We like to follow Stratasys’s financial press releases, because they tell us a little bit about the current state of the commercial 3D printer market. In the past we’ve seen a slight downturn in activity at Stratasys, mainly due to the rather significant economic collapse in the US and elsewhere. In spite of those bad… Continue reading Stratasys Results for 2009
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Sweet Onion Dwelling
The nice people at Sweet Onion Creations focus on building highly realistic 3D architectural models, often making heavy use of 3D printing technology. They’ve posted a video of how they go about the build process, which combines advanced 3D printing with many conventional model building techniques. In the video they construct an amazingly detailed model… Continue reading Sweet Onion Dwelling
Converting the Camaro
What do you do if you live in Australia and want an American muscle car? It’s difficult if they’re not sold locally, so you’d have to purchase them in the US and ship them over the Pacific. But then you run into the problem of orientation: the US cars are designed to drive on the… Continue reading Converting the Camaro
Who Is The RapMan?
We’ve covered the very popular RapMan 3D printer kit on several occasions previously, but there’s something a little mysterious about them. We noticed their website and branding changed. We see a new name: “Bits From Bytes”. What’s going on? Clarification arrived from their spokesperson, Rachel Park, who explains: Bits from Bytes (BfB, is how they… Continue reading Who Is The RapMan?
Eleven Year Old Boy Builds 3D Printer
Some may say 3D printing is a niche topic understandable only by ultrageeks, but we’re reading about Justin Urke, an eleven year old from Auburn, California who not only can use a 3D printer, but apparently has constructed his own! Even though he modified the design to increase the size of the build chamber from… Continue reading Eleven Year Old Boy Builds 3D Printer
Blender 2.5 Alpha 1 Released
Many 3D modellers use the free Blender package if they can’t afford the sometimes expensive commercial 3D modelling software options. While Blender is rather complete functionally, it has long had a reputation of being difficult to learn. This could be about to change with the introduction of their new version, 2.5. A new alpha release… Continue reading Blender 2.5 Alpha 1 Released
Seth Godin’s Vision
We read Seth Godin’s posts often, and recently completed his latest book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?. In the book Godin proposes that the industrial model that we’ve lived with for some 250 years is drawing to a close. With painful accuracy, he describes the fruitless struggles and frustrations many people face at work in the… Continue reading Seth Godin’s Vision
3D Printing: The Trends?
Which 3D printer manufacturers are most popular? That’s very hard to say, since internal company statistics are often difficult to find. However, Google is Our Friend in this case, since they offer a free trending service: Google Trends. Google Trends does not tell you which item is most popular. Instead they simply tell you the… Continue reading 3D Printing: The Trends?
Chairs You Can Sit On
Some may say that 3D printed items are not robust, but not this time. Design firm Freedom of Creation’s Janne Kyttanen has made an amazing set of swivel chairs exclusively for a yacht and residence. FOC used Selective Laser Sintering to produce the unique chairs, which are based on a previous tray design. The chair… Continue reading Chairs You Can Sit On
Aflac Duck uses 3D Printing
Well, not the duck specifically – but in a Winter Olympics Aflac advertisement, the exasperated Aflac duck snowboards down a mountain – using helmet and bindings printed on an Objet 3D printer. One can imagine typical snowboard bindings don’t account for webbed feet, and they obviously had to be custom made. This is not the… Continue reading Aflac Duck uses 3D Printing
Fixing Model Problems
One of the issues facing 3D modellers is the ability to create models perfectly suitable for 3D printing. A correct visual appearance does not mean it will print correctly, because the design might be ambiguous, have non-printable shapes or be “leaky” (non-watertight). Shapeways writes: I’ve found that it’s often difficult to retrofit your existing models… Continue reading Fixing Model Problems
Top 5 Reasons To Get Into the 3D Printer Market?
Channel Insider writes of five reasons they believe value added resellers should consider adding 3D printers to their catalog of products. Let’s examine their rationale: Reason # 1: Soaring Market Growth Who knew? The 3D printing market is in major growth mode. In a down economy, companies that want to stay afloat need to innovate… Continue reading Top 5 Reasons To Get Into the 3D Printer Market?
The Sculpteo 3D Printing Service
A new European 3D print service has emerged: Sculpteo. This friendly service appears to compete with Shapeways, as it offers not only a straightforward method of uploading your designs, but also has a “community gallery” from which you may choose pre-made designs. Once your design is set: You choose the material, the monochrome… Continue reading The Sculpteo 3D Printing Service
BlenderArtists Competition
i.Materialise has launched a design challenge on Blender designers at the BlenderArtists site: “BlenderArtists.org is the most popular community site dedicated to the free, open-source 3D animation program Blender. On the site, users of the program can discuss their artwork, ask questions and find resources such as textures and tutorials.” The competition closes on February… Continue reading BlenderArtists Competition
RapMan Wins BETT Award
A1 Technologies, the makers of The RapMan, an inexpensive 3D printer kit targeted at the educational market, recently won the BETT award in the Digital Devices category for their Bits From Bytes kit. The BETT Awards recognize “the best in educational technology solutions”. The Bits From Bytes “complete” kit is priced at £750.00 and… Continue reading RapMan Wins BETT Award
Matthew du Plessis on 3D Printing
Matthew du Plessis, columnist at the Times Live, provided his thoughts on the world of 3D printing. While he begins with the obligatory comparison to Star Trek replicators (“Tea, Earl Grey, Hot!“), he then recognizes the potential of the future: … I think it’s fair to say, without any hyperbole or undue exaggeration, that… Continue reading Matthew du Plessis on 3D Printing
MCOR Prints A Car
MCOR’s Matrix 300, the 3D printer that prints in plain paper, was recently used by design students from London’s Royal College of Art to produce a vehicle design, shown above. The MCOR Matrix is unique among 3D printers due to its use of paper as a print material, resulting in extremely inexpensive (and recyclable) media.… Continue reading MCOR Prints A Car
The .MGX Collection
Earlier this week we encountered iMaterialise’s .MGX collection at the Parallellepipeda Exhibition, and we wanted to learn more. iMaterialise, as we’ve written before, is one of the notable and larger 3D print services today. Like most 3D print services, they allow you to upload your own 3D design (and even help you do it successfully)… Continue reading The .MGX Collection
Sterling’s Kiosk
It’s possible that Science Fiction inspired the creation of 3D Printing; we’ll never know for sure. That inspiration continues today, as we recently listened to Starship Sofa’s rendition of Bruce Sterling’s amazing short story, “Kiosk”. Published to the web in 2008, this story follows the career of Borislav, a street-savvy Belgrade entrepreneur who somehow gets… Continue reading Sterling’s Kiosk
Wallpaper’s 30 Concept Houses
Wallpaper commissioned 30 concept houses for the 4th International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam. They felt their exhibit would best show the concepts by having actual 3D models on display. The DMC (Digital Manufacturing Centre) London produced these models for 30 different architectural clients for the exhibition. 3D design files were obtained from the architects and… Continue reading Wallpaper’s 30 Concept Houses
The Parallellipipeda Exhibition
The Singularity Hub reports on an exhibition taking place at the M Museum in Leuven, Belgium, where the Parallellipipeda Project attempts to leverage the Parallelepiped geometric shape. Amazing sculptures, plates, light fixtures and even furniture are being shown until 25 April. They’ve even included a 3D scanning booth, courtesy of EyeTronics, in which you… Continue reading The Parallellipipeda Exhibition
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… Continue reading RepRap Grandchild Produced
3D Collaboration Puts 700 Year Old Monolith In Your Hands
We’ve all seen the enigmatic Easter Island monoliths called Moai, erected for mysterious purposes by long departed pacific islanders some 700ish years ago, and we find them quite intriguing. They were also very interesting to Mark Ganter of Open3DP, who wanted to 3D print one. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a readily available dataset containing a 3D… Continue reading 3D Collaboration Puts 700 Year Old Monolith In Your Hands
Animation with 3D Printing
It has been done before, with Coraline, but now a post from Creative Review walks us through how the title sequence for Dutch TV programme “Het Klokhuis” (“The Apple Core”) was created. The process involved printing numerous objects corresponding to frames of the sequence, which were then placed on a mini-stage and recorded. Animation… Continue reading Animation with 3D Printing
3D Printed Kitchen
This week has seen several articles on Food Printing, and today we can tell you that not only can the food be printed, but so can the Entire Restaurant! Instructables Restaurant is the first open source restaurant in the world. Everything you see, use and eat is downloaded from instructables.com. It’s an experiment in internet… Continue reading 3D Printed Kitchen
The Atomic Kitchen
For some reason there seems to be increasing mentions of “Food Printing” recently, including an article in The Independent. We’re all for that, being a hungry lot here at Fabbaloo. Today’s FoodPrint comes once again from Wallpaper, where they’ve posted an amazing vision of 3D Food Printing potential. The Philip’s molecular gastronomy concept is perhaps… Continue reading The Atomic Kitchen
EuroPonoko!
As we suspected a short while ago, Ponoko has announced a new build location in Europe. The new hub will be located in Berlin, and joins the existing build hubs in San Francisco and New Zealand. This development means European makers or consumers will have significantly less shipping costs when using Ponoko: For example the… Continue reading EuroPonoko!
Chocolate Printing
For some reason this week a wave of chocolate fever passed through the Fabbaloo offices. After gorging on several delectable chocobars, we wondered about the current state of 3D chocolate printing. Certainly we saw early experiments by the Fab@Home folks, but what else is happening? After some searching, we encountered ChocALM: Customized Chocolate Made by Additive… Continue reading Chocolate Printing
$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… Continue reading $100K For a Better 3D Printer!
Test Parts
Television has the famous colored Test Pattern. 2D printers have “Test Pages”. But what should 3D printers use as the gold standard for testing and comparing output objects? With the recent marketing comparisons of 3D Systems and Objet technology, and now a post from Open3DP, it’s seems logical that the industry should develop defacto… Continue reading Test Parts
3D Printed Art
There’s always a stream of magnificent artwork emerging from 3D printers. Here’s a round up of some interesting pieces we’ve seen recently: A 3D printed ring in stainless steel by noformdesign Ancient Critters by smallstuffstudio Human skull demonstrating multicolour capability by ZCorp Valentine… Continue reading 3D Printed Art
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… Continue reading The Tyee on 3D Printing
The Homemade 3D Printer
Those new to the concept of 3D printing are often even more amazed to find out that it’s entirely possible to actually build a 3D printer yourself! It’s not particularly easy and you must have very reasonable hardware talent, but definitely possible. You’ll need to select a method of depositing print media from many… Continue reading The Homemade 3D Printer
Wallpaper Magazine Awards “R-O-B” Best Builder Award
Normally we who follow the 3D printing world expect to see a (probably) beige printer-like box containing a steamy build chamber from which excellent 3D objects are extracted. But the R-O-B is a very different kind of additive “printer”. It’s actually a full-scale industrial robot that’s mounted inside a standard shipping container. The shipping container… Continue reading Wallpaper Magazine Awards “R-O-B” Best Builder Award
Opinions on HP’s 3D Printer
Following up on last week’s massive news that HP has linked up with Stratasys to produce an exclusive line of 3D printers, we scanned the 3D blogosphere and found a great many comments and opinions. Here’s the highlights: Shapeways thinks this will raise the profile of 3D printing, but says everyone can easily print in… Continue reading Opinions on HP’s 3D Printer
Objet vs. ProJet
The gloves are off now. We’ve just found a rather dramatic slideshow from 3D Systems that provides their take on a comparison between 3D Systems’ ProJet technology and Objet’s deposition tech. The slides are filled with side-by-side images of identical objects printed using both technologies. The examination covered areas of quality, accuracy, stability, productivity,… Continue reading Objet vs. ProJet
CubeSpawn
Another very cool KickStarter project has appeared: CubeSpawn, by James Jones. The project’s concept is to establish a standard approach to linking personal manufacturing machines together based on the common cube shape. In this vision, 30cm square cubes are placed adjacent to one another, and each contains some type of manufacturing machine. Results from one… Continue reading CubeSpawn
Open CASCADE
Readers might be familiar with Open CASCADE, but for those who aren’t it’s an open source software development framework that “includes components for 3D surface and solid modeling, visualization, data exchange and rapid application development.” The software is produced by Open CASCADE S.A., who make their money by providing consulting, support and custom development, as… Continue reading Open CASCADE
The Apple Tree and The Apple Picker
We’re amazed at the results of an experimental 3D scan undertaken as part of Creaform’s Annual 3D Scanning Contest: The Apple Tree and The Apple Picker. The scan attempted a rather difficult subject, that being a live human in the act of picking apples from a real tree. As you can see in the image… Continue reading The Apple Tree and The Apple Picker
3D Printer “Gym” Opens in Philly
NextFab Studio opens a new workshop for innovators today in Philadelphia at the University City Science Center. The workshop comprises some 3,600 square feet of space filled with various modern manufacturing tools, including laser cutters and of course 3D printers. Use of the facility, which operates much like a neighbourhood gym, is by membership, which… Continue reading 3D Printer “Gym” Opens in Philly
Inventables – The Material and Technology Marketplace
Tipster Zach points us at a new service: Inventables. Here’s the premise: Inventables exists to make it easy for vendors of materials and technologies to get an initial introduction to potential buyers. These buyers (engineers, designers, marketers) browse our online marketplace with the hope to find and work with vendors that manufacture materials and technologies… Continue reading Inventables – The Material and Technology Marketplace
Welcome to The Product Bay
The Pirate Bay may be fading away, eaten slowly by corporate legal teams, but their inspiration carries on – and not only for bigtime entertainment media. We’ve just bumped into “The Product Bay”, whose intention seems similar to the Pirates. They “want to take all of this to the next level … for real life… Continue reading Welcome to The Product Bay
The uPrint PLUS!
Stratasys just announced a new member to their 3D print family: the uPrint Plus. One year after they announced the inexpensive commercial uPrint device, they’ve upgraded it to the new Plus version. The main features of the Plus: Small floor footprint: 25×26 inches (.635m x .660m) Build chamber: 8x8x6 inches (.2 x .2 x .15m)… Continue reading The uPrint PLUS!
HP Makes 3D Printers!
Not quite yet, but apparently soon – HP will be selling not only 2D printers, but 3D printers, too. Today it was announced that Stratasys will “manufacture an HP-branded 3D printer” after the two parties signed a “definitive agreement”. The new line of printers (suggesting there will be more than one model) will be… Continue reading HP Makes 3D Printers!
NextFab Conference Brewing
We received a message from folks organizing a new conference tentatively titled the “First International Conference on Accessible Digital Manufacturing Technology and Design” to be held in Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2010. While the conference’s title is not yet written in stone, their objectives are: NextFab Organization and the Brazilian government’s Renato Archer… Continue reading NextFab Conference Brewing
Dental Scanning
We’ve all been to the dentist (you have gone, haven’t you?) and from time to time we need to get replacement teeth or portions thereof. The dentist makes you bite into rubber or plastic moulds to capture the 3D shape of the required parts and then sends it off for custom manufacturing. But Is there… Continue reading Dental Scanning
3D iPhone Covers Now Available
We wrote last month about Freedom of Creation’s venture into printing with the MCOR paper-based 3D printer. They were playing with some rather colourful iPhone covers. Now you can buy iPhone covers from their online store, but these are not from the MCOR and are instead merely Laser Sintered Polyamide. We prefer the Double… Continue reading 3D iPhone Covers Now Available
One Blue Ring
The guys at Open3DP seem to have made a breakthrough in their quest to develop glass-based 3D printing. Every week they seem to make progress, and this week we see a “semi translucent blue glass ring”. There’s no details on their blog to describe how they managed to create this magical item, but if… Continue reading One Blue Ring
Flying With Objet
Objet 3D printing technology is being used at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering to produce a Robotic Samara – a micro unmanned aerial system (UAS). The school focuses on advanced propulsion, composites and hypersonics for potential alternate modes of flight for military applications: Micro/Nano Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are… Continue reading Flying With Objet
3D Jobs of the Future
The Guardian’s Ian Wylie posts an interesting vision of the future, where he extrapolates technologies emerging today into full-on industries and associated job roles. They describe a great many truly interesting jobs of the year 2020, and one of them involves 3D printing: Construction Worker. Actually, they believe that Construction Workers might be at risk,… Continue reading 3D Jobs of the Future
Full Color 3D Printing
Yes, that’s right – Shapeways now offers full color 3D printing. They’ve scored a ZCorp 650 3D printer, which provides the color capability. The “Full Color Sandstone” material is able to handle color texture maps. It’s obviously more work to prepare color models. You must create a texture map in your 3D modelling software… Continue reading Full Color 3D Printing
The Blueprints
The Blueprints is: a website dedicated to collecting 3/4/5-view drawings, templates and blueprints for as many objects as possible. Ranging from humans to tanks and cars to mobile phones, the goal is to provide reference material for 3D modelers, scale modelers, replica builders etc. That’s right – a very large repository (37,000+) of… Continue reading The Blueprints
3D Printing the Vasona Branch
The “Vasona Branch” is a model railroad setup by Robert Vasona, who recently wrote on his experiences using 3D printing for a 1920’s Drive-In Market section of the model railroad. Building unique structures is a constant interest among model railroaders, and it seems to us that 3D printing technology is more than an excellent… Continue reading 3D Printing the Vasona Branch
Bre Prettis at 26C3
The 26th Chaos Communication Congress (26C3) took place in late December in Berlin and offered a multitude of topics from the hacker world. One of the speakers was Bre Prettis of MakerBot, whose speech entitled, “Peanut Butter and Plastic: Industrial Revolution” focused on “decentralized manufacturing and desktop fabrication”. Bre speaks on many things during… Continue reading Bre Prettis at 26C3
New Image Plastics
Need some plastic for your 3D printer? Unsatisfied with your current choice of print media? There’s another option for you to consider: New Image Plastics, who manufacture a variety of different thermoplastic rods: We manufacture and stock a vast inventory of the finest quality, zero porosity (voidless) plastic welding rod and welding wire for all… Continue reading New Image Plastics
Possessions are Over!
Writer Bruce Sterling fantasizes a new flat near Old Street Station in London. Apparently he’s a bit short on facilities right now: As yet, I possess no stove, no toilet, no bathtub and and no bed. In fact, there are no physical objects in my flat whatsoever, except for my two roll-aboard suitcases, this Taiwanese… Continue reading Possessions are Over!
Cathy Lewis On Daily Planet
Cathy Lewis, former CEO of Desktop Factory and now VP of Global Marketing for 3D Systems, recently made an appearance on Discovery Channel Canada’s Daily Planet science news show. In the short interview, Cathy explains the basics of 3D printing and displays a variety of different printed objects, including one with moving parts.… Continue reading Cathy Lewis On Daily Planet
The Third Wave of Industrialization
Alf Rehn is is Chair of Management and Organization (Åbo Akademi University) and formerly Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (KTH, Stockholm), and in a recent column he postulates the future for Finland, and by implication the rest of the world. Rehn writes of the growing troubles in our world today, including climate change, financial… Continue reading The Third Wave of Industrialization
MakerBot Introduction Video
Yeah, we keep talking about MakerBot. But this wonderful video introduces the MakerBot concept and how it arose from Maker Culture. There’s plenty of other highly interesting (but unrelated) videos to watch, too. Enjoy! Via Babelgum
An Introduction to 3D Printing
Anthony Lockwood of Desktop Engineering writes a review of a white paper from ZCorp that explains in 2D print form the entire process of 3D printing for beginners. While the PDF paper is somewhat (well, quite a lot actually) slanted towards ZCorp’s line of 3D printers, it is very well written for those who are… Continue reading An Introduction to 3D Printing
New Blog Layout
Fabbaloo readers may have noticed a slight (well major) change in our blog in the past few days. We’ve relocated our web hosting and completely redesigned the layout, including the new logo above. There are new features, including descriptions of the blog and the technology we follow, as well as several new ways to search… Continue reading New Blog Layout
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… Continue reading Prototek Manufacturing
Making an Artist’s Living by 3D Printing
There’s a wonderful article by 3D printing artist Bathsheba Grossman over at Say Something, where she describes her journey from student to world-renowned 3D artist. And the best part: She’s now making a living from selling 3D printed art. But it isn’t easy. She spent ten years after completing school to build up the… Continue reading Making an Artist’s Living by 3D Printing
3D Printing Wishes for 2010
It’s New Year’s Day, 2010. We now have 366 days of progress in fabrication until 2011, and we’re wondering what might happen this year. Here are our wishes for 2010: A consumer capable 3D printer. Yes, there are very inexpensive 3D printers available today, but they are hardly something you’d drop off at… Continue reading 3D Printing Wishes for 2010
3D Printing Trends in 2009
While polishing off the last of the holiday eggnog, we’ve opened the Fabbaloo filing cabinet and dusted off our posts and reflected on what’s transpired over these past twelve months. Much has happened this year, but we observe some overall trends. Some continue from earlier, but a few are new: Maker culture… Continue reading 3D Printing Trends in 2009
Ponoko Mystery?
New Zealand-based personal manufacturing service Ponoko has posed a mystery with an obscure post on their blog. The entire text of the post is: Hello Europe It may be snowing…. but some bright rays are on their way. We know that Ponoko has already set up a satellite manufacturing hubs in the USA (San Francisco… Continue reading Ponoko Mystery?
Material of the Year!
Last month blog Material ConneXion announcement the winners in their new MEDIUM Award for Material of the Year. This is the first annual presentation of this award, and it was given to Concrete Canvas’s Concrete Cloth material. This innovative material mixes fabric with concrete that “allows it to be quickly and easily molded and… Continue reading Material of the Year!
Nervous Jewelry
Actually it’s not the jewelry that’s nervous, it’s the creators. Or their company: Nervous System. They produce a line of jewelry (bracelets, rings, necklaces, earrings and brooches) that were generated by sophisticated algorithms in software. The designs are then either 3D printed, or in some cases 3D printed moulds are used to create the… Continue reading Nervous Jewelry
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… Continue reading Print Your Guitar
Shrunken Heads at Opend3DP!
The folks at Open3DP continue to investigate ways to produce 3D glass printing, and they’ve been quite successful so far. A recent post shows their work, but as one can clearly see in their image, a problem is shrinkage during the post-printing firing phase. Yes, that’s right – the image on the right shows the… Continue reading Shrunken Heads at Opend3DP!
Merry Christmas to 3D Printing!
We haven’t believed in Santa for, well, a while now. But for the moment we wondered what gifts Santa might bring to the world of 3D printing…. For MakerBot: a gigantic sack full of MakerBot parts with elves to put them together For (the former) Desktop Factory: a new start with lots of cash (oh… Continue reading Merry Christmas to 3D Printing!
O’Reilly Names 3D Printing Best Tech of The Decade, Sorta
That’s correct: James Turner at O’Reilly Radar has produced a list of what they believe to be the best (and worst) technologies of the past decade. Among the storied items on the list, “The Maker Culture” is prominently mentioned: There’s always been a DIY underground, covering everything from Ham radio to photography to model railroading.… Continue reading O’Reilly Names 3D Printing Best Tech of The Decade, Sorta
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:… Continue reading 3D Ping Pong by Materialise
Bios in San Jose!
The ZER01 Art and Technology Network is preparing for what promises to be a spectacular event in September 2010 in San Jose, California. The event is an art exhibition held every two years, and this year’s theme is “Build Your Own World”. Now that’s the a theme Fabbaloo readers would like to hear more about.… Continue reading Bios in San Jose!
MakerBot Hall of Fame
The MakerBot guys are not just hardware and software geniuses. They are marketing genuises, too. They’ve set up a “Hall of Fame” for MakerBot users, in the best use of Game Theory we’ve yet seen in the 3D printing space. This is a terrific approach that we think will definitely make more things happen in… Continue reading MakerBot Hall of Fame
The Spatter
We bumped into this intriguing 3D design on Flickr, produced by Phil Renato. According to the Flickr notes, the item was printed by Mike Gayk at 3D Systems University in “Projet thermophotopolymer”, for which we can’t locate any more data. The fine details are interesting, and evidently some work was done to accomplish this: I… Continue reading The Spatter
Definitive Guide Complete?
Make Magazine has produced a complete list of open source hardware projects, ranging in categories from 3D Printing, Arduino, Clocks, Development Platforms, Green Energy, Games, Medical, Robotics and many other areas. The category of interest to us, is of course, 3D printing. There we find the major open projects listed: Contraptor Fab@Home MakerBeam MakerBot RepRap… Continue reading Definitive Guide Complete?
Designing Interface Architecture
FABberz and the Live Architecture Network are collaborating on a new venture to bring design tools to students in Brazil. Their idea: produce collaborative designs with residents and students to improve housing conditions in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. They’ll be holding a series of workshops leading up to the 2016 Olympics, which are… Continue reading Designing Interface Architecture
Let’s Download Some Hardware!
Bryan Bishop and Ben Lipkowitz talk about their new open source venture: SKDB. What is it? It’s a open source hardware distribution framework that takes cues from the highly successful software world. The software world was held back for decades by centrally controlled proprietary paradigms, but blossomed when open source principles took hold. Today we… Continue reading Let’s Download Some Hardware!
3D Printers Should Not Be Banned
Last week we posted our thoughts on Gartner’s Nick Jones’ article suggesting that 3D printers might be banned in the future as they might overflow our streets with discarded plastic items. We don’t think the world will look like a McDonalds Happy Meal Toy graveyard anytime soon, and apparently neither does anyone else, either. Followup… Continue reading 3D Printers Should Not Be Banned
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… Continue reading Darwin’s Ring
FOC Explores 3D Paper Printing
We’ve written a few times about the amazing paper 3D printer from MCOR, which uses common A4 paper as it’s build material. Now we see it being used by a professional design firm: Freedom Of Creation. They’ve been experimenting with the device and produced the iPhone cover shown above. As you can see, they slipped… Continue reading FOC Explores 3D Paper Printing
3D Systems Unveils The Biggest!
3D Printer manufacturer 3D Systems demonstrated their new Projet 5000 Large Format 3D printer at the EuroMold conference. Is this just another 3D printer? No – there’s something unique about this one. It possibly has the largest build chamber available in a 3D printer today: a staggering 55 x 39 x 30 cm. To accompany… Continue reading 3D Systems Unveils The Biggest!
Micro-Machining Process
Swiss-based BESTinCLASS, developers of the very cool Micro-Machining Process (MMP), have come to terms with EOS, makers of laser-sintering equipment for exclusive use of MMP in the UK. We’re a little puzzled, since we heard earlier that BESTinCLASS had awarded exclusivity to First Surface. Nevertheless, we believe this finishing process is quite interesting. The process… Continue reading Micro-Machining Process
SOLIDO SD300 Pro
Israeli-based SOLIDO announced a new 3D printer: the SOLIDO SD300 Pro, which succeeds the previous SD300. The SD300 uses Plastic Sheet Lamination technology to produce 3D objects: The materials used in the SD300 Pro are a combination of PVC (PolyVinyl Chloride) and our own adhesive which results in rugged yet inexpensive models. These models can… Continue reading SOLIDO SD300 Pro
Shapeways Expands Materials
As they’ve done many times in the past, the Shapeways 3D printing service has expanded the materials available for builds. This time they’ve announced some very interesting options for makers: “Grey Robust” is a rigid material similar to their previous “Cream Robust”. But let’s face it: “Cream” just doesn’t sound very robust, does it? Accordingly,… Continue reading Shapeways Expands Materials
Commercial Bioprinting Available Now
Invetech announced the availability of a commercial 3D Bioprinter. It’s being distributed by Organovo to research institutions around the world. What’s a Bioprinter? It’s essentially a 3D printer that deposits living cells according to a 3D model to form actual living tissue that can potentially be used inside living organisms. Typically a scaffold is used… Continue reading Commercial Bioprinting Available Now
3D Printers: Banned?
Gartner Analyst Nick Jones postulates banning consumer 3D printers in the future due to environmental concerns. He suspects we’ll accumulate vast piles of non-biodegradable plastic bits, much like we accumulate paper today that comes from our 2D paper printers. Jones: But as one of my clients pointed out yesterday, do we really want an affordable… Continue reading 3D Printers: Banned?
Planter Bricks
This one seems so obvious to us now after seeing it, but originality always comes from those who are the first to invent something. This time it’s a special brick used to hold vegetation, and you can see various styles in the image above. The bricks were designed by San Fratello Architects, who explain: The… Continue reading Planter Bricks
.STL Overview
There’s a terrific overview of .STL and in fact the modelling and 3D printing process available at InstaTuts. It takes you through a simple explanation of how .STL works and how it is produced by modeling software. Eventually the model (a boxer, pictured) is sent to a Dimension SST 3D Printer for production. Via InstaTuts
Pleasant Tuning of a MakerBot
Pleasant Hardware’s blog deals with the nuts and bolts of 3D printing, and recently they’ve been doing experiments with their MakerBot. One of the experiments involves printing “without a raft”. The raft is that cross-hatch base layer used to isolate the object from the build platform itself. Their advice: I recently started with printing objects… Continue reading Pleasant Tuning of a MakerBot
Makers, by Doctorow
Author and activist Cory Doctorow’s latest novel, Makers, paints a picture of the future as influenced by the maker communities of today. From Random House Audio’s audiobook description: Perry and Lester invent things—seashell robots that make toast, Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that drive cars. They also invent entirely new economic systems, like the “New Work,”… Continue reading Makers, by Doctorow
Sciaky’s EBF3
Following on from our previous posts on the promising EBF3 technique (Electron Beam FreeForm Fabrication), we bumped into a video showing a commercial implementation from Sciaky. The video shows the build process as well as highlighting the key benefits: Drastically reduce material costs Dramatically shorten lead times Slash machining time Save over costly forgings or… Continue reading Sciaky’s EBF3
Printing Steel. At Home!
There’s an interesting discussion underway at the RepRap forums, where the idea of Direct Metal Laser Sintering is being pondered. DMLS involves laser-heating metal (or other material) powder, layer by layer, slowly building up a solid object. This is pretty similar to how many 3D printers work, but the interesting bit is that these guys… Continue reading Printing Steel. At Home!
Ponoko’s List
You’ve probably heard about Ponoko, the New Zealand based personal manufacturing and marketplace service. You can not only have your item built with their facilities, but you can also mark your item for sale and others can have Ponoko build it for them, too. And you get paid for it! One of the interesting twists… Continue reading Ponoko’s List