The Explosive Growth of 3D Printing 213
MojoKid writes "If you've ever attended a World Maker Faire, the first thing that strikes you is how organic the whole scene is. Inventors, creators, and engineers from all walks of life have their gadgets, science projects, and creations on display for all to see. Some of the creations you see on display range from downright amazing to completely bizarre. One of the big attractions, a technology area that has experienced explosive growth, is the land of 3D Printing. MakerBot took the open source RepRap 3D replicator project mainstream back in 2009 with the release of the Cup Cake CNC machine, then came the Thing-o-Matic and then a little bot called Replicator. With each iteration, improvements in process and technology are bringing better, more capable 3D printers to market, from MakerBot's new Replicator 2, to new players in the field like Solidoodle, Up!3D, Ultimaker, and Tinkerines. To watch a 3D printer in action is like witnessing art, science and engineering all working together in glorious unison."
Re:Guns (Score:2, Informative)
Fear of armed people is completely rational.
In my country, over 60,000 people have been killed by drug violence, most of it related to the USA's voracious appetite for illegal drugs and the laughably easy it is to buy military-grade firearms and smuggle them across the border.
So yeah, fuck guns and fuck drugs.
http://www.fpif.org/articles/arms_trafficking_at_the_us-mexico_border [fpif.org]
Re:How do you get started? (Score:4, Informative)
... If you were hoping for $100 and a couple hours its not quite there yet.
I can recommend starting with using a 3D printing service.
Even if you use a commercial printing service, much of the experience of 3D printing is still there, like the design, the anticipation of outcome, etc.
Google for Sculpteo and Shapeways.
They're pretty affordable, and do a lot of the messy work for you.
I had this printed for 90 bucks or so:
https://twitter.com/i/#!/BramStolk/media/slideshow?url=pic.twitter.com%2FJmiojXxJ [twitter.com]
Re:Guns (Score:3, Informative)
For the record:
- Iran ranks 79th in the rate of private firearms ownership
- The rate of private gun ownership in Iran is 7.32 firearms per 100 people
- In Iran, only licensed gun owners (separate licenses required for owning, possessing, carrying and using a firearm) may lawfully acquire, possess or transfer a firearm or ammunition
- In Iran, the law requires that a record of the acquisition, possession and transfer of each privately held firearm be retained in an official register
Re:For those of us looking to buy a 3D printer (Score:5, Informative)
Since all I looked at were completed objects, I can't say anything about how fast they were produced, how reliable or easy to calibrate the printers are, etc. What I mostly looked for were irregularities. In a 3D printed object, the layers are very visible. If you think of a cylinder, you expect the sides to be as smooth as possible, i.e., no protrusions or indentations. The layers should be completely horizontal, no glitches or waviness that make you think the printhead jiggled or anything. If you think of a sphere, the topmost layers should look like perfect concentric circles, and the top shouldn't look like it's about to cave in.
It was insanely crowded in the 3D Printer Pavilion, so once I decided that a vendor's objects were not the best, I moved on. But there were two noteworthy units: Sorry to say, the new Makerbot 2 was a disappointment, given that it's one of the most expensive units at $2800. The objects they had on display were some of the worst. The surprise winner, and the one I'm recommending to a nonprofit children's museum I'm working with that wants to buy one, was the Tinkerines Ditto. It produced the best objects, and at $900 in kit form or $1400 assembled, it was amazing bang for the buck.
Tinkerines is new to the scene, so they don't yet have a dual-nozzle head, nor do they yet support ABS plastic (the necessary heated base is still being developed), only PLA. But for our application, it's perfect. The people were really nice too, despite the crowds and the cacophony in the tent.
(Disclaimer: I have no connection with any vendor except as a customer or with Maker Faire except as an attendee.)
Re:Two Things (Score:4, Informative)
Same poster, second point.
There is at least one 3D printing company that I know of that offers 'printing' in brass, bronze and titanium.
They're using a very old and well known technique, the lost wax - but the wax is printed with the 3D printer, and then the metal poured into the mold.
This is not only an amazing evolution on an existing technology, but because the final products aren't built up layer by layer, they're structually equivalent to anything coming out of a foundry.
The ability to print custom tools, gears and moving parts in titanium is incredible.
Re:Extra E (Score:4, Informative)
There was a presentation about the genesis of Maker Faire at the Open Hardware Summit last week. The pointed out the French translation of "faire" - and said that it was something that they learned after the fact. FYI.
The low-end machines still suck (Score:4, Informative)
I have yet to see a low-end 3D printer that works consistently. TechShop has an "Up" and several RepRaps, but it seems to take several tries to make anything, and nobody gets consistently good parts. The machines that work by laying down a strand of ABS from a heated nozzle (which is all the low-end machines) have trouble getting a consistent bond to the previous layer. The temperature at the bonding point is too critical and not well enough controlled.
Somebody should try using some high power laser diodes to heat up the point where the ABS strands are fused. Those aren't expensive up to 2 watts or so. You only need a few watts, focused very tightly on the weld area. Welding is about applying heat to both sides of the joint in the weld area. The heated nozzle approach applies the heat on only one side, the new string approaching the weld. The material being joined to is cold. Of course the bond quality is poor.
The UV-bonded powder machines work fine, but cost about $50K. Laser sintering machines seem to produce good results. The E-beam deposition approach reportedly works very well, but is even more expensive. But ABS through a heated nozzle, not so much.