Spanish City Installs 3D-Printed Bridge

Jen Kinney for Next City:  Alcobendas, Spain, this week unveiled a 3D-printed pedestrian bridge, reports 3ders.org, a 3D printing news site. The approximately 40-foot concrete bridge is made up of eight separate parts that fit together, and was created using an additive manufacturing process. It spans a small canal in Castilla La Mancha Park. According to a statement from the Alcobendas City Council, the 3D printing process resulted in far less waste than normally produced while creating concrete structures, making it less expensive than traditional processes. Large-scale 3D printing holds the promise of versatility — since structural elements can be created without molds or forms — and of sustainability, since raw material can often be recycled and fewer resources are required during manufacture.   Cont'd...

Desktop Factories: A 'Moving' Look at 3D Printing

Precision mechanical movement is an essential attribute of 3D printers. Stepper motors provide this control to many 3D printers thanks to their relative ease of use and competitive cost.

The Latest and Greatest of 3D Manufacturing

We find ourselves at a significant intersecting point in manufacturing history with growth and innovation driving manufacturing technology. 3D printing is about to change the world and manufacturers are capturing the moment.

Keys To Developing A Successful Product Prototype

Moving a product concept to the prototype stage remains an exciting step.

The Rise and Fall of the Everyman Tycoon

Article about the rise and fall of MakerBot by Andrew Zaleski at Backchannel: Itwas October 2009 when Bre Pettis — his unmistakable sideburns and dark-rimmed rectangular glasses framing his face — took the stage at Ignite NYC, threw his hand in the air, and shouted “Hooray!” two times. A PowerPoint slide lit up behind him, revealing a photo of a hollow wood box crisscrossed with wiring. Bouncing up and down, his profuse mop of graying hair flopping about, Pettis began: “I’m going to talk about MakerBot and the future and an industrial revolution that we’re beginning — that’s begun.” A former art teacher, Pettis had emerged as a key character in the growing maker movement of the late 2000s, a worldwide community of tinkerers who holed away in makeshift workshops and hackerspaces, equally at home with tools like old-school lathes and contemporary laser cutters. Pettis had begun his ascent in 2006, producing weekly videos for MAKE magazine—the maker movement’s Bible—that featured him navigating goofy tasks such as powering a light bulb with a modified hamster wheel. In 2008, he cofoundedthe NYC Resistor hackerspace in Brooklyn. By then, Pettis was a star. A year later, he launched a Brooklyn-based startup with friends Adam Mayer and Zach Smith (also a NYC Resistor cofounder) called MakerBot... (full article)

The Pursuit of the Perfect Part

While those in additive manufacturing know that there are many technical aspects to their craft, they also realize training is necessary to manufacture quality parts.

Researchers 3D print working drone with embedded electronics

The Engineer:  Researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have 3D printed a ready-to-fly drone with embedded electronics using an aerospace-grade material. The electronics were incorporated in the drone during the 3D printing process, which employs Stratasys’ ULTEM 9085, a high strength, lightweight FDM (fused deposition modelling) material certified for use in commercial aircraft.   Cont'd...

Hospital to get first dedicated 3D tissue-printing facility

Steve Dent for enGadget:  You still can't get a 3D-printed liver transplant made from your own cells, but an Australian hospital is trying to push the tech into the mainstream. The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane is building a dedicated "biofabrication" space where doctors and researchers can develop tech to model and print cartilage, bone and other human tissue. "It will be the first time a biomanufacturing institute will be co-located with a high-level hospital," said Australian Minister of Health Cameron Dick. The facility will occupy two floors of the hospital and use state of the art tissue manufacturing tech in surgery procedures. "Our vision for healthcare is that the biofabrication institute will pave the way for 3D printers to sit in operating theaters, ready to print tissue as needed, in our hospitals of the future," Dick said.   Cont'd...

A Complete Review of Semiconductor Lasers And a Few Words About What You Can Do With a 5.6 W Semiconductor Laser

This is a detailed article about popular inexpensive semiconductor lasers and about what you can engrave and cut using a 5.6 W semiconductor laser, installed on a 3D printer or CNC machine.

Time for Monumental Thinking in Additive

Karen Haywood Queen for AdvancedManufacturing.org:  The limits of CAD and CAE tools and the STL file format are holding manufacturers back As additive manufacturing emerges from a long infancy, the industry is grappling with a key challenge: A file format and design tools from the 20th century are being asked to do 21st century jobs. “The industry was a hobby industry for 25 years and it’s starting to grow up,” said Kirk Rogers, technology leader at GE. “You made a 3D model and it had a cool factor—Mickey Mouse or a little chess piece—it was awesome to look at,” said Kenneth Church, CEO of the R&D engineering firm Sciperio, as well as the 3D printing firm nScrypt. “What if I made it functional?    Cont'd...

With 3D printers and nanofingers, HP Labs builds a new future

Stephen Shankland for CNet:  Get ready for the third chapter in the book of Silicon Valley. During the first chapter, innovation in Silicon Valley was about atoms, carving up silicon wafers into the electronic transistors that started the computing revolution. The second one, more ethereal, brought the triumph of internet services like Facebook and Google. To be competitive now, a company must blend both approaches. That's the view of HP Chief Engineer Chandrakant Patel, who rose through the HP Labs ranks over 30 years to secure 151 patents and become the company's chief engineer. "The 21st century will require Silicon Valley to be a cyber-physical valley," Patel said.   Cont'd...

Using 3D Printers in Manufacturing

The 3D printing industry is expected to change nearly every industry it touches, completely disrupting the traditional manufacturing process. As a result, the projected value of the industry is expected to explode in the near future

3D printing hack: Researchers crash drone with sabotaged propeller

Conner Forrest for TechRepublic:  University researchers were able to sabotage a drone by hacking the computer controlling the 3D printer that made its parts, according to a research paper released Thursday. By changing the design of the propellor before printing, they caused the $1,000 drone to "smash into the ground" and break, shortly after take off. The paper, titled dr0wned - Cyber-Physical Attack with Additive Manufacturing, was a joint effort from researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), the University of South Alabama, and Singapore University of Technology and Design. In the paper, the researchers explained how they committed the cyberattack, and what the attack could mean for the future of 3D printing security. Using a phishing attack, the researchers gained access to the PC that was connected to the 3D printer.   Cont'd...

GE opening microfactory in Chicago to build industrial prototypes

Robert Channick for the Chicago Tribune:  GE is opening a microfactory in Chicago to turn big industrial ideas into small-batch prototypes.  The Chicago manufacturing facility, set to open in December, will be the first for Fuse, a new GE crowdsourcing initiative to create and build innovative industrial products. One of the first challenges on the Fuse drawing board, for example, is finding a new way to quickly inspect a hot jet engine between flights. "The idea of reaching out to the online community really accelerates how we introduce new products," said Axel Grippo, Fuse's inaugural general manager.  The microfactory will be housed inside the mHub technology incubator, and will employ a staff of about 15 to 20 once manufacturing gets up to speed, Grippo said. The first prototype is expected to roll out early next year.   Cont'd...

Give a 3D printer artificial intelligence, and this is what you'll get

Dyllan Furness for Digital Trends:  A London-based startup has combined some of today’s most disruptive technologies in a bid to change the way we’ll build the future. By retrofitting industrial robots with 3D printing guns and artificial intelligence algorithms, Ai Build has constructed machines that can see, create, and even learn from their mistakes. When CEO and founder Daghan Cam was studying architecture, he noticed a disconnect between small-scale manufacturing and large-scale construction. “On one side we have a fully automated production pipeline,” Cam explained at a recent conference in London. “On the other side we’re completely dependent on human labor.” With the emergence of more efficient printing technologies, he thought there must be a better way. “We wanted to push the boundaries of how intricate we could design things through computation and how we could create them through 3D printing,” Cam said.   Cont'd...

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