Saw on the news that a company has made a replacement human ear, with 3D printing.

http://rt.com/news/3D-printer-artificial-ear-197/

 

First a disclaimer: I skipped about 4 pages of this thread.

For a moment I wondered about the 'revolution' of 3D printing, since the enabling technology has been around since the 70's. Then it hit me: this revolution is a 'grass roots' effort and let by home inventors. As it turns out, I think, the technology reached the domestic mad scientist and 3D printing is the result. It does sort of remind me of the PC revolution. There might be something there.

 

Good point, but the "revolution" is occuring with industrial machines too.

Some now can print multiple materials, like clear/coloured/had plastic/soft plastic/rubber/wax etc all at the same time.

Generally the wax is a support material, but the others are permanent and allow printing something like a toy car with clear windows and rubber tyres, fully assembled!

The applications of that multi material tech are pretty revolutionary, especially in electronics.

Imagine being able to simultaneously print in materials; plastic/conductor/resistive/light emitting etc on a micro scale and have a finished electronic device?

 

There are conductive plastics that raise interesting possibilities. There is some effort to make metallic 3D printers, I have no clue how they work, but am interested.

 

I saw a commercial design metallic printer on TV. It used a bed of metal powder, then bubblejet printed glue to glue the powder together in layers to make a 3D metal object.

The object was delicate, and had to be gently removed and supported in chalk powder etc, and put in a kiln. The kiln sintered the metal dust together and burnt off the few percent of glue. Result was a solid metal object.

 

There is an active post under "projects" to build an open source / group sourced metallic 3D printer. A very successful plastic printer already has been built as an Internet team (RepRap). In fact, more parts have been built with a RepRap than any commercial printer (as a sum of all parts ever printed).

The metallic project team is asking AAC members for help in design and programming. They are just starting out. They want to use something known in the industry as, "laser sintering" of metal powders.

ACC Thread on metal 3D printing

 

I noticed it. As long as there are no requests for money it is OK. That is what usually gets most projects like that in trouble here.

 

As long as there are no requests for money it is OK.

My post, (#46) above, was to inform. Not to tattle.

 

BotObjects announces first full color 3D printer— ProDesk3D

 

Theres a documentary where people are making guns with 3D printers. look it up on youtube... crazy stuff....
But yes, ive even seen this one company selling 3d printers for pretty cheap compared the the most of them, i think under 1000 or something around there...
Give it another 10 years, they will be very common, and i think humanity will change alot. . . i think 3d printer will bring alot of solutions to people, as well as alot of problems.

 

Talk about changing the world!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygre...wittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

 

Talk about changing the world!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygre...wittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

So casting a similar device from fiberglas resin or machining from plastic block (or laminate sheet made into a block) was not possible to this point?

Or buying a traditional version on a street corner for $50 and no brains needed vs. paying 50x that price for a 3D printer and some degree of mechanical and computer skills for this option.

 

Wow, so it is banned already? Anyone else see a lot of future technological ideas being banned because the government isn't okay with it as it might pose a risk. Seems silly to halt production on things that can really make a change in the world.

 

You miss a major point, no casting required, and it is a one step process.

I've been using 3D software to draw projects, and it is easy.