3D Printing and Copyright

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Enki
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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We've been working on a 3D printing project for a while. I came up with an idea on a lark, and my wife ran with it, started talking to an incubator. We did a bit of development had a financier who dropped out and now we have a couple leads to some major players in the space. The project is taking on a life of it's own. Apparently people are incredibly hungry there and what we are looking at it is sort of a unique offering that is needed but no one is really doing it.
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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Good luck!
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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Nonc Hilaire wrote:Good luck!
Thanks.
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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Stratasys launches multi-material colour 3D printer

The world's first multi-material full-colour 3D printer has been launched by Stratasys, the owner of the MakerBot range of printers.

It features "triple-jetting" technology that combines droplets of three base materials, reducing the need for separate print runs and painting.

The company said the Objet500 Connex3 Color Mutli-material 3D Printer would be a "significant time-saver" for designers and manufacturers.

It will cost about $330,000 (£200,000).

By incorporating traditional 2D printer colour mixing, using cyan, magenta and yellow, the manufacturer says multi-material objects can be printed in hundreds of colours.

While the base materials are rubber and plastic, they can be combined and treated to create end products of widely varying flexibility and rigidity, transparency and opacity, the company said.

Stratasys marketing manager Bruce Bradshaw told the BBC: "This will help industrial designers reduce the time it takes to bring prototypes to market by 50%."

The firm's rival 3D Systems recently announced its own multi-material high-end 3D printer, the ProJet 5500X - but it offers a smaller range of colours: black, white, and certain shades of grey.

This limitation may not be a problem for businesses that only want to model and study the shape and behaviour of their designs and are willing to leave decisions about colour to a later point in the manufacturing process.
'Level of creativity'

Even so, Duncan Wood, publisher of specialist 3D printing magazine TCT, told the BBC: "This is groundbreaking stuff. Being able to produce single products incorporating materials of different rigidity and colour has been the holy grail of 3D printing to date.

"This is industrial-grade technology that will afford designers a level of creativity they've never had before."

Minneapolis-based Stratasys bought Israeli multi-material specialist Objet in April 2012.

Last year it bought MakerBot, the consumer 3D printing company.

Stratasys' latest industrial 3D printer was launched at SolidWorks World in San Diego, California.
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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Navy Helps Fund 3D Printing of Buildings

Add to guns and prosthetic hands something much bigger and heavier forming from the nozzle of a 3D printer — buildings “printed” out of concrete.

Partially funded by the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation Countour Crafting is trying to develop 3D printed buildings using concrete. Company founder Behrokh Khoshnevis is a professor and director of Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at the University of Southern California.

Concrete printers would be able to build a 2,500-square-foot building within a single day, according to Khoshnevis.

For the military, that means soldiers deploying to a remote location with little or no infrastructure could be operating out of permanent structures pretty soon after a combat engineer unit arrived with printers and material aboard a C-17.

Essentially, building via printer would work just like any computer assisted manufacturing program. But instead of a robotic tap and die machine turning out parts according to a program, it would be an oversized printer following programmed schematics to lay down, layer by layer, a building, including outside and interior walls, spaces for doors and windows and all electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning conduits, according to Khoshnevis’ website.

In a video of a presentation he made last year Khoshnevis says the machines he is working with now are capable of printing out concrete walls able to bear a compressive stress of 10,000 pounds per square inch. According to the Portland Concrete Association, which represents concrete manufacturers nationwide, conventional concrete has a psi of 7,000 or less.

Anything above that, up to 14,500 psi, is considered high strength.

Building construction is about the only thing that is not automated today, Khoshnevis says. At the same time it kills about 10,000 people a year and injures about 400,000.

Given the history of U.S. military and related missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Khoshnevis observations on other aspects of conventional construction should also have meaning to the Pentagon.

“The [existing] process is pretty corruption prone,” he said. “It’s very costly and always over budget.”

Looking even further ahead, and farther away, Khoshnevis says 3D construction is likely the solution to be “one of the very few feasible approaches for building structures on the Moon and Mars, which are being targeted for human colonization before the end of the new century.”
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Enki
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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Haven't been keeping up on this much.

This roundup article on the CES conference (Consumer Electronics Symposium)is great.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/29/3d-printer-guide/

So much coming down the pipe. Someone I know has been working with one of the major companies and stuff that's coming down the pipeline that is still under wraps is even more mindblowing.

3D printing is going to be fully mature by 2020.
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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http://machinedesign.com/blog/how-i-3d- ... rticle_1_1
How I 3D printed my face onto a sphinx, and how you can too
Dec. 20, 2013 by Elisabeth Eitel in Product Design Engineering

Our office just got our grubby little collective hands on an Afinia H-Series 3D printer, so it seems my recently proclaimed wish was granted. Christmas wishes really do come true.
I love you, Afinia H-Series.

Our esteemed colleague Lindsey Frick got the Afinia up and running in a spare cubicle yesterday, so our executive editor Lee Teschler told me I should take the machine for a test drive by scanning and printing my own head. I argued that because his head was an executive-editor head, it was decidedly more important, so should be the one scanned. He disagreed and insisted that I be the victim.

Here's me with the final creation. See the likeness?
With that settled, we looked into borrowing a Microsoft Kinect from someone. (Click here for a review of how Kinects can scan 3D objects for subsequent printing.) However, that approach wasn’t going to give us the instant satisfaction we wanted.

Used Kinect bars on eBay only run about $35 but we didn’t want to wait a week for delivery.

My only other low-cost source of a Kinect, my video-game-loving little cousin Mike, is still at college and too far to drop off the device for a quick borrow.

Instead, we located a 3D-scanning app from Autodesk in iTunes — a free app called 123D Catch that lets users scan objects and people in 3D with a normal digital camera or iPhone. In short, the user walks around the object to be 3D scanned and takes pictures at 20 to 40 angles until all sides of the object are photographed. Then the software stitches the images together and makes 3D-model files out of the mesh. Because we had both $0 and several iPhones on our persons, the 123D Catch tool seemed perfect for us.

Don't be deterred by the two-star rating for this app's latest version. The bugs seem to be fixed as we had no issues. I did quit out of the app once while it was processing images, but it quickly resumed its work when reopened.
I downloaded the app onto my phone and then went to Lee’s office for an unprecedented [Read: Awkward and funny] experience: I knelt by his desk while he walked around me with my phone, taking extreme close-up pictures of my head at various angles from within the 123D Catch app. Coworkers walking by were compelled to stand at the door and observe. Mortification ensued.

After the app’s software stitched the photos together, we realized that the sequence of photos mattered: Any jogs back and forth in the series of photos makes the software “puncture” surfaces in the 3D model. Also, even slight movements of the object makes for “melted” and dented surfaces. So, we retook the series of photos with the help of our art director, Randall. The series stitched into a nice 3D model, and so within the app I clicked on the model’s “Send Link” option and sent the link to myself.

Next, I got on my laptop and accessed the link to clean up the model and export it. (Strangely, this was the only way I figured out how to access my model. Even logged into 123dapp.com, I couldn’t find the model without the deep URL.)

Waiting ah-and waiting ah-and waiting ...
This is also where 123D Catch hit another snag.

The 3D model editor in Catch took all functions on my laptop to a slow crawl and failed to load my model.

I tried other online tools — even at 360.autodesk.com and more — to no avail.

That’s when I gave up, downloaded the .STL file of my head model, and decided to hunt down a free and open-source program with a reputation for being good for editing .STL files.

First I tried meshlab. It’s a snazzy little program, but at this point I’d started to dream of a bigger and more ambitious thing to print, and meshlab didn’t have the editing tools for me to execute my evil plan.

More specifically, the thought occurred to me that I should put my face on a sphinx and print that.

So, I did some more hunting and found Blender, a free download with modeling and graphics-shaping tools so useful that it put a little tear in my eye.

12 more seconds of arduous Googling yielded a free .STL file of a sphinx at Thingaverse. Bless your heart, Nr5Alive!

Then came the importing of both the .STL of my head and the .STL of the sphinx into Blender.

Shown here is the scan of my head plus "debris" that the 123D Catch app picked up when we did the scanning.

I edited them both, joined them together, and deleted what’s called “non-manifold” debris (Shift+Alt+Control+M then delete) — bits and surfaces that compromise the "airtight" nature of the file, which is a no-no. This editing/joining/deleting process took about three hours, but that’s because Blender is a powerful piece of software with a moderately step learning curve, and this was my first experience with it. Poof — a ridiculous creature with my face is born!

Next, I downloaded the Afinia driver to my laptop, took my laptop to the cube where Lindsey set the Afinia up, and connected the laptop to the printer with a normal USB cable. Then I imported the edited .STL file I exported out of Blender into the Afinia software.
Left: The PC that refused to connect to the Afinia, no matter how hard I begged. Middle: My trusty MacBook that connected immediately, off of which I printed the sphinx. Right: The adorable Afinia, all revved up and ready to go. Background: Old-school Diamondtron NF monitor that's been festering in our spare cube probably since 1990.
After checking a few settings, I pressed Print and got this two hours later. Fairly easy, even for a total newbie.

A custom-crafted item with my face on it — a perfect Christmas gift for Mom. They love this kind of stuff.

Next up: Stay tuned for a followup entry, when I get my hands on my cousin's Kinect and report on its scanning abilities.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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http://www.pddnet.com/blogs/2014/02/3d- ... re-warfare
3D-Printed Drones: The Future of Warfare?
Fri, 02/14/2014 - 12:13pm
Allegra Sparta, Contributor
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It’s like learning about the newest celebrity couple. The only difference is that you won’t read about this development in the tabloids. The United States didn’t really need any more incentive to outdo other countries in military technology, but 3D printing is an attractive avenue to further enhance our growing preference for drone warfare. It’ll be a few years before a printer can churn out MQ-9 Reaper Drone parts lickety-split with the press of a button, but progress is underway.

This push comes from a growing unmanned aircraft arms race between countries. It’s not just the US that loves its flying death-bots, so the faster and easier we can produce them, the better.

Ben FitzGerald, the Director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security had this to say about a recently released report called “Process Over Platforms: A Paradigm Shift in Acquisition Through Advanced Manufacturing:”

“It is broken down as follows, instead of creating costly manned aircraft in small amounts, the defense department might be able to build thousands of custom drones with the assistance of 3D printed parts, through the use of automatic assembly lines, which are on at all hours of the day.”

The title of the report is a mouthful, but it basically says that the US military wants to rely more heavily on a strategy of drone warfare, and 3D printing might be the solution to a speedy “army” ready to deploy at the click of a button.

Thankfully, the marriage between drones and 3D printing isn’t all about war. “Amazon Prime Air” catapulted innocuous drones for civilians to the front pages a few months ago. Businesses like Amazon can benefit from a method of drone-production that can quickly replace downed delivery-bots and also increase the fleet.

The common folk can also print drones. A website titled “DIY Drones” offers instructions on how to print drone parts with consumer 3D printers. A Kickstarter project called Hex is a 3D printed and customizable smartphone-controlled drone for the RC enthusiast in all of us.

These consumer developments are especially noteworthy. They’re like an updated version of Legos, and who doesn’t love to play with those? Kids (and adults!) can flex their aviation muscles with mini drones like these leading to another realm of creativity and hands-on learning about engineering and new technology. I for one, would much rather see a focus on Kickstarter projects like Hex than a military push for more developments in warfare.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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http://www.pddnet.com/news/2014/02/esse ... ng-tissues
An Essential Step Toward Printing Living Tissues
Wed, 02/19/2014 - 9:19am
Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard
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A new 3-D printing method developed by Wyss Core Faculty member Jennifer Lewis and her team uses multiple print heads and customized "inks" to create complex living tissue constructs, complete with tiny blood vessels.A new 3-D printing method developed by Wyss Core Faculty member Jennifer Lewis and her team uses multiple print heads and customized "inks" to create complex living tissue constructs, complete with tiny blood vessels.A new bioprinting method developed at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) creates intricately patterned 3D tissue constructs with multiple types of cells and tiny blood vessels. The work represents a major step toward a longstanding goal of tissue engineers: creating human tissue constructs realistic enough to test drug safety and effectiveness.

The method also represents an early but important step toward building fully functional replacements for injured or diseased tissue that can be designed from CAT scan data using computer-aided design (CAD), printed in 3D at the push of a button, and used by surgeons to repair or replace damaged tissue.

"This is the foundational step toward creating 3D living tissue," said Jennifer Lewis, Ph.D., senior author of the study, who is a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard SEAS. Along with lead author David Kolesky, a graduate student in SEAS and the Wyss Institute, her team reported the results February 18 in the journal Advanced Materials.

Tissue engineers have tried for years to produce lab-grown vascularized human tissues robust enough to serve as replacements for damaged human tissue. Others have printed human tissue before, but they have been limited to thin slices of tissue about a third as thick as a dime. When scientists try to print thicker layers of tissue, cells on the interior starve for oxygen and nutrients, and have no good way of removing carbon dioxide and other waste. So they suffocate and die.

Nature gets around this problem by permeating tissue with a network of tiny, thin-walled blood vessels that nourish the tissue and remove waste, so Kolesky and Lewis set out to mimic this key function.

3D printing excels at creating intricately detailed 3D structures, typically from inert materials like plastic or metal. In the past, Lewis and her team have pioneered a broad range of novel inks that solidify into materials with useful electrical and mechanical properties. These inks enable 3D printing to go beyond form to embed functionality.

To print 3D tissue constructs with a predefined pattern, the researchers needed functional inks with useful biological properties, so they developed several "bio-inks" — tissue-friendly inks containing key ingredients of living tissues. One ink contained extracellular matrix, the biological material that knits cells into tissues. A second ink contained both extracellular matrix and living cells.

To create blood vessels, they developed a third ink with an unusual property: it melts as it is cools, rather than as it warms. This allowed the scientists to first print an interconnected network of filaments, then melt them by chilling the material and suction the liquid out to create a network of hollow tubes, or vessels.

The Harvard team then road-tested the method to assess its power and versatility. They printed 3D tissue constructs with a variety of architectures, culminating in an intricately patterned construct containing blood vessels and three different types of cells – a structure approaching the complexity of solid tissues.

Moreover, when they injected human endothelial cells into the vascular network, those cells regrew the blood-vessel lining. Keeping cells alive and growing in the tissue construct represents an important step toward printing human tissues. "Ideally, we want biology to do as much of the job of as possible," Lewis said.

Lewis and her team are now focused on creating functional 3D tissues that are realistic enough to screen drugs for safety and effectiveness. "That's where the immediate potential for impact is," Lewis said.

Scientists could also use the printed tissue constructs to shed light on activities of living tissue that require complex architecture, such as wound healing, blood vessel growth, or tumor development.

"Tissue engineers have been waiting for a method like this," said Don Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., Wyss Institute Founding Director. "The ability to form functional vascular networks in 3D tissues before they are implanted not only enables thicker tissues to be formed, it also raises the possibility of surgically connecting these networks to the natural vasculature to promote immediate perfusion of the implanted tissue, which should greatly increase their engraftment and survival".

In addition to Lewis and Kolesky, the Wyss Institute research team also included Ryan L. Truby, A. Sydney Gladman, Travis A. Busbee, SEAS graduate students, and Kimberly A. Homan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS. The work was funded by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the Harvard Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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http://www.wirelessdesignmag.com/news/2 ... -treatment
3-D Printer Creates Transformative Device for Heart Treatment
Tue, 02/25/2014 - 12:52pm
Washington University in St. Louis
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Embedded Systems & Networking|Sensors & Transducers
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Igor Efimov, PhD, the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, works with Sarah Gutbrod, PhD candidate in biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, in Efimov’s lab in Whitaker Hall. Efimov and a team of researchers are developing a custom-fitted, implantable device that can deliver treatment or predict an impending heart attack before a patient shows any physical symptoms. (James Byard/wustl photos)Igor Efimov, PhD, the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, works with Sarah Gutbrod, PhD candidate in biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, in Efimov’s lab in Whitaker Hall. Efimov and a team of researchers are developing a custom-fitted, implantable device that can deliver treatment or predict an impending heart attack before a patient shows any physical symptoms. (James Byard/wustl photos)Using an inexpensive 3-D printer, biomedical engineers have developed a custom-fitted, implantable device with embedded sensors that could transform treatment and prediction of cardiac disorders.

Igor Efimov, PhD, at the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis and an international team of biomedical engineers and materials scientists have created a 3-D elastic membrane made of a soft, flexible, silicon material that is precisely shaped to match the heart’s epicardium, or the outer layer of the wall of the heart. Current technology is two-dimensional and cannot cover the full surface of the epicardium or maintain reliable contact for continual use without sutures or adhesives.

The team can then print tiny sensors onto the membrane that can precisely measure temperature, mechanical strain and pH, among other markers, or deliver a pulse of electricity in cases of arrhythmia. Those sensors could assist physicians with determining the health of the heart, deliver treatment or predict an impending heart attack before a patient exhibits any physical signs.

The findings were published online in Nature Communications on Feb. 25, 2014.

An example of the 3-D elastic membrane being developed by Efimov and his team. “Each heart is a different shape, and current devices are one-size-fits-all and don’t at all conform to the geometry of a patient’s heart,” says Efimov, the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering. “With this application, we image the patient’s heart through MRI or CT scan, then computationally extract the image to build a 3-D model that we can print on a 3-D printer. We then mold the shape of the membrane that will constitute the base of the device deployed on the surface of the heart.”

Ultimately, the membrane could be used to treat diseases of the ventricles in the lower chambers of the heart or could be inserted inside the heart to treat a variety of disorders, including atrial fibrillation, which affects 3 million to 5 million patients in the United States.

“Currently, medical devices to treat heart rhythm diseases are essentially based on two electrodes inserted through the veins and deployed inside the chambers,” says Efimov, also a professor of radiology and of cell biology and physiology at the School of Medicine. “Contact with the tissue is only at one or two points, and it is at a very low resolution. What we want to create is an approach that will allow you to have numerous points of contact and to correct the problem with high-definition diagnostics and high-definition therapy.”

Co-leading the team with Efimov is John Rogers, PhD, the Swanlund Chair and professor of materials science and engineering and director of the F. Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rogers, who developed the transfer printing technique, developed the sensors using semiconductor materials including silicon, gallium arsenide and gallium nitride, along with metals, metal oxides and polymers.

Recently, Google announced its scientists had developed a type of contact lens embedded with sensors that could monitor glucose levels in patients with diabetes. Efimov says the membrane his team has developed is a similar idea, though much more sophisticated.

“Because this is implantable, it will allow physicians to monitor vital functions in different organs and intervene when necessary to provide therapy,” he says. “In the case of heart rhythm disorders, it could be used to stimulate cardiac muscle or the brain, or in renal disorders, it would monitor ionic concentrations of calcium, potassium and sodium.”

Efimov says the membrane could even hold a sensor to measure troponin, a protein expressed in heart cells and a hallmark of a heart attack. Analysis for troponin is standard of care for patients with suspected heart attacks due to a test developed by Jack Ladenson, PhD, the Oree M. Carroll and Lillian B. Ladenson Professor of Clinical Chemistry in Pathology and Immunology and professor of clinical chemistry in medicine at the School of Medicine.

Ultimately, such devices will be combined with ventricular assist devices, Efimov says.

“This is just the beginning,” he says. “Previous devices have shown huge promise and have saved millions of lives. Now we can take the next step and tackle some arrhythmia issues that we don’t know how to treat.”
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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Additive Robofacturing
What defines 3D Printing? Here at 3DPI we often ask ourselves that, especially when facing new, innovative and advanced manufacturing processes that somehow involve 3D structures. Strictly, 3D printing refers to direct digital manufacturing, layer by layer, from 3D digital models; more loosely it is used to describe any manufacturing process that uses automated additive techniques.

Hydrogel Bioprinting is 3D printing because it is additive though it is actually a 2D process (though at a cellular/organic level these terms get fuzzy). Lego is an additive process, though is it 3D printing? What about contour crafting? Perhaps we can refer to 3D printing as any robotic manufacturing process that is also additive.

I have often argued that future space stations – the gigantic ones we see in sci-fi movies – will have to be built by additive processes employing robots, but it would be difficult to envision a single 3D printing robot large enough to make an Imperial Star Destroyer or a Death Star.

3D Printing termes HarvardThose will be built through robotic additive manufacturing or, to coin a neologism, “additive robofacturing”, by using many robots working together. Now scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have given us us a first glimpse of how that may work through the TERMES project, recently published on Science magazine.
MmQOEaXIAnU
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Image

You can find the link here Tinker:

http://www.pddnet.com/

Down on the right side.
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World's first 3d carbon fiber printer makes parts as strong or stronger than steel.

Y5wjjDBdgeE
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http://www.pddnet.com/articles/2014/03/ ... ycle-frame
The First Metal 3D-Printed Bicycle Frame
Tue, 03/11/2014 - 3:10pm


The world’s first 3D-printed metal bike frame.The world’s first 3D-printed metal bike frame.Renishaw, the UK’s only manufacturer of metal-based additive manufacturing machines, has collaborated with a leading British bicycle company to create the world’s first 3D-printed metal bike frame. Empire Cycles, located in Northwest England, designed the mountain bike to be stronger and lighter, using a process called topological optimization and employing Renishaw’s AM250 additive manufacturing system.

The additive process offers design, construction and performance advantages that include: blending complex shapes or hollow structures with internal strengthening features, flexibility to make design improvements right up to the start of production, and the convenience of making one-off parts as easily as batches, which allows for customization. The new titanium alloy frame, about 33% lighter than the original, was manufactured in sections and bonded together.

The two companies originally agreed to optimize and manufacture only the bike’s seat post bracket, but after the part’s successful production, improvement of the whole frame became the new goal. Empire started with a full-size 3D printed replica of its current aluminium alloy bike and the frame was sectioned into parts that could be formed in the AM250’s 12-in. (300-mm) build height.

The design was updated with guidance from Renishaw’s applications team and an optimized design – one that eliminates many of the downward facing surfaces that require wasteful support structures – was created using topological optimization.

Topological Optimization

Topological optimization software programs use iterative steps and finite element analysis to determine the “logical” material placement. Material is removed from areas of low stress until a design optimized for load bearing is created, resulting in a model that is light and strong. Historical challenges in manufacturing these computer-generated shapes are overcome through the additive manufacturing process.

The AM250 uses a high-powered fiber laser to produce fully dense metal parts direct from 3D CAD data. Parts are built layer by layer, in thicknesses ranging from 20 to 100 microns, using a range of fine metal powders melted in a tightly controlled atmosphere. A fully welded vacuum chamber and ultra-low oxygen content in the build atmosphere allow processing of reactive materials, including titanium and aluminum.

The key benefit to Empire Cycles is the performance advantages derived from the additive process. The design has all of the advantages of a pressed steel “monocoque” construction used in motorbikes and cars, without the investment in tooling that would be prohibitive for a small manufacturer. “As no tooling is required, continual design improvements can be made easily, and as the component cost is based on volume and not complexity, some very light parts will be possible at minimal costs,” said Dave Bozich, Business Manager, Renishaw.

Making It Light

The original aluminium alloy seat post bracket is 12 oz. (360 g) and the first iteration of the hollow titanium version is 7 oz. (200 g), a weight savings of 44%. Comparison of the entire frame has the original bike frame weighing in at 4.6 lbs. (2100 g), with the redesigned additive-made frame at only 3.1 lbs. (1400 g), a 33% weight savings.

“There are lighter carbon fiber bikes available, but the durability of carbon fiber can’t compare to a metal bike,” said Chris Williams, Managing Director at Empire Cycles. “They are great for road bikes, but when you start chucking yourself down a mountain you risk damaging the frame. We over-engineer our bikes to ensure there are no warranty claims.”

Titanium alloys have more density than aluminium alloys, with relative densities of around .14 lb/in3 (4 g/cm3) and .11 lb/in3 (3 g/cm3), respectively. Therefore, the only way to make a titanium alloy part lighter than its aluminium alloy counterpart is to significantly alter the design and remove any material not contributing to the overall strength of the part. The companies believe further analysis and testing it could result in further weight reduction.

Making It Strong

In addition to durability and corrosion-resistance, titanium alloys have a high Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS) of more than 900 MPa, when processed using additive manufacturing. With near perfect densities – greater than 99.7 percent – the process is better than casting and the small, spherical nature of additive-part porosity has little negative effect on strength.

The seat post bracket was tested using the mountain bike standard EN 14766, and it withstood 50,000 cycles of 270 lb ft (1200 N). Testing continued to six times the standard without failure.

Continued Improvement Through Collaboration

Empire is passionate about partnering with top British engineering companies to create elite products. Research into bonding methods resulted in Mouldlife providing the adhesive, which was tested by technical specialists at 3M test facilities. The wheels, drivetrain and components required to finish the bike, were provided by Hope Technology Ltd.

Empire and Renishaw plan to continue testing the completed bicycle frame in the laboratory, using Bureau Veritas UK, and in the field, using portable sensors in partnership with Swansea University. “We plan to develop this further, in partnership, to look at iterative improvements in bonding methods, such as specific surface finishes,” said Bozich. “This project demonstrates that excellent results can be achieved through close customer collaboration.”
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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Neurosurgeons successfully implant 3D printed skull

A 22-year-old woman from the Netherlands who suffers from a chronic bone disorder -- which has increased the thickness of her skull from 1.5cm to 5cm, causing reduced eyesight and severe headaches -- has had the top section of her skull removed and replaced with a 3D printed implant.

The operation was performed by a team of neurosurgeons at the University Medical Centre Utrecht and the university claims this is this first instance of a successful 3D printed cranium that has not been rejected by the patient.

The operation, which took 23 hours, was led by Dr Bon Verweij. The patient's skull was so thick, that had the operation not been performed, serious brain damage or death may have occurred in the near future.

"It was only a matter of time before critical brain functions were compromised and she would die," said Dr Verweij. Major surgery was inevitable, but prior to the 3D printing technique, there was no ideal effective treatment.

The skull was made specifically for the patient using an unspecified durable plastic. Since the operation, the patient has gained her sight back entirely, is symptom-free and back to work. It is not known whether the plastic will require replacing at a later date or if it will last a lifetime.

The lead surgeon had previous experience with 3D reconstructions of skulls, but such a large implant had never been accomplished before. "It is almost impossible to see that she's ever had surgery," said Dr Verweij in the university's official statement.

It is hoped this technique can also be used for patients with other bone disorders or to repair severely damaged skulls after an accident or tumour.

The operation was carried out three months ago, but the hospital has only just released details of the surgery. Wired.co.uk got in touch with the university and will publish any further details we recieve.
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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YMix wrote:
Neurosurgeons successfully implant 3D printed skull

A 22-year-old woman from the Netherlands who suffers from a chronic bone disorder -- which has increased the thickness of her skull from 1.5cm to 5cm, causing reduced eyesight and severe headaches -- has had the top section of her skull removed and replaced with a 3D printed implant.

The operation was performed by a team of neurosurgeons at the University Medical Centre Utrecht and the university claims this is this first instance of a successful 3D printed cranium that has not been rejected by the patient.

The operation, which took 23 hours, was led by Dr Bon Verweij. The patient's skull was so thick, that had the operation not been performed, serious brain damage or death may have occurred in the near future.

"It was only a matter of time before critical brain functions were compromised and she would die," said Dr Verweij. Major surgery was inevitable, but prior to the 3D printing technique, there was no ideal effective treatment.

The skull was made specifically for the patient using an unspecified durable plastic. Since the operation, the patient has gained her sight back entirely, is symptom-free and back to work. It is not known whether the plastic will require replacing at a later date or if it will last a lifetime.

The lead surgeon had previous experience with 3D reconstructions of skulls, but such a large implant had never been accomplished before. "It is almost impossible to see that she's ever had surgery," said Dr Verweij in the university's official statement.

It is hoped this technique can also be used for patients with other bone disorders or to repair severely damaged skulls after an accident or tumour.

The operation was carried out three months ago, but the hospital has only just released details of the surgery. Wired.co.uk got in touch with the university and will publish any further details we recieve.

You beat me to it. Here is the Video:

IXcz3OdHSHk

You can view subtitles in English in the Closed caption
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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China: Firm 3D prints 10 full-sized houses in a day

A company in China has used giant 3D printers to make 10 full-sized, detached single-storey houses in a day, it appears.

A private firm, WinSun, used four 10m x 6.6m printers to spray a mixture of cement and construction waste to build the walls, layer by layer, official Xinhua news agency reported.

The cheap materials used during the printing process and the lack of manual labour means that each house can be printed for under $5,000, the 3dprinterplans website says.

"We can print buildings to any digital design our customers bring us. It's fast and cheap," says WinSun chief executive Ma Yihe. He also hopes his printers can be used to build skyscrapers in the future. At the moment, however, Chinese construction regulations do not allow multi-storey 3D-printed houses, Xinhua says.

The method of 3D printing has become more widely used in recent years. Manufacturers and designers have been able to make everyday items such as jewellery and furniture, as well as more specialised objects like industrial components.
Image
Chinese Release New Images Of 3D Printed Houses

China’s Shanghai WinSun Decoration Design Engineering company has released new images and further details on its 3D printed houses. The ten houses were built entirely out of recycled materials, in less than 24 hours.

The monstrous 3D printer measures 32-meters long, by 10-meters wide, by 6.6-meters high and is fully capable of printing the 200 square meter houses, in Shanghai’s Qingpu district. It uses a mixture of construction and industrial waste to produce each house. The inexpensive materials used during the printing process and the lack of labor, means each house can be printed for under $5,000, an impressive achievement for a relatively new construction process.

According to the company, the printer was designed several years ago. “We purchased parts for the printer overseas, and assembled the machine in a factory in Suzhou,” Stated WinSun’s CEO, Ma Yihe. “Such a new type of 3D-printed structure is environment-friendly and cost-effective.”

Ma says that the company plans to build an entire villa with their printer and they also plan to build 100 recycling facilities around China to help keep up with demand. China has also announced the first 3D printed house project will be located in Qingdao.
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
The Kushner sh*t is greasy - Stevie B.
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

Post by Doc »

YMix wrote:
China: Firm 3D prints 10 full-sized houses in a day

A company in China has used giant 3D printers to make 10 full-sized, detached single-storey houses in a day, it appears.

A private firm, WinSun, used four 10m x 6.6m printers to spray a mixture of cement and construction waste to build the walls, layer by layer, official Xinhua news agency reported.

The cheap materials used during the printing process and the lack of manual labour means that each house can be printed for under $5,000, the 3dprinterplans website says.

"We can print buildings to any digital design our customers bring us. It's fast and cheap," says WinSun chief executive Ma Yihe. He also hopes his printers can be used to build skyscrapers in the future. At the moment, however, Chinese construction regulations do not allow multi-storey 3D-printed houses, Xinhua says.

The method of 3D printing has become more widely used in recent years. Manufacturers and designers have been able to make everyday items such as jewellery and furniture, as well as more specialised objects like industrial components.
Image
Chinese Release New Images Of 3D Printed Houses

China’s Shanghai WinSun Decoration Design Engineering company has released new images and further details on its 3D printed houses. The ten houses were built entirely out of recycled materials, in less than 24 hours.

The monstrous 3D printer measures 32-meters long, by 10-meters wide, by 6.6-meters high and is fully capable of printing the 200 square meter houses, in Shanghai’s Qingpu district. It uses a mixture of construction and industrial waste to produce each house. The inexpensive materials used during the printing process and the lack of labor, means each house can be printed for under $5,000, an impressive achievement for a relatively new construction process.

According to the company, the printer was designed several years ago. “We purchased parts for the printer overseas, and assembled the machine in a factory in Suzhou,” Stated WinSun’s CEO, Ma Yihe. “Such a new type of 3D-printed structure is environment-friendly and cost-effective.”

Ma says that the company plans to build an entire villa with their printer and they also plan to build 100 recycling facilities around China to help keep up with demand. China has also announced the first 3D printed house project will be located in Qingdao.

More pictures here:

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20140401- ... a-day.html

Though it would be nice if they posted a video of the process. It seems they actually are building pieces of the houses with a 3D printer then assembling them rather than building the house completely in the printer
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

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World's first 3D-printed skeleton key raises security fears

A pair of engineers have created a key that can open any ABUS E20/E30 6-pin tumbler lock.

With just a photograph of a lock and a few pieces of publicly accessible information, they developed a software programme called Photobump, which creates a 3D file for a bump key, also known as a skeleton key.

They then created the key using a plastic 3D printer.

Although the engineers do not intend to release the software, it has raised the issue of how easily standard locks can be compromised.
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

YMix wrote:
World's first 3D-printed skeleton key raises security fears

A pair of engineers have created a key that can open any ABUS E20/E30 6-pin tumbler lock.

With just a photograph of a lock and a few pieces of publicly accessible information, they developed a software programme called Photobump, which creates a 3D file for a bump key, also known as a skeleton key.

They then created the key using a plastic 3D printer.

Although the engineers do not intend to release the software, it has raised the issue of how easily standard locks can be compromised.
A locked door only keeps an honest man honest.
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Enki
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

Post by Enki »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:
YMix wrote:
World's first 3D-printed skeleton key raises security fears

A pair of engineers have created a key that can open any ABUS E20/E30 6-pin tumbler lock.

With just a photograph of a lock and a few pieces of publicly accessible information, they developed a software programme called Photobump, which creates a 3D file for a bump key, also known as a skeleton key.

They then created the key using a plastic 3D printer.

Although the engineers do not intend to release the software, it has raised the issue of how easily standard locks can be compromised.
A locked door only keeps an honest man honest.
One of my uncles told me that at one point and it's been indelibly printed on my mind ever since.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

Post by Enki »

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

Post by Doc »

Might try some dry ice ad a stream of water. Set the water on the block of dry ice and keep it wet enough that it sticks to the dry ice.
Pretty cool but way to slow on the pick and place. Commercial machines pick and place so fast they sound like machine guns. Honestly I could pick, place, and solder SMD components faster than this machine can pick and place. I think part of their problem is the pick and place vacuum. It needs to have a smaller head and possibly a separate camera that can determine positioning of the head and part to make last millisecond adjustments to the position of the part as it descends.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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Re: 3D Printing and Copyright

Post by Enki »

What do you know about the prices of commercial pick and place systems? I mean prices to manufacture circuits, not the prices of the machines.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
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