"Anti-Gravity" 3D Printer Sculpts Shapes On Any Surface 51
kkleiner writes "A 3D printing technique has been developed that prints objects that seemingly defy gravity. Dubbed the Mataerial 3D printing system, a robotic arm can print 3D curves on floors, walls, and ceilings, whether the surface is smooth or uneven. Custom-shaped objects are created using a thermoplast that dries on contact with air, which offers an alternative fabrication method to typical 2D layering printing approaches. Though its broad practicality is questioned outside artistic creations, the video produced by the team is mesmerizing."
thermoplastic construction (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just artistic. I can see a commercial application to this: Automobile fabrication. Think of how much faster you could produce them, and the reliability, if you could create a metal support shell and then bond arbitrary shapes of plastic to it. Creating the body of a vehicle... hell, repairing the body would be much easier. Just cut away the damaged section and press the button labelled "reform" and in a few hours, you've got yourself a new bumper. Didn't even have to repair the old one. Bonds with the original materials... just as strong as before.
Considering how effing expensive car repair is now, I can well imagine how well loved a bay with a 3D printer loaded for 'Car' would be. Next time someone keys your car, you get a crease in the door, whatever... just drive it into your handy 3D printer-equipped body shop and in an hour they're done and busy repainting the affected panel.
Re:thermoplastic construction (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree it brings promise for that, but a mighty LOL if you think they'll bring down the prices once the switch is made...
"Unfortunately, this time- and material-saving process is highly innovative and thus requires a great investment in 3D printers and intellectual property* that will bring prices up 'temporarily'," says the spokesmen for the automakers, insurance companies, and auto-repair shops today. The reps were confirmed to be making a so-called "air quote" gesture before "temporarily", followed by muffled giggles among themselves after.
*You don't really think someone won't try to add a wonderful 3D-Print-My-Parts insurance fee, or patent the specific process of 3D printing a car part, d'ya? Especially for each specific trademarked shape [nytimes.com]? "We've only just beguuuuun..."
Re:thermoplastic construction (Score:5, Interesting)
If assuming the repair shop invest in the 3D printer, wouldn't be the price determined by "what the customers in the serviced area are willing to pay" rather than the actual cost of materials/labor?
Not really. If we assume a competitive marketplace, we can assume that not every repair shop will charge the same price. If two shops have the same quality, or at least the same perceived quality, the cheaper shop will get more business, even though they might get less income per repair, they are likely to be more profitable due to the larger volume of customers they can serve.
Check your assumptions. Fermi problem [wikipedia.org]: how many piano tuners are there in Chicago?
How long until you don't have the conditions of a "pure free-market" in a serviced area?
E.g. how long 'til the prices offered by the mobile comms are not significantly different and the quality of their customer support is almost indistinguishable crappy?
It will be the same way with 3D printing, while today I might be willing to pay $100 for a factory-made part and would pay $75 for that same part if it was 3-D printed (since its a dramatic cost reduction and assuming the same quality) but another shop might be willing to sell that for $70, because of that, I'm less willing to pay the $75 at the other shop, meaning that shop needs to reduce its price to gain my business and so on.
You know... the higher the size of manufactured batches, the lower the production cost (because you can optimize better the cost, make large investment in complex tools with still good chances for a RoI, etc). Granted, the higher the size of manufactured batches, the lower flexibility (and possible the higher time to wait for a single item in the batch, if you take into consideration transport batches).
I surmise that, for series-made items, there will be no time in which the monetary cost of 3d printed item will be lower than the one for a factory-made item. 3D printing is good for unique items or items that are too complex to be made by any other technology.
Re:thermoplastic construction (Score:5, Interesting)
With traditional manufacturing it makes sense to make things in bulk because you need specialized equipment for everything but if you have a general-purpose printer you can just print what you need.
All well and good until you realize that, for a whole keyboard, you pay $6 [kmart.com] (or, how about about $0.09 for keyboard switch - electrical stuff included [aliexpress.com]) and for a single 3D printed key cap you pay about $10.
Well, we can ignore the case of exquisitely unique keyboards [datamancer.net], can we?
Re: Space Applications? (Score:3, Interesting)
Since they claim the resin cures on contact with air, I'd question how well it works in space (outside human habitats, y'know, where you'd expect to be hanging solar panels) without wasting gases that you spent millions of dollars lifting to orbit. Then again, looking at the business end of the robot, I think the press coverage might be wrong; it might not be an aerobic cure, but the two things that looked like heat-guns pointing at it. There's two hoses to the nozzle, so it looks to me more like a simple two-part epoxy with heat to accelerate the cure, which could indeed work in space if you replace the hot-air guns with focused radiative heating (e.g. ellipsoidal reflector quartz-halogen capsule at one focus and the cure zone at the other).