ll agree that the teeth produce feelings when you see them. Would you drink from this cup? Su says: Why is… Continue reading Design of the Week: The Teeth Tea Cup
What’s Down With Organovo?
A few short weeks ago we wrote a piece entitled, “What’s With Organovo?”, in which we pondered why the stock price of this bioprinting startup soared beyond belief. It seemed at the time there was no reasonable explanation for the stock price’s stratospheric behavior. This week the answer has appeared: there really was no… Continue reading What’s Down With Organovo?
One More Designer: Dizingof
After publishing Chris Waldo’s terrific “Showcase of Influential 3D Print Artists” the other week, we received a suggestion of another artist who might have been missed: Dizingof. Under his real name, Tel Aviv-based Asher Nahmias, specializes in mathematically-generated 3D models, or “math art”. Dizingof’s creations are typically complex, flowing and invariably beautiful. Browsing through… Continue reading One More Designer: Dizingof
Leapfrog’s 3D Printers
Leapfrog offers not one, but two different low-cost 3D printers: the Creatr and the Xeed. First, let’s check out the Creatr. It’s a USD$1500 entry level personal 3D printer that is fully assembled out of beautiful laser-cut aluminum panels. It comes with a single extruder, but an alternate dual-extruder version is available for USD$1850.… Continue reading Leapfrog’s 3D Printers
Global 3D Printing Market to Reach $2.99 Billion by 2018
According to a new report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. (GIA), the global market for 3D printing is projected to reach US$2.99 billion by the year 2018, driven by the advent of newer technologies, approaches and applications. Expanding use of the technology in manufacturing final products, declining cost of printers and increasing use of 3D… Continue reading Global 3D Printing Market to Reach $2.99 Billion by 2018
The Afinia H-Series 3D Printer
Yet another low-cost 3D printer has suddenly appeared on the market: the Afinia H-Series 3D Printer, produced by Afina, which appears to be a division of Minnesota-based Microboards LLC, who specialize in printing solutions of various kinds. Located in Chanhassen, Minnesota, they are only a few short miles from Stratasys headquarters. Coincidence? The relevant… Continue reading The Afinia H-Series 3D Printer
HP and Stratasys Divorce
Somehow this wasn’t a complete surprise, as we’d been hearing rumors of difficulties in the relationship between IT Giant HP and 3D Printing leader Stratasys. Now it’s come to a close, with Stratasys announcing that the two companies have “have agreed to discontinue their manufacturing and distribution agreement for 3D printers, effective at the end… Continue reading HP and Stratasys Divorce
The Monolith 3D Printer
With a name like “Monolith”, you’d expect this 3D printer to be big – and you won’t be disappointed. The Monolith, developed by Acme Design Co., is one of the largest low-cost 3D printers we’ve seen. It also seems to be one of the shiniest. How big is it? What material does it consume?… Continue reading The Monolith 3D Printer
Ubiquitous 3D Printing On Campus
The University of Nevada, Reno has done something we haven’t seen before: place advanced 3D equipment in their academic library providing access to all. Before the days of color inkjet printers at home and Kinko’s, some used to go to the local library to run off copies of documents. Now the DeLaMare Science and… Continue reading Ubiquitous 3D Printing On Campus
The Pirate Bay’s Physibles Phizzles
Some time ago the big news was the provocative announcement by the nefarious Pirate Bay torrent sharing site that they’d created a new category specifically for sharing (presumably copyrighted) 3D models. Months later we thought we’d check it out and see what kind of objects were available. We were underwhelmed by the rather short… Continue reading The Pirate Bay’s Physibles Phizzles
Sculpteo’s iPhone Case Design Challenge
We’re reviewing the winning entries to Sculpteo’s iPhone Case Design Challenge and we like what we see. There are some very interesting designs, including the winner above: The String Case by FCPRS. It’s quite startling to see how inventive designers can be given the constraints of an iPhone case. Strangely, the winning entry… Continue reading Sculpteo’s iPhone Case Design Challenge
NASA Testing 3D Printers For Space Use
NASA is taking their Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication (EBF3) technology to the next level, according to a report in The Daily Mail. EBF3 is a type of 3D printing that uses a high-power electron beam to instantaneously melt metallic wire. The fluid metal is then positioned incrementally to build up arbitrary solid metal objects.… Continue reading NASA Testing 3D Printers For Space Use
Design Of The Week: The Love Bone
This week we turn to i.Materialise where we found the beautiful “Love Bone” by Studio Mango, selected as Design of the Week. This smoothly shaped item is intended as a necklace by attaching a chain: For our loved ones Studio Mango designed the Lovebone necklace, the last missing bone in the human body.… Continue reading Design Of The Week: The Love Bone
A Counterpoint to the Pragmatist
We’ve been reading Todd Grimm’s provocative post, Standing up to Hype: A Pragmatist’s View, in which he describes his position on the capability of 3D printing. Todd is frustrated with mainstream media who all-too-often wildly extrapolate the idea of 3D printing into an unrealistic science fiction future of Star Trek replicators in every kitchen. He frequently plays… Continue reading A Counterpoint to the Pragmatist
Cubify Invent 3D Modeling Software Available
3D Systems has announced a new software tool to accompany their consumer-oriented Cube 3D printer: Cubify Invent. One of the major issues with a 3D printer is getting great content to print. While 3D Systems has Cubify.com to provide pre-made models, there is also the possibility of Cube owners making their own models. However,… Continue reading Cubify Invent 3D Modeling Software Available
3D Printed Weaponry Now Functional
Another first for 3D printing: A pistol constructed from 3D printed parts has been successfully fired. The gun design was an AR-15, a “a lightweight, 5.56 mm, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed, semi-automatic rifle”, according to Wikipedia. Gun enthusiast HaveBlue selected this configuration due to its small caliber and the uncertainty of whether the 3D printed parts would withstand… Continue reading 3D Printed Weaponry Now Functional
Solidscape Launches Next Generation 3D Printing System
Solidscape, Inc. announced the launch of the 3ZPRO 3D printer for direct manufacturing of wax patterns. With one-touch simplicity, the fully automated 3ZPRO printer brings the power of high-precision 3D printing to the office desktop and retail environments. Read More at Engineering.com
Learn How To Build Your Own 3D Printer
We know you’re interested in building a 3D printer from kit parts, but perhaps you’re a bit apprehensive taking on such a complex assembly job? Not everyone is an electronics wizard and we suspect more than one interested party has been scared off by the daunting task of hundreds of assembly steps enroute to completing… Continue reading Learn How To Build Your Own 3D Printer
HeadBobble!
Yet another use for 3D printing: Printing Your Head. Yes, this has been done before quite a few times, but HeadBobble seems to have simplified the process and produces great 3D prints in full color. And you get a Bobblehead! How does it work? At their website you go through a selection process, where… Continue reading HeadBobble!
WOOF’s 3D Printed Boat
The University of Washington’s WOOF group (Washington Open Object Fabricators) did something we haven’t seen yet: they produced a 3D printed boat that didn’t sink. In fact, it worked well enough to be entered into “Denny’s Seafair Milk Carton Derby”, a boat race. Hold on, how do milk cartons fit into this scenario? It… Continue reading WOOF’s 3D Printed Boat
Water Cooled Extruder?
RepRap researchers have been experimenting with a unique water cooled extruder design. Cooling your extruder is important to ensure that the heat from the hot end that melts the plastic printing material doesn’t creep up into the rest of the mechanism, where you risk frozen plastic in the wrong places that gum up the works. … Continue reading Water Cooled Extruder?
Crack Open Those Handcuffs With Your 3D Printer
A report on Forbes describes the feat of a “German hacker and security consultant who goes by the name ‘Ray’”, who was able to reproduce master keys for a couple of models of handcuffs. In fact, the keys were produced both on an inexpensive 3D printer as well as on a laser cutter, which,… Continue reading Crack Open Those Handcuffs With Your 3D Printer
A Pair of 3D Print Fashion Designers
Mashable interviews a pair of fashion designers with a twist: they use 21st century techniques to create their items, including web-based fitting, embedded electronics, computational design generation and of course 3D printing. Mary Huang and Jenna Fizel own Continuum Fashion where they explore the possibilities of applying new technology and techniques to the fashion… Continue reading A Pair of 3D Print Fashion Designers
AirBus Envisions Gigantic 3D Printer?
The designers at Airbus propose creating a giant 80m x 80m 3D printer to produce entire aircraft. Whoa, that’s a near-outrageous statement, but it appears in an article published in Forbes, where Airbus seems to have a rationalization for such a project: their future visions cannot be easily made with conventional manufacturing approaches, as you… Continue reading AirBus Envisions Gigantic 3D Printer?
Design Of The Week: Turk’s Head Knot
Thingiverse maker jtbowden created the beautiful “Turk’s Head Knot”. This design caught our eye not only because it’s visually attractive, but also for two other reasons. First, this design should be very easy to 3D print even on the most basic 3D printers. Some designs can be quite aggressive and require particular resolutions or… Continue reading Design Of The Week: Turk’s Head Knot
Ponoko’s Color Ceramics
Ponoko has announced the availability of seven different colors for their glazed ceramic 3D printing material. They previously offered four colors, but now add Yellow, Green and Pale Blue. Even better, they’re offering a discount of 10% off any orders using glazed ceramic until July 29th. Now you can make that coffee cup… Continue reading Ponoko’s Color Ceramics
3D Printing in the USA
It’s interesting to read about 3D printing, but sometimes it’s just a whole lot better to visualize things. That’s precisely what 3DP blogger Nadra Angerman did when she produced this fascinating infographic that attempts to show many of the 3D printing establishments across the USA. Check out the full infographic at the link below. … Continue reading 3D Printing in the USA
Are 3D Printing Materials a Weakness?
For as long as I can remember, users, and potential users, have been clamoring for more and better materials for their 3D printers. It is reasonable to state the to do more with 3D printing, industry wants more in terms of material properties. Read More at Engineering.com
Controlling Microorganisms to Fabricate Products
Designers and scientists in California are exploring the idea of using microorganisms to create consumer products. This can be thought of as a natural way of 3D printing. E. coli bacteria are being studied to ‘re-program’ them and build the product. This idea has tons of potential and in my opinion should have been looked into much… Continue reading Controlling Microorganisms to Fabricate Products
A Showcase of Influential 3D Print Artists
Editor’s note: This guest post comes from 3D printing aficionado Chris Waldo, who has compiled a very impressive list of some very impressive folks pushing the envelope on 3D printing every week. [Update: All images below are thumbnails; please click on them to see larger views] Throughout all emerging markets & technologies, there… Continue reading A Showcase of Influential 3D Print Artists
3D Printing A Canadian Cabinet Minister
During an official visit to the AssentWorks Makerspace in Winnipeg, Canadian Federal Cabinet Minister Tony Clement had his picture taken numerous times, as typically happens on such public events – but one of those images was a 3D scan. Readers all know what happens when someone is 3D scanned: a 3D print emerges shortly… Continue reading 3D Printing A Canadian Cabinet Minister
3D Printed Design Awards In Barcelona
Barcelona’s Association of Industrial Design has selected several student projects for Student Industrial Design Awards at the Barcelona School of Design and Engineering and we had to show them to you because, well they’re amazing! The winning entry was designed by student Marion Frei, who came up with a unique “Vinculum” system for identifying… Continue reading 3D Printed Design Awards In Barcelona
The Folding 3D Printer
There was once a time when your 3D printer arrived as bags of teeny parts that you had to carefully assemble over a weekend. Then there came a time when your 3D printer would arrive fully assembled. Now is the time when your 3D printer can arrive folded. Folded? Yes, folded. Maker Emmanuel… Continue reading The Folding 3D Printer
The 3D Printing Survey Comes Alive
Readers may recall a widespread survey of the 3D printing industry was undertaken a short time ago. While we have already published our highlights of the survey, we’d like you to have another look at them. In a very different way. Stephen Murphy has transformed the static numbers into highly animated charts and… Continue reading The 3D Printing Survey Comes Alive
The Phenix vs. EOS Patent War Heats Up
We’ve been advised that Phenix Systems has filed a lawsuit against 3D printer manufacturer EOS. This is more than likely in response to EOS’s filing of a lawsuit against Phenix Systems for alleged patent violation. The new lawsuit from Phenix alleges that EOS has violated United States patent number 6,767,499 (Fast Prototyping Method by… Continue reading The Phenix vs. EOS Patent War Heats Up
Bre Speaks!
We recently contacted MakerBot chief Bre Pettis and asked him a few questions for this exclusive interview below. We have suspicions he and his crew at MakerBot are working on something really interesting, but as you’ll see he’s not telling. But he is excited. Fabbaloo: MakerBot has been expanding very rapidly over the past year. What’s… Continue reading Bre Speaks!
The Rygo – Printed
We wrote of an unusual crowd funding project to back what would be North America’s largest 3D print to date. The project was to print noted 3D artist Bathsheba Grosman’s Rygo sculpture using the D-Shape concrete 3D printer. We’re happy to see that the project was indeed successful as the print has been completed,… Continue reading The Rygo – Printed
The RA 3D Printer Controller
It’s not a 3D printer, but you could make one with it. It’s the RA 3D printer controller, now showing on Kickstarter. The project involves creation of a “cutting edge” 3D printer controller board. This is the electronics portion of your 3D printer, typically used in RepRap-style kit assemblies. What makes this board… Continue reading The RA 3D Printer Controller
3D Printer Releases at RAPID 2012
At the SME’s RAPID 2012 conference and exposition, four new 3D printers were announced by Objet, Mcor, envisionTEC and 3D Systems. These systems cover the whole gamut: tiny 3D printers to big parts and parts in full color to parts with advanced materials. View the Video at Engineering.com
Getting a 3D Model For Printing
You have an accessible 3D printer nearby or you have an account at a 3D print service. Filled with the strong feeling that you can make anything, you then realize you must have a 3D model to print. That’s where the problem shows up: models are not always easy to acquire. But here are… Continue reading Getting a 3D Model For Printing
Zheng3’s Seej Gamifies 3D Design
We’ve heard how many industries try to incorporate gamification into their process to make things run better. It seems that people are typically competitive and when faced with a game situation, they feel personally challenged to win. But how can you engage 3D designers in ramification? One way is to use Zheng3’s Seej game.… Continue reading Zheng3’s Seej Gamifies 3D Design
An Interview With The DreamVendor
Actually we’re not interviewing the DreamVendor itself; instead we’re interviewing Dr. Chris Williams, the Director of the DREAMS Lab at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, the organization that produced the DreamVendor. (Wait, what’s a “DreamVendor”??? Read on and you’ll find out.) Fabbaloo: We’re wondering what the DREAMS lab is all about? Can… Continue reading An Interview With The DreamVendor
Dinosaur Printing in Detail
There’s a terrific article on The Verge describing all the details of actual Dinosaur printing. That’s the science of 3D scanning dinosaur fossils and using 3D printing technology to produce accurate replicas of the bones. Why do this? Why not just use the original bones? It turns out there are a number of benefits.… Continue reading Dinosaur Printing in Detail
Further Evidence of 3D Print Mainstreaming
As 3D printing gains popularity it was inevitable. 3D printing has made it into the famous Cheezburger network. We noticed an animated GIF of a Yoda coming off of a MakerBot 3D printer on Cheezburger’s Señor Gif site. Via SenorGif
3D Printing Sugary Blood Vessels
A new breakthrough in medical 3D printing: researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a method of creating living tissue using 3D printing technology. The researchers were concerned with the limitations of current bioprinting techniques, which are able to print layers of living tissue, but are less able to create the necessary vasculature… Continue reading 3D Printing Sugary Blood Vessels
3D System’s Smarter 3D Printing
Industry giant 3D Systems intends on teaching you a lot more about 3D printing with their new seminar series entitled, “Smarter 3D Printing”. These seminars are planned for approximately 80 events in multiple locations across the United States, four locations in Canada and one (Sao Paulo) in Brazil. The no-charge seminars will provide: … Continue reading 3D System’s Smarter 3D Printing
Foundation Offers Help and Hope to Victims of Orthopedic Trauma
The Foundation for Orthopedic Reconstruction (FOR) is the culmination of two years of planning that heralds an exciting undertaking for the orthopedic and additive manufacturing communities. FOR was developed with a dual mission: To provide patient-specific medical implants at no cost to those in need and to encourage and fund innovative research within the orthopedic… Continue reading Foundation Offers Help and Hope to Victims of Orthopedic Trauma
3D Printing Electrical Circuit Discovery?
We’re reading about a group of researchers at Stanford who have concocted new gel-like substance that has some very interesting properties. We think the electrically conductive hydrogel created by Stanford Associate Professors Zhenan Bao and Yi Cui could potentially be used in 3D printers, or perhaps a modification of it. At least it’s worth an… Continue reading 3D Printing Electrical Circuit Discovery?
A Few Cubify Developments
3D Systems’ Cube personal 3D printer has only been available for a few weeks now, but this week we noticed a few interesting developments. First, there’s a new video out showing a bit more of how the device works. We specifically were interested in the portion where they showed how to change the filament.… Continue reading A Few Cubify Developments
Hands On With ReconstructMe
If you’ve ever been shopping for a 3D scanner, watch out for the price tag. Many commercial units providing high quality results and convenient features are well beyond the pocketbook of almost every hobbyist, upwards of USD$50K in some cases. Are there less expensive methods of 3D scanning? Several 3D Scanning kits or hobby… Continue reading Hands On With ReconstructMe
3D Worms Infect The Net!
Do you use AutoCAD? If so you might be a victim of one of the most unusual cases of 3D theft we’ve seen yet. It seems that certain AutoCAD templates have been infected with malware that does something blatantly nefarious: it sends your AutoCAD drawings to email addresses in China! What a highly efficient… Continue reading 3D Worms Infect The Net!
The 3DPrintShow In London
In London this October is the 3DPrintShow, three days of exhibitions and shows all about 3D printing. Taking place from October 19th through the 21st, this event includes exhibits from all the major 3D print vendors and services, including MakerBot, 3D Systems, EOS, Objet, Shapeways, i.Materialise, Tinkercad, Anarkik3D, Uformia and many others. They’ll be… Continue reading The 3DPrintShow In London
Entrepreneuring With A MakerBot
There’s a terrific story on Solidsmack of how an entrepreneur turned a MakerBot personal 3D printer into a viable business. The folks at I Heart Engineering wondered whether they could treat a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic as a kind of miniature factory for a startup business. They designed a specific adaptor for hooking Microsoft Kinect sensors… Continue reading Entrepreneuring With A MakerBot
Bioprinting Advances
Bioprinting is something you’ll be hearing a lot more about in the future. It’s the application of 3D printing for medical purposes. The idea is to produce human tissue for replacement of damaged portions, but it’s much more complicated than 3D printing simple plastic objects. Not only are you dealing with microscopic bits, but… Continue reading Bioprinting Advances
Pondering Highly Detailed 3D Models
Today’s personal 3D printers can produce many types of objects, but the fine details are often obscured due to resolution limitations on the printers. A typical home 3D printer today slices models into 0.2-0.5 mm layers, meaning you’ll not only see layering, but also not see any fine details. Eventually we’ll see the capabilities of… Continue reading Pondering Highly Detailed 3D Models
The Brass at i.Materialise
They’re at it again. i.Materialise has now launched a trial of Brass 3D printing. Shortly after launching Bronze, we now see Brass on their materials sheet. It’s not a permanent thing, however, as i.Materialise terms this a “summer trial”. 3D print service providers often experiment with new materials in this way, as they are… Continue reading The Brass at i.Materialise
3D Printing 2012 – Top Prints So Far
Editor’s note: This guest post comes from 3D printing aficionado Chris Waldo, who’s anxious to tell us his thoughts on some very cool 3D prints in 2012. Since the late 1970’s, 3D printing has come a long way. Build sizes, detail levels, material science, and speed have all improved significantly in comparison to the… Continue reading 3D Printing 2012 – Top Prints So Far
The Met’s 3-D Scanning and Printing Hackathon
An interesting experiment took place at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art recently, in which the Met tag-teamed with MakerBot to produce 3D art models. A team of folks from MakerBot were invited by the Met to journey through several collections to perform 3D scans of famous artwork. The scans were then converted… Continue reading The Met’s 3-D Scanning and Printing Hackathon
Bronzed by i.Materialise
i.Materialise, one of the popular online 3D print services, now offers an experimental Bronze 3D printing capability. This isn’t bronze plating – it seems to be solid bronze. However, during this experimental phase they limit the size of your bronze prints to 5 x 5 x 5 cm. We think that’s quite appropriate as… Continue reading Bronzed by i.Materialise
Fashion and Jewelry 3D Printing Workshop
Interested in fashion or jewelry design? Want to do it with 3D printing technology? If so, you may want to attend one of the workshops taking place at ELISAVA, School of Design and Engineering of Barcelona. There are two five-day workshops scheduled, one from 23-27 July and a second edition from 10-14 September of… Continue reading Fashion and Jewelry 3D Printing Workshop
Ice That 3D Cake
The folks at CNCDudez have been experimenting with cakes. Frosting cakes, actually. With a 3D printer. Spokesman Sean says: We have seen videos showing chocolate being extruded out of a syringe and also cake dough being extruded to make cookies. But we wanted to see if we could Ice a cakes, buns etc etc.… Continue reading Ice That 3D Cake
GrabCAD’s Tool Challenge
GrabCAD is one of the world’s largest repositories of (mostly CAD) 3D models and one of the largest groups of designers, too (250,000+). This means that when they run a contest you can be sure you’ll see some very interesting entries. This month they announced the winner of their “Useful 3D Printed Tool Challenge”, in… Continue reading GrabCAD’s Tool Challenge
Objet Hits 107!
3D printer manufacturer Objet is well known for their extensive list of different materials that you can use in their line of 3D printers. But this week they announced something perhaps significant: they now offer over 100 different materials (107 to be precise). With their recent announcement of a set of 39 new materials, they’ve… Continue reading Objet Hits 107!
A Real Robot 3D Printer
The folks at Hackaday found a 190 pound experimental 3D printer made from a scrap industrial robot arm – and it actually works. Made by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute undergrad and maker extraordinary Dane Kouttron, this project required an enormous amount of effort to convert the surplus robot arm into a working 3D printer. The… Continue reading A Real Robot 3D Printer
Another Open Source Resin 3D Printer: Sedgwick
We’ve uncovered another resin-based 3D printer project. The “Sedgwick Open Source 3D DLP Printer” by Ron Light is now crowd funding on Kickstarter with the very precise goal of USD$24,750 by July 14th. So far the project has had limited success raising funds, but there is plenty of time left to achieve their goal. … Continue reading Another Open Source Resin 3D Printer: Sedgwick
Matt Underwood’s 3D Vision
Manufacturing engineer Matt Underwood’s Kickstarter project is the Vision 3D printer. Yes, it’s another RepRap variant, but with quite a few interesting improvements. Underwood observed that while many inexpensive 3D printer kits are available they are typically difficult and time consuming to build, making them beyond the reach of non-technical mortals. He set out… Continue reading Matt Underwood’s 3D Vision
More Investment Interest in 3D Printing
We’ve just read an article in The Atlantic written by Hugh Evans, a Vice President at T. Rowe Price Associates. If you don’t know, T. Rowe Price Associates is a USD%15B company focused on investments. In the article Evans introduces the concept of 3D printing to the readers of The Atlantic and more particularly, their… Continue reading More Investment Interest in 3D Printing
What’s With Organovo?
You may recall Organovo? They’re a bioprinting startup that is attempting to 3D print a variety of biological tissues, including Actual Human Organs! They say: Organovo’s powerful NovoGen Bioprinting platform creates human tissues starting with any cell source. From disease models to tissue creation, bioprinting solves urged needs in biological research. Their goal… Continue reading What’s With Organovo?
How to Crowdfund Your 3D Printer Project
We’ve actually lost track of how many 3D printer startups have launched this year. It seems that every week another one shows up on a crowd funding service looking to raise money for their idea, which often takes the state of the industry one step further ahead. Don’t get us wrong; this is the… Continue reading How to Crowdfund Your 3D Printer Project
FujiFilm to Operate 3D Printer Kiosks?
A report from GizMag describes how Fujifilm is considering operating a chain of kiosks capable of printing 3D models. Yes, we thought this was strange, too. The idea is that an inexpensive 3D printer “kiosk” would be located in trafficked areas where customers could peruse a catalog of objects and select one for… Continue reading FujiFilm to Operate 3D Printer Kiosks?