This Week in 3D Printing

Week of 10/19/2015

This Week’s Contents

! In the News ! Research Insight of the Week ! 3D Prints of the Week

In the NewsSummary and Analysis of Headlines around 3D Printing

Nike Granted Patent for 3D Printed Shoe Tech The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted Nike a major patent for technology associated with 3D printing shoes. Filed back in September 2012, the patent states that it is for “automated stroble printing” The strobel is one way a shoe can be “lasted,” where the shoes upper is affixed to its middle. Nike’s patent calls for a machine to scan the design into a computer, and based on the data, print sewing guidelines on the strobel. According to experts, the 3D printing technology patented by Nike wouldn’t fundamentally change how the company makes shoes, but would merely update and modernize the process of making shoes, and reduce human labor for Nike. The announcement comes shortly after Nike COO, Erick Spunk, informed attendants at GeekWire Summit 2015 that consumers would one day be able to print a shoe design file from Nike and 3D print the shoes themselves. Source(s): digitaltrends.com

New 3D House Printer Produces 1,000 square feet a Day Russian engineer Nikita Chen-yun-ta recently unveiled the Apis Cor 3D printer, a 3D printer capable of building an entire multi-story home in a single day. In crafting the Apis Cor, Chen-yun-ta sought to avoid the cumbersome bulk of pervious 3D printers that were designed to construct houses and buildings, seeking to develop a machine that was rugged and capable of being setup on almost any surface. Once a truck is moved onto the job site, the printer is ready to go within 30 minutes. Over the course of a 24 hour period, the Apis Cor is able to build a multi-story home with up to 630 square feet of living space by printing layer-after-layer of material. According to the designer, this method saves resources, limits waste, reduces labor costs, and consumes less energy than traditional building design.

Source(s): inhabitat.com

Caterpillar the Latest International Company to Utilize 3D Printing

The manufacturing sector is abuzz with news that Caterpillar, Inc., the worlds leading manufacture of mining and construction equipment, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives, and natural gas and diesel engines, has adopted 3D printing technology to carry out a variety of traditional work. An example of the usefulness of additive manufacturing can be found at the Caterpillar transmission assembly plant in Dyersburg, Tennessee, where a faulty assembly line procedure had people believing thousands of dollars would be lost as the problem was fixed. Caterpillar’s 3D printing team was called in and was able to 3D print a “temporary plastic tool and got it to the facility overnight, saving the line from going down. ” The company acknowledges the convenience and cost-effectiveness of on-site 3D printing capabilities, and is currently working on a way manufacturing sites can print parts when they need one to keep production going.

Source(s): 3DPrint.com

Apple and US Military Team Up to Build Flexible Hybrid Electronics The Pentagon recently announced plans to work with Apple, Boeing, Harvard and 160 other organizations within a newly announced Flexible Hybrid Electronic Institute. According to a defense official, the aim is to use high-end printing technologies to “create stretchable electronics that could be embedded with sensors and worn by soldiers.” The primary technology here is 3D printing, which the military sees as improving as a break-neck pace. The capacity that is currently missing, according to many, is the ability to print complex microelectronics using different materials. Hopefully, through this ongoing partnership between the United States military and a variety of corporate and non-profit institutions, this issues can be resolved. Source(s): ComputerWorld.com

Startup Perfects 3D Printing Your Own Jewelry Trove is a New York-based startup founded in the fall of 2014 that publicly launched on October 8th, 2015, created by a product manager for social video game company Zynga, Brian Park. For Park, he saw jewelry as one particularly industry poised to change thanks to advances in 3D printing and computer-aided design technologies. Introducing a digital workflow to the creations means that people can design their own jewelry before producing it, and with the help of 3D printing, inexpensive plastic prototypes can be create for sizing and fit before actually creating metal jewelry. With Trove, customers can choose from a catalog of 30 base designs, and begin customizing rings, bracelets, or necklaces from their Internet Browsers, and Trove will use in-house Formlabs desktop 3D printer to create initial prototypes of base jewelry designs so that the company knows the designs are printable to begin with. From there, after approving the customer’s design, Trove ships a plastic prototype for the customer to try on, and upon approval, the jewelry can be printed in gold, silver, bronze or brass.

Source(s): fortune.com

Lawyers Using 3D Printing In Court Cases

Lawyers around the country have begun using 3D printing in many phases of litigation. Nicole Black, an AboveTheLaw contributor, has published a recent series that followed two lawyers, Marc Lamber and James Goodnow, at one of the oldest and largest law firms in Arizona, Fennemore Craig, to understand how attorneys can incorporate 3D printing into legal cases. The firm bought their first 3D printer two years ago, and found it applicable to a wide variety of cases, and useful for all stages of litigation. Primarily, they work with experts to use the 3D printers to develop models that showcase to the other side of a case, whether that be an insurance adjuster or lawyer, where the main question in the case could have been easily resolved before causing their client harm. While the two concede that the use of 3D printers and design specialist are a heavy upfront cost, they have found that it saves many times that amount in costly litigation by encouraging settlements at the onset. They also say that using the 3D printer forces them to think about their case on a different level, allowing for a better understanding of the issues at hand.

Source(s): AboveTheLaw.com

Barnes & Nobel Showcase 3D Printing at Nationwide In-Store Maker Faires

The nation’s largest retail bookseller, Barnes and Nobel, will host the first retail Mini Maker Faire in coordination with Make:Magazine from November 6-8th. During this time, customers will be able to enjoy weekend time at Barnes and Nobel immersed in a variety of activities and workshops, and watch presentations regarding 3D printing and peripheral technologies. The roster of options for Barnes & Nobel customers is quite varied, ranging from learning about programming and coding, to hands on 3D printing. The plan is to have three separate workspaces: the Make Workspace, where leading products will be on display and allowed for interactive use; the Make & Collaborate workspace, where kids can form and create their own working circuit boards among several other options; and the Meet the Makers, which will host presentations from a variety of 3D makers around the United States.

Source(s): 3DPrint.com

Building a Steel Bridge with 3D Printing Dutch research and development company MX3D plans to take a new 3D printing technique to the heart of Amsterdam by printing an ornate metal bridge over a downtown canal. About three years ago, designer Joris Laarman and his team developed a 3D printing method called MX3D Resin, with the extrusion technology and fast curing resin able to form 3D object on any surface, independently of its inclination and smoothness, and without any additional support structures. From there the team designed a multiple axis 3D printing tool known as MX3D Metal, which combines an industrial robot with a welding machine and software developed to drive the combination. The MX3D robot can print with metals, such as steel, stainless steel, aluminum, bronze, or copper without the need for support structures. The firm has teamed up with various sponsors and partners, such as Autodesk and Dutch engineering company Heijmans, to build a bridge in the fall of 2017. Robotics company ABB will provide two robots, along with welding tooling provided by Air Liquide which will head up metal made of a new steel composite developed at the University of Delft, heated to 1,500C before welding the structure. The robots will then create their own rail-supports as they gradually 3D print across the canal. Source(s): PDDnet.com

Company Achieves 2 Micro SLA 3D Printing

Cyrpus 3D printer brand, ilios3D, has released a prosumer oriented 3D printer capable of printing objects as fine as 2 microns in resolution, practically unheard of in professional SLA machines. Ilios3D has designed the ilios Ray SLA 3d Printer to offer high resolution, substantial build volume, and according to the manufacturer, great versatility. The versatility comes from the ability to print a variety of objects in a multitude of size, but the ability to print at such a small resolution may help push the dimensions of 3D printing on a grand scale. And the incredible detail isn’t even the most interesting aspect, but the fact that the system is able to implement variable resolution per layer, so that detail can be increased for more complex layers in a single print.

Source(s): 3DPrintingindustry.com

Keeping Your Mouth Bacteria Free with 3D Printed Teeth A team of scientist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, led by Andreas Herrmann, have developed an antimicrobial plastic, allowing them to 3D print teeth that kill bacteria. To achieve this feat, the team embedded antimicrobial quaternary ammonium salts inside existing dental resin polymers. The salts are positively charged and disrupt the negatively charged bacterial membranes, causing them to burst and die. They put the mix into a 3D printer, used ultraviolet light to harden the mix and printed out a range of dental objects from replacement teeth to orthodontic braces. The material was found to kill over 99 percent of bacteria. The next step is to ensure that the plastics are strong enough for use as teeth, but if initial testing continues to show success, it won’t be long before the product is available on the market. Source(s): NewScientists.com

Research Insight of the WeekQuantifying the 3D Printing Landscape

It’s estimated that there exists one 3D Printer in New York City on any given city block. In October 2015, the city saw a Month over

Month growth in 3D Printer purchases of 4.3%. During the same time Paris witnessed a MoM

growth of 13.4 %.

Source: 3DHubs, 2015

3D Prints of the WeekShowcasing some of the most interesting applications of 3D Printing, from the amusing to the artistic to the innovative

Just In Time: 3D Printed Halloween Costumes

! As Halloween quickly approaches, 3D printing offers a host of options to find the perfect costume.

! Websites like MyMiniFactory and Thingiverse offer thousands of free print ideas for anyone with a 3D Printer.

! One such example is the iconic Jason Voorhees mask, shown to the left, which was uploaded to MyMiniFactory by Alan Stanford. It’s made of four printable parts, and perfect for anyone wanting a bit of authenticity this season.

Artists Used 3D Printing to Capture the Human Body and Soul

! Duong Le Thai, an orthopedic surgeon and sculptor originally from Vietnam, will showcase a series of artwork at this years 3D Printshow in Paris.

! Le Thai sculptured forms are inspired by the human body, but seek to capture more than just the physical form. He seeks to meld the body and spirit seamlessly, and this particular series, entitled the Ghost Series, uses nature as a connection between his work and the human physic.

! Most importantly, Le Thai uses 3D printing to make his sculptures, allowing for complex, and highly precise pieces with incredible detail.