3D Printers-Amazing

[Steve Williams]

 

[Bruce B]

Isn't VPI now making 3D tonearms?

 

[JackD201]

The Ortofon A90 was laser 3-D printed

 

[MylesBAstor]

Isn't VPI now making 3D tonearms?

Yes.

http://vpiindustries.com/

 

[Steve Williams]

The 7 Weirdest Things Made By 3D Printing

http://news.yahoo.com/7-weirdest-things-made-3d-printing-122023635.html

 

[rockitman]

The big Hun Bub about 3D printed plastic guns is overblown as in order to fire them, you still need metal bullets that do show up with metal detectors....unless they can 3D print plastic bullets that work, which they can't.

 

[Mark (Basspig) Weiss]

I can see this being useful for fabricating out of production knobs and cams and gears and other parts that are often missing from the gear that I repair from day to day.

 

[treitz3]

A baby's life has been saved by using this 3D printing technology.

http://news.yahoo.com/babys-life-saved-3d-printing-212808442.html

For those who don't want to click on the link, I have provided the text from the article linked above...

When April and Bryan Gionfriddo brought home their newborn son, Kaiba, in October 2011, he seemed like a healthy baby. But one night, when the family was out to dinner, Kaiba stopped being able to breathe and turned blue. Bryan laid Kaiba, just 6 weeks old, on the restaurant table and performed chest compressions on him before he was rushed to the hospital.

After 10 days, Kaiba was sent home, but he turned blue again two days later. That's when doctors realized Kaiba had a rare condition called tracheobronchomalacia, in which the windpipe is so weak that it collapses, preventing air from flowing to the lungs.

Kaiba's case was severe, and his heart would stop beating on a daily basis, April Gionfriddo said. Even after surgeons placed a tube in their child's trachea to help him breathe, and put him on a ventilator, the life-threatening problems continued.

"We were scared," Gionfriddo said. "We didn’t think he was going to leave the hospital."

But researchers at the University of Michigan had been working on a solution to this very problem. They had developed a way to use new technology called 3D printing to create a splint that would fit precisely around Kaiba's airway, holding it open and making it possible for him to breathe. Three-dimensional printers "print" an object by building it in very thin slices, one layer at a time. [Video: How Doctors Made Kaiba's Splint]

"As soon as the splint was put in, the lungs started going up and down for the first time, and we knew he was going to be OK," said Dr. Glenn Green, an associate professor of pediatric otolaryngology at the university.

Traditionally, airway splints have been carved by hand, but this takes a long time, and the splints do not exactly match a patient's airway.

"I'd like to think I'm a pretty good artist, but I can't even come close to matching a picture," Green said.

Kaiba's case is the first time 3D printing has been used to create a medical device that saved someone's life, the researchers said.

3D-printed splint

For years, Green wanted better treatments for patients with severetracheobronchomalacia. Recently, the researchers began work on a 3D-printed splint and had planned to test it in a clinical trial. But when they heard of Kaiba's case, they realized the technology could save the baby's life, and Kaiba became the first patient treated using the procedure. The device received emergency clearance from the Food and Drug Administration.

To construct the splint, doctors made a precise image of Kaiba's trachea and bronchus with a CT scan. Then, using computer modeling, they created a splint that would exactly fit around the airway, said study researcher Scott Hollister, a professor of biomedical engineering at the university. The model was then produced on a 3D printer.

The device is made out of a material called polycaprolactone, and will dissolve after about three years. By that time, Kaiba's windpipe will have grown, reducing pressure on the organ, and the splint will no longer be needed.

A splint like Kaiba's splint can be made in about 24 hours and costs about one-third the price of a hand-carved version, Green said.

Hollister and colleagues are also working to make 3D-printed devices that will aid in ear, nose and bone reconstruction. For these devices, the 3D printer would construct a scaffold that could be seeded with stem cells from fat or bone. These would then grow into tissue around the scaffold. The researchers have tested these devices in animal models.

Earlier this year, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College reported that they had made a synthetic ear using a 3D printer.

'Doing wonderful'

Gionfriddo said she had doubts about using an untested device in her son, but she and her husband were desperate for solutions. "At that point, we would just take anything and hope it would work," she said.

Twenty-one days after the procedure, Kaiba no longer needed a ventilator to help him breathe. In total, he spent four months in the hospital.

Now at 20 months old, Kaiba is doing "wonderful," said Gionfriddo, who lives in Youngstown, Ohio. "We are so thankful that something could be done for him. It means the world to us."

Kaiba's doctors describe his case in the May 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Tom

 

[Steve Williams]

you beat me to it Tom as I just read that article earlier

 

[JackD201]

The big Hun Bub about 3D printed plastic guns is overblown as in order to fire them, you still need metal bullets that do show up with metal detectors....unless they can 3D print plastic bullets that work, which they can't.

PCP Polymer is making hi caliber poly shell cases. I guess that part is already being done. The slug could be a hot glue slug. Still lethal at close range. Scary times. X-ray will still catch a plastic gun though. We got inspected when my boy packed his Buzz Lightyear ray gun.

 

[Steve Williams]

How 3D Printers Could Reinvent NASA Space Food

By Megan Gannon | SPACE.com

A NASA-funded project that aims to transform a 3D printer into a space kitchen could one day reinvent how astronauts eat in the final frontier.
NASA officials confirmed this week that the space agency awarded $125,000 to the Austin, Texas-based company Systems and Materials Research Consultancy (SMRC) to study how to make nutritious and efficient space food with a 3D-printer during long space missions. The project made headlines this week largely because of the first item on the menu: a 3D-printed space pizza.
Future astronauts on deep-space mission will face a host of health and sustenance challenges. A roundtrip from Earth to Mars, for instance, could last several years and require thousands of meals for an astronaut crew.

"The current food system wouldn't meet the nutritional needs and five-year shelf life required for a mission to Mars or other long duration missions," NASA officials said in a statement. "Because refrigeration and freezing require significant spacecraft resources, current NASA provisions consist solely of individually prepackaged shelf stable foods, processed with technologies that degrade the micronutrients in the foods."
NASA officials said SMRC will explore whether a 3D-printed food system will be able to provide nutrient stability and a wide variety of foods from shelf stable ingredients, while minimizing waste and saving time for space crews.
Engineers at SMRC are apparently envisioning a system that can "print" dishes using layers of food powders that will have a shelf life of three decades.
"The way we are working on it is, all the carbs, proteins and macro and micro nutrients are in powder form," Anjan Contractor, a senior mechanical engineer at SMRC, told Quartz, which first reported the project. "We take moisture out, and in that form it will last maybe 30 years."
Contractor already printed chocolate and now is working on a prototype to print a pizza, according to Quartz. NASA later issued a statement about the Small Business Innovation Research phase I contract that was given to SMRC.
This initial six-month project could lead to a phase II study, but NASA officials said the technology is still years away from being tested on an actual flight.
Besides printing celestial pizza, 3D printing could have other uses in space. Also called additive manufacturing, the technology could allow astronauts to make replacement parts for spacecraft or even extraterrestrial habitats, like a lunar base.
"NASA recognizes in-space and additive manufacturing offers the potential for new mission opportunities, whether 'printing' food, tools or entire spacecraft," space agency officials said. "Additive manufacturing offers opportunities to get the best fit, form and delivery systems of materials for deep space travel."
In a separate project, NASA is planning to launch a 3D printer to the International Space Station to test space manufacturing technology for long-duration missions. That project stems from a partnership between the company Made in Space and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Called the 3D Printing Zero G Experiment, the test flight will send a Made in Space 3D printer to the space station in 2014 to demonstrate the feasibility of using the technology to construct spare parts and tools from raw materials on a deep-space mission.

 

[MylesBAstor]

How 3D Printers Could Reinvent NASA Space Food

By Megan Gannon | SPACE.com

A NASA-funded project that aims to transform a 3D printer into a space kitchen could one day reinvent how astronauts eat in the final frontier.
NASA officials confirmed this week that the space agency awarded $125,000 to the Austin, Texas-based company Systems and Materials Research Consultancy (SMRC) to study how to make nutritious and efficient space food with a 3D-printer during long space missions. The project made headlines this week largely because of the first item on the menu: a 3D-printed space pizza.
Future astronauts on deep-space mission will face a host of health and sustenance challenges. A roundtrip from Earth to Mars, for instance, could last several years and require thousands of meals for an astronaut crew.

"The current food system wouldn't meet the nutritional needs and five-year shelf life required for a mission to Mars or other long duration missions," NASA officials said in a statement. "Because refrigeration and freezing require significant spacecraft resources, current NASA provisions consist solely of individually prepackaged shelf stable foods, processed with technologies that degrade the micronutrients in the foods."
NASA officials said SMRC will explore whether a 3D-printed food system will be able to provide nutrient stability and a wide variety of foods from shelf stable ingredients, while minimizing waste and saving time for space crews.
Engineers at SMRC are apparently envisioning a system that can "print" dishes using layers of food powders that will have a shelf life of three decades.
"The way we are working on it is, all the carbs, proteins and macro and micro nutrients are in powder form," Anjan Contractor, a senior mechanical engineer at SMRC, told Quartz, which first reported the project. "We take moisture out, and in that form it will last maybe 30 years."
Contractor already printed chocolate and now is working on a prototype to print a pizza, according to Quartz. NASA later issued a statement about the Small Business Innovation Research phase I contract that was given to SMRC.
This initial six-month project could lead to a phase II study, but NASA officials said the technology is still years away from being tested on an actual flight.
Besides printing celestial pizza, 3D printing could have other uses in space. Also called additive manufacturing, the technology could allow astronauts to make replacement parts for spacecraft or even extraterrestrial habitats, like a lunar base.
"NASA recognizes in-space and additive manufacturing offers the potential for new mission opportunities, whether 'printing' food, tools or entire spacecraft," space agency officials said. "Additive manufacturing offers opportunities to get the best fit, form and delivery systems of materials for deep space travel."
In a separate project, NASA is planning to launch a 3D printer to the International Space Station to test space manufacturing technology for long-duration missions. That project stems from a partnership between the company Made in Space and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Called the 3D Printing Zero G Experiment, the test flight will send a Made in Space 3D printer to the space station in 2014 to demonstrate the feasibility of using the technology to construct spare parts and tools from raw materials on a deep-space mission.

How the F do you print a pizza. Kinda makes Tang look prehistoric

 

[Steve Williams]

Navy could soon use 3-D printers to manufacture drones and weapons

By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News

The first wave of tomorrow's wars may begin with a printout.
When U.S. Navy ships need to resupply ammunition and other essential equipment, they have to pull into port. But could the advent of 3-D printers cut out the middleman, allowing the military to literally print out weapons and other supplies?
Writing in the Armed Forces Journal, Lt. Cmdr. Michael Llenza says rapidly evolving technology may soon make 3-D printer warfare a reality.
“For the Navy, the technology promises to shift inventory from the physical world to the digital one,” Llenza writes. “Instead of actual parts, a ship might carry 3-D printers and bags of various powdered ingredients, and simply download the design files needed to print items as necessary.”
The idea isn’t as far-fetched as it might sound. After all, a college student recently made international headlines with his 3-D printer gun schematic. And just last week, NASA announced it had given a grant to a company working on a 3-D food printer. For its part, NASA has been at the forefront of 3-D printing, producing "mission ready" parts with the technology and even showing how 3-D printers can work in space.
As Extreme Tech’s Graham Templeton writes, 3-D printing presents some other fascinating future concepts of how military technology is used, and then potentially reused. “In terms of military efficiency, I think the next great step in automating war will be recycling. Will future soldiers be collecting their spent casings, not to protect the locals or the environment, but to be broken down and reused later? Could we turn a drone into a combat helmet into a plate of light-weight Humvee armor, as needed?”
And even as President Barack Obama announced his intention to scale back the military’s use of unmanned aerial drones, Llenza says 3-D printing would be ideal for creating a fleet of easily replaced drones for the Navy. There have already been some attempts at making 3-D printed drones, with varying degrees of success. And while Llenza acknowledges that the technology is still a ways off from becoming practical for everyday use, he says that day is not far off:
“The eventual goal is a drone that flies right out of the printer with electronics and motive power already in place,” he writes. “An organic ability to print replaceable drones from ships, forward operating bases or during disaster relief operations to serve as targets or observation platforms could be a huge enabler for sailors and Marines.”

 

[Steve Williams]

3D Printers – Busting The Hype, Praising The Opportunities

By Robert Rabe | Business 2 Community

Barack Obama is praising it as the “next revolution in manufacturing […] that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything”. Not only Mr. President heard about the buzz, 3D Printers pretty much became one of the hottest tech-topics of the past 24 months.
“Additive manufacturing”, the not-so-sexy name for 3D Printing, is hyped to be the biggest paradigm shift in manufacturing since the steam engine over 100 years ago. If the evangelists are right, it will redefine just-in-time manufacturing as it will make real factories, warehouses and inventories a thing of the past – along with a few other jaw-slacking expectations.

Jack-of-all-Trades coming with a Swiss-Army Knife?

These claims are quite dramatic. Let’s take a minute to look at the facts. 3D Printing, in contrary to common mass-production, creates objects layer-by-layer. As you neither cut or mill, little waste is left after production of mainly plastic, wax or recently even metal objects.
While the information for your office printer might be a Word-file, for a 3D printer it is a CAD-file. CAD is for computer aided design and the file format in which you can save all information of an object – be it a doorknob or a plane engine prototype. Today, additive manufacturing is mainly used for rapid prototyping of architectural drafts e.g., and in medicine. For instance, 10,000,000 3D printed hearing aids are in use worldwide, showing the power of 3D Printing for products in need of customization.

Busting the hype around 3D printing…
However, people have a pretty wrong perception of this miraculous technology. Many expect it to print ready-made lamps and maybe even computers. This is of course far from realistic. There is an almost depressing list of issues recently pulled together by Gizmodo. Here are the Top 3:
1. ) You can only print one material at once, or material with very similar melting temperatures. As the melting temperatures of metal and plastic are hundreds of degrees apart, anything you print will either be a geeky Yoda or just not functional. Now, look around yourself and tell me how many objects you see made of only one material – you will have trouble to find some and whatever you found is most likely a low cost product.
2.) One of the praised aspects of 3D printing is making mass customization affordable. However most single-material products rely on economies of scale – an effect additive manufacturing doesn’t benefit from. Printing a plastic screw or doorknob is not exactly an area that makes sense for 3D printers, both as this takes hours and is expensive.
3.) The objects are printed layer-by-layer, and you can often tell by looking at the result. Hence, the finishing of the surface is rather rough and normally colored with ink, posing a quality issue.
…but why you still may want to buy a 3D printer soon?
Even if rapid prototyping is not for you, I personally still think 3D printing will have a bright future. Although printing doorknobs and the like is not the way things will go, I envision 3D printers to liberalize the art of producing simple, yet personalized, objects. Think phone covers for instance. The key here is CAD-software to digitally design 3D objects.
Today, CAD-software faces serious usability issues and is a pretty tough nut to crack left to professionals. But so were making movies or photo editing 20 years ago, and today they are mass phenomenon thanks to liberalizing software. The same is likely to happen to manufacturing. The moment it happens, it will make people willing to pay for the added value of that unique phone cover they just made. Just like we pay extra for a precious, printed photo album of our last vacation.
PS: If that is all too serious for you and you’d like go wild (and a bit creepy): fly over to Akihabara, Tokyo and 3D-clone-print yourself for only US$ 1300.

 

[Steve Williams]

fly over to Akihabara, Tokyo and 3D-clone-print yourself for only US$ 1300.

http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/05/17/human-doll-cloning-is-so-hot-right-now-in-japan/

 

[treitz3]

Does anybody have any idea how much it would cost to get something [not a clone] 3-D printed today?

Tom

 

[Steve Williams]

Depends on what you want to print Tom

I can't imagine $1300 to clone ones face as in Japan

 

[treitz3]

A speaker baffle out of a certain type of Delrin, possibly the entire speaker cabinet and internal bracing itself as a one piece unit.

Tom

 

[mep]

There are industrial sized 3D printers that are very expensive. You are not going to buy a $1500 3D printer and make anything beyond trinkets made with weed-eater string.

 

[pwfletcher]

I have to get one ... who makes a good home 3D printer?