Researchers find a way to 3D print whole objects in seconds | Engadget. 3D printing the human heart - College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University has published a paper in Science that details a new technique allowing anyone to 3D bioprint tissue scaffolds out of collagen, the major structural protein in the human body. This first-of-its-kind method brings the field of tissue engineering one step closer to being able to 3D print a full-sized, adult human heart. The technique, known as Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels (FRESH), has allowed the researchers to overcome many challenges associated with existing 3D bioprinting methods, and to achieve unprecedented resolution and fidelity using soft and living materials. Each of the organs in the human body, such as the heart, is built from specialized cells that are held together by a biological scaffold called the extracellular matrix (ECM).
This network of ECM proteins provides the structure and biochemical signals that cells need to carry out their normal function. Columbia University researchers create 3D-printed wood with realistic internal grain. Engineers at Columbia University have 3D-printed a block of "digital wood", using a voxel technique that enables the creation of objects with rich internal textures. The resin block is modelled on an olive wood sample, with its exact grain pattern replicated throughout. Because of the grain and colour gradient involved, this kind of wood effect was previously outside of the capabilities of 3D printing, but the Columbia University team used nascent technologies to produce the design. First, they used destructive tomographic imaging to photograph ultra-fine slices of the wood, cut to just 27 micro-metres (0.027 millimetres) in width by a CNC mill.
The stack of 230 images was then fed to a Stratasys J750 PolyJet printer, which is capable of printing various colours and materials using voxels. Voxels are like pixels in 3D space – they are the smallest elements into which an object can be divided in the design process. Russian firm announces world's largest construction printer. A Russian firm has announced commencement on the world's largest 3D construction printer, capable of printing an entire six-storey building before you can say "regulatory compliance". The S–500 is the work of the AMT-SPETSAVIA group in Russia. The company's press release is a little hard to follow, but we gather a "standard" six-storey S–500, if standard is the word, can operate in a volume of 11.5 x 11.0 x 15.0 m (or 37.7 x 36.1 x 49.2 ft).
However, its makers say it's possible to extend the last dimension to 80 m (263 ft). The firm simultaneously announced the S–300, capable of operating in a mere 11.5 x 11.0 x 5.4 m volume (that's 37.7 x 36.1 x 17.7 in feet). This equates to a maximum two-storey building on a 120 sq m (1,292 sq ft) plot, its makers say. We're joining the dots here, but since that 10 sq m plot is roughly what you get from the first two dimensions – the difference between the two models is height, and it's the height that can be extended to 80 m with the S–500. Rotational 3D printing spins out stronger structures. Harvard engineers have demonstrated a new 3D printing technique that allows the arrangement of short fibers in the printed material to be finely tuned. The spinning printer head gives the technique the name "rotational 3D printing," and according to the team the fibers in the ink can be arranged in different orientations at different parts of the printed object, in order to boost its strength, stiffness and resistance to damage. 3D printing is emerging as a powerful tool for lowering the cost, materials and know-how for manufacturing, by depositing layer after layer of "ink" to build up an object.
But the maximum resolution of these printers means that the microstructures of the material often can't be directly controlled. To strengthen a particular part of the object, for example, a normal 3D printer might need to just drop more of the material in that spot. Laser holograms create 3D-printed objects in seconds, no layering required. How do you create complex 3D-printed objects in seconds, instead of hours or days? A team of scientists and engineers led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has developed a process that uses hologram-like lasers to make complete objects in seconds inside a tank of liquid resin.
Called volumetric 3D printing, the process overcomes many of the limitations of conventional additive manufacturing. Additive manufacturing, better known as 3D-printing, promises to revolutionize prototyping and manufacturing, but it's a process that, for all its promise, has its limitations. Conventional 3D-printing works by printing an object in layers. Plastic objects can be built up by squirting molten plastic in a three dimensional pattern and metal objects by laying down layers of fine metallic dust, which is fused into a pattern using a laser or electron beam. "It's a demonstration of what the next generation of additive manufacturing may be," says LLNL engineer Chris Spadaccini. Student builds €10 3D printer from old inkjet printers. Inkjet printers may be a fairly inexpensive way to print out your holiday snaps, but they can be fragile machines and end up at the city dump well before they hit kindergarten age.
Italian maker Michele Lizzit has designed a way to make use of spent printers to build an operational 3D printer for just €10. The 18 year-old student at Liceo Scientifico Copernico in Udine, Italy, broke apart three old inkjet printers and a flatbed scanner and used their parts for the project's mechanical components. Not everything could be salvaged from scrap though, and he had to buy a hotend extruder, an ATmega328 processing brain, a motor driver, three driver boards and a high-current transistor.
The extruder housing was 3D-printed using a standard desktop machine, but rather than source a hobbed bolt, he made use of the paper loading mechanism from an inkjet printer. Finally, Lizzit created some system firmware, which he's made open source. Source: Michele Lizzit View gallery - 2 images. 100x faster, 10x cheaper: 3D metal printing is about to go mainstream. We've been hearing for years now about 3D printing and how it's going to revolutionize manufacturing. As yet, though, it's still on the periphery. Plenty of design studios and even home users run desktop printers, but the only affordable printing materials are cheap ABS plastics.
And at the other end of the market, while organizations like NASA and Boeing are getting valuable use out of laser-melted metal printing, it's a very slow and expensive process that doesn't seem to scale well. But a very exciting company out of Massachusetts, headed by some of the guys who came up with the idea of additive manufacture in the first place, believes it's got the technology and the machinery to boost 3D printing into the big time, for real.
Desktop Metal Desktop Metal is an engineering-driven startup whose founders include several MIT professors, and Emanuel Sachs, who has patents in 3D printing dating back to the dawn of the field in 1989. The hype is real. The Studio System: Rapid prototyping. 3D printing cuts replacement time and cost at Daimler buses.
From full-size buildings to fashion items, 3D printing is breaking down the barriers usually associated with manufacturing fiddly low-volume products. Now, Daimler has turned to the process for replacement parts in buses. The move allows complex interior components to be economically made in small batches, with shorter turnaround times than possible using conventional production methods. This isn't the first time Daimler has turned to 3D printing for replacement parts – last year, the company announced it would be using Selective Laser Sintering to produce 30 plastic truck components.
Before that, the process was also used to develop more than 100,000 prototype components. When a bus operator needs a specific replacement part, they simply need to order the part based on its specific order code. It isn't just simple, single-piece components that Daimler is printing. Source: Daimler View gallery - 2 images. Novel 3D printer puts continuous printing on the table. At the heart of many of today's 3D printers is a stationary print bed, which means that if you want to print a really, really long object like a company logo for above the office door or hollow tubing, it would likely take several print runs and some glue.
The BlackBelt from Stephan Schürmann replaces the print bed of old with a conveyor belt, which allows for continuous printing. Currently the subject of a Kickstarter funding campaign, the BlackBelt has been 3 years in development – going for CAD-modeled concept to prototype to production ready. Its carbon fiber composite conveyor belt allows for continuous printing of long objects, with the option of going really, really long by placing a roller module unit in front of the conveyor belt, or continuous batch production of smaller single build parts, which can be collected in a bin at the end. Sources: BlackBelt 3D, Kickstarter View gallery - 14 images. 3D Printing with plants is cheaper, stronger and more environmentally friendly. Engineers at MIT have developed a way to use plant cellulose as a feedstock for 3D printers, providing another renewable, biodegradable alternative to popular petroleum-based polymers like ABS currently being used. The researchers also believe printing with cellulose could be cheaper and stronger than other materials and even offer potential antimicrobial properties to boot.
"Cellulose is the most abundant organic polymer in the world," says MIT postdoc Sebastian Pattinson, lead author of a paper describing the new technique. "Cellulose and its derivatives are used in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, as food additives, building materials, clothing – all sorts of different areas. And a lot of these kinds of products would benefit from the kind of customization that additive manufacturing (3D printing) enables.
" Cellulose is largely responsible for giving wood its mechanical properties. The research is outlined in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies. MIT applies soft touch to robots with programmable 3D-printed skins. Spectators of the DARPA Robotics Challenge finals in 2015 would have noticed that many of the competing robots were padded up for protection in case they took a tumble. MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is looking to build customizable shock-absorbing protection into robots by using 3D printing to produce soft materials that not only dampen the impact of falls, but also allows them to carry out safer, more precise movements. Robotics engineers have long had a keen interest in soft materials. At their simplest, such materials can protect robots against falls and collisions, but can also protect people in environments were robots and humans are increasingly working together.
Going beyond this, soft materials also allow for making completely soft robots that can mimic animal design. Using 3D printing technology, CSAIL is creating soft materials that can change the basic capabilities of the robot. Source: View gallery - 3 images. TU delft students use MX3D robots to 3D print stainless steel arc bicycle. Feb 04, 2016 TU delft students use MX3D robots to 3D print stainless steel arc bicycle a team of students from TU delft have designed and produced a fully functional ‘arc’ bicycle 3D printed in stainless steel. the designed frame demonstrates the potential of a new method for 3D printing metal. ‘3D printing has exploded in popularity in the last decade but for those wanting to print medium to large scale objects, there are still significant limitations in the technology,’ explains team member harry anderson – industrial design student at RMIT university, melbourne.
‘this method of 3D printing makes it possible to produce medium to large scale metal objects with almost total form freedom.’ video courtesy of ‘arc’ bicycle team ‘it was important for us to design a functional object that people use everyday,’ says industrial design engineering student and ‘arc’ bicycle team member stef de groot. Five students made up the ‘arc’ bicycle team: stef de groot (industrial design engineering, TU delft) This is the first object 3D-printed from alien metal. But today Planetary Resources is showing that it can do the last item on that list: building with metals not from Earth. At its booth at CES this year, the company is showing off a 3D-printed part that was made from a material not of this planet.
Specifically, the company took material from a meteorite that landed in Argentina in prehistoric times, processed it and fed it through the new 3D Systems ProX DMP 320 direct metal printer. The result is a small 3D-printed model of a part of a spacecraft that resembles the Arkyd spacecraft that Planetary Resources is testing.
It's not spectacular in a vacuum -- but the fact that Planetary Resources and 3D Systems were able to successfully make a print using meteorite material is an important first step toward realizing the company's vision. If we're ever going to explore space in any significant fashion and really move beyond Earth, Planetary Resources CEO Chris Lewicki believes we'll need to figure out how to build and manufacture in space. Ultimaker 2 3D printer pushes the limits of speed and accuracy. Ultimaker, which was born in 2011 as an outgrowth of the RepRap project, and which quickly grew to become an important player in the home consumer 3D printing market, has announced its second generation 3D printer.
Boasting improved reliability, user-friendliness, and an increased print volume. "We are an independent company, we don't have outside investors," explained Erik de Bruijn, Ultimaker co-founder, at the Ultimaker 2's public unveiling. "I think if we can all start to see the world not as a fixed thing, but as an environment that we can actually shape together [...], building on top of each other's work, then it would be a very big irony if the devices that we used to do that [...] would be a closed environment. So that's why I'm very pleased to announce that the Ultimaker 2 will be completely open source. " The Ultimaker 2 "A lot of things have changed. Ultimaker's Cura open source software prepares models for printing.
Sharing your work with the community. Wacky tape gun produces life-size CAD-assisted wireframe models. Using a handheld packing tape dispenser gun that has been modified to fold, extrude, and cut tape into tubes, a team of researchers from the Hasso-Plattner-Insitut (HPI) at the University of Potsdam has created a method of transferring computer-generated wire-frames to the real world. Dubbed the "Protopiper" by its creators, the device is not only capable of producing full-size outline objects, it is also able to produce hinges, bearings, and axles to give them opening doors, drawers, and movement just like the real things. Thinking outside the square, the team from HPI sought a better, cheaper, quicker way to produce real-world wireframe models than the usual plastic tubes.
Standard plastic packing tape was the team's solution. Easily formed into tubes which have a good strength-to-weight ratio and already being adhesive-backed it makes surprisingly sturdy, quickly-assembled structures. As mentioned, the tube is also cut as it leaves the device. Source: Hasso-Platner-Institut. New 3D-printing tech set to enable patient-specific medical devices. The future of 3D printing lies in space and with an extra dimension. MultiFab mixes and matches 10 different materials in a single 3D print. Watch: This new type of 3D printing was inspired by Terminator 2. 3D Printing an Earbud Holder with Dremel's 3D Idea Builder. Wonder-ink could soon let you 3D print objects out of stretchy graphene.
History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places. L'Oreal to start 3D-printing skin - BBC News. 3D-printed spine cage enables customized spinal fusion surgery. Layered paper 3D printers: Full colour, durable objects at a fraction of the cost. Up close with Zeus, the first consumer all-in-one 3D printer, scanner and fax. 3D-printing robot creates freestanding metal structures. US$5,000 for the world’s first 3D carbon fiber printer. A 3D-printed running shoe that regenerates itself. Tower of Pisa 3D-scanned in 20 mins with spring-mounted Zebedee. NASA 3D-prints and fires rocket engine component. New resin can be used for custom-shaped electrodes – or bacterium-sized bunny sculptures. Scientists create 3D-printed copy of living rat's skeleton. 6-meter tall KamerMaker to 3D print Amsterdam house by year's end. First Dreambox 3D printer vending machine heads to UC Berkeley. Lynx A camera generates 3D models in real time. First, Personalized Pez Dispensers. Next, Printed Food? : The Salt.
Staples stores to offer custom 3D printing. “Carbomorph” material to enable 3D printing of custom personal electronics. 3D Object-Printing Kiosks On Future Street Corners. NASA using 3D laser printing to create complex rocket parts.