New, Terminator-inspired 3D printing technique pulls whole objects from liquid resin by exposing it to beams of light and oxygen. It's 25 to 100 times faster than other methods of 3D printing without the defects of layer-by-layer fabrication.
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I work for Joe. He's a great guy. My research focuses on other endeavors but I assure you like all research, Carbon3D stands on shoulders of giants as with most areas of interest. No one is trying to say we invented 3d printing. It's a step forward. Which I find exciting.

"No one is trying to say we invented 3d printing. It's a step forward. Which I find exciting." This is what I like to hear. Cyberdyne is making progress.

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Tyrell's are opportunistic twats.

Hey, uhhh, isn't that the name of the shadow corporation in Perfect Dark?

I'm pretty sure Perfect Dark had Datadyne, which sounds similar.

Aww man, I'm a reference scrub. :(

Your references are out of control. Reel them in!

Yeah, cyberdyne is the company in terminator

Cyberspline was the name of a terminators business.

Yup! That's what I always think of first haha. It's also from Terminator.

Ahh

They're the company that creates Skynet

http://terminator.wikia.com/wiki/Cyberdyne_Systems

Hes going to take over the world but he will be humble. And all the Terminators will be British.

Well, since they have been learning at a geometric pace since August 4, 1997, they really should be farther along by now.

How is this different from laser sintering tanks? As a VW design engineer we would send models for prototyping to the sintering dept, and they would take about 4hrs to make an item roughly the same size as a football.

The one time I got a view, I saw a rectangular tank about 1.5m x 1.5m x 2m, full of brown/green jelly and they were firing lasers into it to solidify the jelly. The parts produced were smooth (no visible layers, and quite brittle. They could be sprayed by the paint dept, or we could request that the part be hardened with fine superglue spray. This would have been 2001-2007.

I can understand that since then, processes have allowed for smaller machines for home users. But when I read how this amazing new technology is out, it doesn't look all that compared to decent industrial systems.

Just my view. I'm definitely no expert on the subject.

What these guys are adding is speed. They have a table on their website (carbon3d.com) where they claim that they can produce a part that previously took 11.5 hours in 6.5 minutes.

Yep, pretty good.

My point really was that "traditional" methods of producing these items were fast, but too expensive for the average user. The household printers may be cheap and portable, but are compromised in terms of the final product quality and the time taken.

These guys have found a faster way to print, but all they've achieved is to reduce the time compromise of the product. If the machine or process is expensive, they've really not gained very much over existing technology.

Modern SLA machines are already much cheaper than industrial machines you were referring to by the older players.

A form1 costs $3,200 and gets you down to 20 micron layer thickness and 300 micron feature size.

My assumption is that a commercial product based on the technology in this post would be priced at the Form1 level.

Well according to this post the difference is in the much smoother surface. SLS seems to be very weak in that regard.

Exactly. SLS Is amazing for printing high strength materials like titanium and other alloy metals, but is poor at rendering continuous features.

No, that's not the difference, as SLA has been around for decades and provides just as smooth as a surface. The real differentiator here is the introduction of air into the process that apparently can drastically reduce the build time.

This seems to be based off Stereolithography which cures photopolymers with a UV laser. Sintering melts metal powder with a laser.

This improves on SLA by reducing the cure time of the resin. I guess? Maybe?

Yes,and a part of this comes from the nature of "extruding" from the liquid itself. Each layer is self dithering due to surface adhesion. It would appear that is what the oxygen barrier layer is for, although I can't get to the paper itself right now (paywall) so I'm not sure on that part.

for each layer, the successive layer would have the film of the liquid "pulled" to it, greatly reducing surface roughness.

also diminishing part accuracy or sharp features potentially.

(I tend to use 3D printing for functional machine prototyping where clearances are important and not for making random action figures or play objects though...)

This should only occur on the single layer level though. (I'd need to know the viscosity of the resin and speed of extraction to know for certain). But I'd expect the resin to only pool in the notch between layers, similar to the curve of a sine wave with respect to the profile of its discrete sum (using say, the midpoint rule)

possibly. depends on the cure rate of the surface layer as it exits as well as its ability to suport underlying layers.

Main problem with most liquid resin printing is thermal stability though. We cannot use it for most of our functional end use parts as they simply do not have the stability needed at slightly elevated temepratures. (trying to print tubes for a project and they deformed under heat in a trunk of a car in texas)

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) is powder based. You are sintering individual granules together. This is stereolithography or SL where a photopolymer cures when exposed to the correct wavelength to excite the embedded photoinitiators! Still don't know what's novel about this one though...

The new thing about this is that it is faster than conventional processes; it is essentially a combination of several existing technologies that allows for controlled continuous polymerization of monomers in solution.

In contrast, modern 3d printers are some form of melting and reshaping material (physical processes), while this printer chemically combines monomers into polymers.

Edit: also, it means you don't need to give the thing an acetone vapor bath to make it smooth. So; less dangerous chemicals to handle.

Thanks! I went and read some more information from the Carbon 3D site. I think it is actually still using lasers to polymerize but the key is that the laser inlet window/bottom of the bath is oxygen permeable and the oxygen slows/prevents polymerization. This allows for "continuous" polymerization or at least a major blurring of the steps. Pretty cool!

Of course. But this looks like a ballscrew for the Z axis and a laser? Not all resins cure faster with oxygen in fact most cure slower or much more poorly when exposed to oxygen, which this tech appears to exploit. The speed is fairly impressive though but the gains appear to be based on other tech. What I am interested in though is the fact that the build envelope is likely limited by the DLP or other tech used to expose the resin. In other words, can it do speed AND resolution AND physical volume of print area or are these all tradeoffs and physical volume is ultimately somewhat limited?

Like I stated, this is not my area of research in the lab. However, I encourage you to reach out to Carbon3D directly at carbon3d.com with your questions! I'm sure they would be happy to answer. I apologize that I can't answer your question directly.

How nice is it when a Redditor remains within their bounds of expertise?!

How would I know? I'm no expert on redditors.

As an expert on everything and a mother, you're wrong.

So you're saying he does know?

He is saying that he is an expert and is either pretending not to know, or covering up that he doesn't know by stating that he isn't an expert.

I'm no expert, but they're jackdaws.

I definitely have some questions, thanks for the info though. Here's their contact page for anyone interested

Please instruct joe that we wish to speak to him in an ama

However, as speed increases, dead zone thickness decreases and will eventually become too thin for the process to remain stable. For CLIP, the empirically determined minimum dead zone thickness is ~20 to 30 μm. Part production with a dead zone thickness below this minimum is possible but can lead to window adhesion–related defects. Once the minimum dead zone thickness is reached, the print speed can only be increased by relaxing the resolution (i.e., using a resin with higher hA).

So they are limited to 20 - 30 micron layers in Z as the "thinnest" they can produce in terms of resolution?

Interesting. Polyjet is certainly slower but can readily achieve 15 microns in Z in "high quality" modes. It actually prints a bit more but then planes it off with a razor blade. Plus, it can achieve much, much larger build volumes.

Also because it prints "underpolymer", it mutes the layer effect by kind of smearing together with other layers so to appear more continious? But it still limits the resolution?

this is very early in this printing technology.

20-30microns is still quite impressive for what it is.

But this is the internet....

They demonstrate 1 μm slicing in one of the figures (3D model slicing). This isn't the same as the cross-sectional resolution.

So they are limited to 20 - 30 micron layers in Z as the "thinnest" they can produce in terms of resolution?

I think /u/PyroDragn is correct. The 20-30 micron seems to be about a feature (a wall or something) and indicates when the material/process can't support the structure. So you probably could have a feature of 20-30 micron thickness (wall with a window/frame) with much finer details/textures (the handle) on top of it.

Which is pretty interesting for producing small figurines for example - they probably have reasonably thick walls, but the surface detail resolution today tends to create rough textures, which this would substantially mitigate.

People have long since predicted a 3D printed "doomsday" scenario for companies that focus on small cast figurines, such as Games Workshop, or even more adult collector focused toy companies, but the quality of the print has been a disincentive. That might be about to go away... And if print speed is higher and fab costs also reduce more quickly than anticipated, that would also be a further blow to them.

To some degree yes, but overall plastic injection moulding is still very much faster (on a per unit basis). The detail has already been there for a few machines so it wasn't the main problem but the speed really could be useful depending on the price of the machine/resin goo, although it's probably more useful for producing boutique style small batch or limited edition miniatures (or prototypes).

The doomsday depends on the cost for this (machine/goo) and the high speed/detail is really helpful while price increases on the other side make this look more and more affordable, no matte what happens.

The per unit production costs aren't really a big part of the cost of those items typically - the profit margin is all in the character IP and the cost of entry into producing similar but not-infringing works.

So I guess my point is the risk in the collapse of sales of those highly profitable items, and that widespread printing of this kind inevitably waters down their practical ability to enforce their copyrights, irrespective of their actual desire to or legal protections.

Yup, I agree but that are two forces against each other. On the one hand the 3d printed parts need to be cost effective which in turn gets easier as product prices on the other side increase.

It doesn't matter that they can produce everything for more or less nothing with injection moulding if they still keep selling stuff at very high prices (and they have no way to just drop the prices without massive side-effects); and the higher the prices the more viable the 3d printed version becomes.

It will be strange and fun times to experience.

It actually prints a bit more but then planes it off with a razor blade

couldn't you do the same here?

At a huge speed cost, sure.

so they are limited to 20-30 micron layers in Z as the thinnest they can produce in terms of resolution?

As I understand it, it depends on what you mean. Is 20-30 microns the thinnest section of material they could produce? Yes.

But they aren't limited to only 20-30 micron 'layers' because they don't build up in (traditional) layers.

Polyjet can produce 15 micron layers, but only 15 micron layers. Trying to produce something that was specifically 160 microns (10 and a bit layers at highest resolution) thick would be trickier.

With the 'continuous' polymer curing of Carbon3D, the resolution is as fine as the steps need to be (again, purely based off of my understanding of the limited info I could find online). Without enough gearing they could step up in 5 micron 'layers'? 1 micron? It doesn't matter that already cured resin is inside the curing deadzone (the 20-30 micron area). As with anything, increasing the print quality would increase the print time, but their potential for accuracy is pretty high with enough mechanical engineering behind it.

with enough mechanical engineering behind it

Or just a precision Z axis ball screw.

or just a precision Z axis ball screw

The point being, 'enough mechanical engineering' defines how "precise" it needs to be. You could have a microscopically accurate screw but it means diddly squat if you do not have appropriate gearing attached to it, or a motor which can operate in small enough increments for the precision required.

Of course. But a stepper + gearbox + a ball screw + a laser + DLP are going to be extremely precise while also being reasonably inexpensive.

I believe they are using the oxygen to inhibit the curing and the laser to increase the cure speeds.

Correct. That's exactly what the article stated.

Hey! Congratulations on reading the article.

I'm pretty sure it's not DLP tech being used, you can see the lasers in the second video. It would be interesting to see DLP tech being used as this would allow 7u control of granularity and with a 3 chip system would allow exposure control from various angles.

I suppose you can use DLP and lasers though. They are not mutually exclusive.

DLP tech and lasers are used in cinema today, I didn't mean that since it was laser it couldn't be DLP. I was more noting the pulsed beam area was quite wide and not very granular but who knows unless they share specs. I could see how my previous comment sounded like I was saying DLP or laser, I blame it on my poor choice of words and lack of sleep.

DLP Stereolithography is already commonly used for 3D printing. So are lasers with galvonometers (which this on appears to be). No one has done LCOS yet (that I know of)!

DLP: http://www.solidator.com/3D-Printer.html Laser: look up form 1 or stratasys

No worries, I just wanted to clarify.

Post links for the lazy if you find any!

The reason I stayed away from resin style printers is the cost. I'm a hobbyist and so time isn't a huge factor but it can be frustrating. I saw a few models of this style printer at the Maker faire though and they are very cool.

In the article it states that they use a combination of light and oxygen. The light to harden the material and the oxygen to liquify it.

What I understand from other other article I read the oxygen stops the plastic from curing and they use light to cure the plastic they want to cure

The whole point is that when it's exposed to oxygen, it can't cure.

The oxygen thus acts to inhibit the resin from curing in certain areas as the light cures those areas not exposed to the oxygen.

So you make sure the oxygen ISN'T where you want the part to be curing.

You should read the paper if you can. The purpose of the oxygen 'dead zone' is exactly to keep the liquid from polymerizing except at the places that they want it to polymerize. The liquid can seep into the oxygen containing layer without polymerizing and then polymerizing if it is hit by the UV projection.

Then simply encase the printer in a chamber and fill it with a relevant gas or substance. There's always a tweak to twerk.

I haven't read the entire article but, any thoughts on how long it would take to build a functioning prosthetic?

This is really cool, I actually met him recently! He went to the University of Richmond as part of a seminar series they do, and he talked about his previous companies hes started and about the 3D printing that you all were working on with this method. Really cool to see it now getting the attention it deserves!

Is there a possibility of a CLIP printer by 3D Carbon being released to the public to buy soon? So glad I waited to buy a 3D printer, I am speechless and drooling right now in awe. This would be awesome for Architecture model pieces. Also I just want to add that is this is literally the coolest thing I have read in a long time!

I know you aren't meant to say 'wow, good, awesome' on Reddit, but all of those things to your team.

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Because this wasn't inspired by terminator anything, it's a clickbait title that is extremely misleading.

Isn't this the same concept as the Peachy Printer, but perfected for high quality?

But will it work in space?

"They say great science is built on the shoulders of giants. Not here. At Aperture, we do all our science from scratch. No hand holding" - Cave Johnson great man of Science.

Will this be patent encumbered? 3D printing got a huge boost through expiring patents, it would be a huge shame if we had to wait another 20 years before being able to use this.

"But it gave us ideas, it took us in new directions ... things we would never have thought of." ?

Can't read the article without signing in. What is the difference here compared to stereolithography (SLA) printing?

Stereolithography appears to print by a layering approach, this approach uses light and oxygen to direct the hardening of the resin in three dimensions at once.

SLA build layer by layer, after each "pass" there's a recoater blade, we called it slicing. If you have an overhang(let's say if you are building a T shape object, the horizontal bar needs to be supported or else it will drift away in the resin. The support is a mesh like structure that design to be easily break away, it's fine if you are building part without surface detail but if you are building a doll for disney with tons of surface detail(such as texture of clothing, character skin, geometric pattern) all the surface touching the support will need to be redo by hand.

The devil is in the detail, SLA is still the king of RP for polymer as it can produce fine detail down to 50 or so micron, that's thinner than a human hair. The EnvisionTec HD SLA printer I believe is the current leader of high resolution SLA. For your information all the toy, character and game figures are done in SLA 90% of the time.

But again, those yellow resin they use is not very strong, it cannot be used for engineering/mechanical study. Normal SLA such as Somos can be heat resistance(ceramic), clear, FDA safe(Bio plastic), etc.

The current consumer grade 3d printer are cheap because the material itself is cheap and the patent of FDM is expired. SLA will be avaible on the market as the patent is about to go bye bye, but do prepare a bottle of resin is couple grand compare to couple hundred for commerical grade FDM.

SLA resin also require a chemical bath to clean the part, after cleaning it also need to be "bath" in UV light for it to totally cure. In comparison FDM printing is super low in definition but it's relatively "clean" and painless to use.

Another supportless additive manufacturing technique is called SLS, it's a tank of power(polyer or metal) being zipped by laser. The zapped part will be harden and form a part without any need for rigid support as the surrounding "sand" like building material will naturally support it. it build plastic and metal part but the surface quality is quite poor, what the model maker usually do is pour superglue on the part before they even bother to sand it down.

<---Works in the R&D industry about 8+ year

Thanks for the in depth read. I'm pretty familiar with SLA and sintering (SLS), I just wasn't sure about this new style OP posted about. Couldn't read much beyond a brief summary of the article. I just revisited the article and it seems to have loaded better and with videos, will watch those soon. Great write up, didn't know about the patents. Thanks

but do prepare a bottle of resin is couple grand compare to couple hundred for commerical grade FDM.

Are there cheaper alternatives, or possibility for economies of scale, should it take off post-patent, or is it an inherently expensive material?

Not currently, the current patent and application of the SLA technology is still pretty much in the commercial sector. A 3D systems SLA printer for commercial is about 250k, so most of the companies that are actually buying those machines are rapid prototype firm. I can be wrong but the economy of scale ain't there yet, but again so was FDM 7 years ago, but once the patent went bye bye everyone and their mother started to build one.

I hope it does come down in price when it trickle down to the consumer end but be prepare the SLA technique itself is less forgiving than FDM and require alot of post print process. The SLA liquid itself is not safe for the environment as well as human/pet, thats why they even charge you to collect the used bottle.

Just to add a little bit, I am sure there will be a demand for the current FDM user to upgrade to SLA if the process and material itself is more reasonable(cost and process). Some of the most expensive SLA liquid are for medical or extreme use(Dental work, blood works, engine headers, rocket part, etc). I am sure they will make a human safe, "normal" plastic version of it in lower specification for consumer market if there's a large enough demand for it. Some of cost of the material included independent testing with lab and getting FDA certification, which is more painful than getting tax audit from my personal experience :)

I thought the SLA patents expired in January. I'm assuming that's why we're seeing this splashy launch now.

You might be right, I am not actively monitoring the trend anymore but I know it's it's around the corner.

He's mistaken, as Formlabs and B9 are similar UV cured resin 3D printers on the market already that can produce very similar parts for a fraction of the price as high end commercial units.

It would seem that this new system would need just as much support as SLA. The support would just be coming from the top instead of the bottom.

The devil is in the detail, SLA is still the king of RP for polymer as it can produce fine detail down to 50 or so

FYI, you can get prettty cheap 25 micron delivered to your door in less than 24 hours these days

Unless you are building toy model, the difference doesnt worth the extra build time 99% of the time.
FYI, most of the prototype firm will not even fire up the highest setting, unless there's an absolute must(making you pay extra for it, your native STL is good enough and there's no need to prep for paint).

If 50 micron is good enough for the "Big Mouse" company, it's good enough for me :)

I realise you're talking about higher end stuff, but there are "home-sumer" grade versions of both of these.

FDM is about $30 per Kg for filament, either PLA or ABS. There's other polymers as well that are more expensive. The machines vary between $300 and $2k

SLA runs about 70-100 per Litre of resin. The machines are really taking off now at around $2k to $5k being a sweet spot, although some cool ideas are running as low as $100 or $200 (Peachy Printer).

Obviously these aren't as good as a six fgure machine, but both FDM and SLA are getting VERY cheap, VERY fast. SLS is getting there too, with similar prices to SLA starting to come up.

Which is a great thing, I wish one day my future kids can print their own part and assemble them instead of buying what's on the shelf in ToyRus.

Again, don't forget once you finish the print of the SLA, you need to hang the part to drain for 10-20 mins or so. If you build a complete sphere shell with no outlet you will need to drill 2 holes for the resin to drain. The resin is super sticky, the usual post process is washing it with acetone and TMP. Once the part is free of resin you need to put it in a UV "oven" to cure the resin.

The chemical bath and UV oven are just something most SLA maker doesn't want address or let the end/home consumer knows because damn, it's a lot of investment upfront to say the least.

But hey, if there's big enough of a consumer market I am betting money they will have something clever and simple designed for production. Perhaps the printer itself can have a build in UV cure or part that can be rinse off with water and cure in nature light(which already have plenty UV in it)

I'd been looking into getting a 3D printer for a while, but am now holding out. From what I read, people are washing the resin off with ethanol. Shrugs.

A lot of these also package a UV cure box, but it's also something you can just stick in the sun for a while isn't it?

Well I guess you could if you do not have a deadline. But the UV turntable oven is more even in term of spread and you can able to control the "cook time". This is important for some of the Nanotech and Clear material, the clear stuff turns yellow if you overcook it.

I can get a liter of resin for my Formlabs 3D printer for $150, so UV cured 3D printers are already in the high end consumer market. The B9 creator is another similar technology.

Good to know the price is coming down. Great news for home user for sure.

Okay, dumb question: "What's FDM?"

Fused deposition modeling, essentially you take a long filament of thermal plastic, push it thru a heated nozzle to melt/semi melting state. The nozzle itself is mounted on a motorized and computer controlled XYZ axial jig that direct the jet of hot melt plastic to form a useful part.

It's what you see on consumer market now a day, due to the now expired patent. FDM is simple to use, cheap and easy to set up the quality is generally low, part are not as strong as the other additive manufacturing process.

Additive manufacturing process means you add material one bit by bit to build a part such as FDM, SLS, SLA, etc. While CNC, hydrojet or traditional Lathe/milling take a block of material, cut and trim until desired shape of the part is achieved.

Most additive manufacturing process can ignore and bypass overcut, drafting and moldflow issue found in traditional injection molding but again those two different process is not really competing with each other. A housing of your modem is mass produced in mult-cavities injection molding machine for couple cents per unit at the rate of 10 of thousands per houses vs 2 hours print time for one single prototype housing for couple hundred dollar.

Wasn't sure what the acronym was the abbreviation for.

While CNC, hydrojet or traditional Lathe/milling take a block of material, cut and trim until desired shape of the part is achieved

...been doing this for a living for 35 years now, very interested to see how you guys are going to put me out of a job. ;-) We had our own 3D Systems printers for doing rapid prototyping but they were broken more often than they worked. Now, we send out .STL files and get SLAs from somewhere and get plastic RPs done locally.

I am currently considering a job offer from a company that makes powdered superalloys and I understand that being able to "print" those would be a game changer,

Wait until I show you the price a few vendor we used in Shenzhen :)

Good luck with the new venture btw

A bit on the 3D systems, the whole thing needs a ton of maintenance and calibration all the time, humidity, vibration, change of temperature and voltage will have an impact on the build. We had a few of the SLA machines out of alignment because of there's an increase of semi truck traffic due to a detour.

heat resistance(ceramic) -> heat resistant (ceramic)

Wasn't SLA the first additive manufacturing technique? And if so, how is it that someone patented FDM first?

You seem to indicate that this new process will allow for easier production of parts with overhand, but I do not believe that is the case. The process is nearly identical to SLA, but removes the necessity to reapply resin on what I'll call the "production interface" at regular intervals by placing the "production interface" at the bottom of a pool of resin (thus continuously refilling the void created by moving the part). They do not appear to indicate in the article that this will allow for easier production of parts with sudden increases in base size compared to current SLA, and I personally do not see how it could. I would welcome further explanation on that point if you have it.

Also, I want to note that this is a significant step for SLA, just not quite as impressive as some articles try to make it sound.

You didn't answer the question.

I really wish they would show a graphic of how this works. Even a simple one. I have ideas, but would love to know if correct or not.

There is a schematic of the device in this article.

Very helpful, thank you for linking it. Interesting, how it is basically photolithographic in nature. I wonder of it is the viscosity of the resin or the depth of light propagation that is the limiting factor for layer thickness?

www.carbon3d.com They even have a video of it in action.

I don't think anything is hardened in 3 dimensions at once. I think the layerless appearance comes from the continuous extrusion and slight bleed from layer to layer. so there's still layers but it's like a light/oxygen movie being played at really high FPS. and the layers are really thin as a result, thinner then the bleeding effect of the process..

Also, this proces would also need support structures.. they might make the support structure or at least the links with the real object weak on purpose by playing with the oxigen/light mix..

Also keep in mind, this speed is useless for anything but mass production, there's no need for a printer to print 100 times faster if it just sits idle the rest of the time..

Either way, look like great technology and it opens some new avenues for sure..

Speed is important for consumer applications of this technology.

No it isn't. The need for polymer parts for a consumer is so low, speed is not really an issue. Providing it can be left unattended, a slow printer will serve you just fine. Items without build-lines is a far larger benefit, but there's this paint now that smooth everything out. I mean this is nice and it opens up options, but we're still a long way off from a 3d printer that's useful for consumers. there's only so much self-printed plastic figurines you put in you display cabinet or broken parts that home-printed plastic is strong enough for to replace.

This works exactly the same way. SLA spins a lead screw that drops the bed down one exposure layer. The projector is focused at that one point on the bed. In this application instead of lowering the object they raise it up. I certainly wouldn't call this revolutionary.

Give me a microscopic analysis of the object that shows curvature is smooth and not layered and I'll believe the "whole object at once" thing.

instead of lowering the object they raise it up

Thats exactly how our Form1 SLA printer works.

Instead of printing one layer at a time it uses oxygen to inhibit the hardening of the polymer resin so that you can continuously build the model.

Can we see it at regular speed so that we can experience what it can actually do.

I'm Copy/Pasting from my other reply further down the thread:

In a normal SLA printer, you have a vat of resin that turns into plastic when exposed to UV light. The bottom of the vat is clear, and there's a platform inside the vat which you can move up and down. To print, you put that platform very close to the bottom, shine a laser on the bottom of the vat to cure some resin into plastic, then somehow peel that layer off the bottom so it's stuck to the platform. Then you lift the platform a bit, laser again, and stick a layer to that first layer. Peel off the bottom again and repeat hundreds of times. In DLP printing, you do the same thing but use a DLP projector instead of alaser, so you can do the whole layer at once, and it's quicker. This isn't what's new here.

In both kinds, you spend most of your time peeling the layers off the bottom. That's a delicate trick you have to get just right to print well. In this new tech, CLIP, the bottom of the vat is made to let a little bit of oxygen in, and the resin is made with special chemicals such that light can't harden it if there's oxygen in it.

The result is that the resin at the bottom of the vat can't harden, so the light goes through and the resin above that oxygenated resin does harden. But since there's that oxygen layer, the hardened resin isn't stuck to the bottom of the vat, it's only stuck to the platform. Since you don't have to peel layers anymore, you can do them really fast. In fact, there's no reason not to make them insanely thin because without the peeling part, it's actually faster to have super thin layers. A happy side benefit of this is that there aren't any layer artifacts, so surface finish looks great even under an electron microscope.

I think this new tech is very cool, and it should blow normal SLA/DLP out of the water, but it still shares their other weaknesses, so I don't think this spells the end for FDM or SLS by any means.

https://www.readability.com/articles/xarh1lk2

Maybe you can read this.

Videos are in a comment above you.

Carbon3D's Super Fast 3D Printer Printing:

Red Bucky Ball

Blue Eiffel Tower

Material Types Demonstration

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Wait, if 7 minutes is fast, how slow are current printers?

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Wow this is the first 3D printed thing that I have see that looks good.

You haven't seen much then. Resin printing can reach crazy DPIs.

http://i.imgur.com/wpmzhdv.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/lxls9xN.jpg

SLS prints can also look really good.

Wow. That second one is impressive.

That's because you're seeing it properly cleaned up and painted. Do that to your run of the mill 3D printed objects and you'll start seeing how awesome things are now, and will get better.

You don't have to clean much up, if anything, unless you use supports. If you have a decent machine. 3d printing quality has exploded in the past two years. I can print layers that are less than a fifth of the width of a human hair strand. You'd go cross-eyed trying to see the layers.

Since i've been out of the loop for quite a while (not quite two years but close), what constitutes these days "a decent machine"? More importantly, are those decent machines only the really expensive commercial ones?

What model printers are you using?

I'll be at NPE next week, I'll post some pictures of the 3D printers and what they print

The high end printers do amazing work

What printer are you using to make such big models? I run a printrbot LCv2 and I'm restricted to 5 inch cubes at the biggest.

My Makerfarm can do 12" by 12" by 12".

There is a 15' high delta printer out there, and some people print buildings.

Looks amazing, can you share a higher resolution pic?

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No problem :(

That's really cool. Do you think you could take another pic or two?

How much does this cost? (not the printer itself, but the cost of any materials/ink or whatever goes into making this)

Depends on the printer but for general hobbiest printers ABS or PLA filament is about 25-30$ per kg. That (really large) Eiffel Tower is probably about half a kg. It's kind of difficult to speculate the weight of it though.

So, how fast would the new thing print it?

The Blue Eiffel tower in the video looks a lot smaller than yours, so it's hard to make a direct comparison.

Somewhere in the 4-5 hour range for that same object would be on the fast side. 10 or more hours for a slower, precise printer probably

I printed a half sized human skull on an Objet 30 and it took 20 hours. & minutes for that is pretty impressive.

I designed and printed a raspberry pi case which, while eventually will be cut with a laser, takes about 5ish hours to print on a 3d printer. http://imgur.com/CGC3gps http://imgur.com/HOWi1rj

Why would you 3d print something like this? You could have done this in like 20 minutes with some plywood and a laser cutter. I mean, I can understand that you are prototyping, but even prototyping with plywood would have been much faster.

Because I have access to a 3D printer that I can let run all day and it lets me check fitment, alignment, practicality, looks, etc. so waiting the afternoon for a print doesn't bother me at all. I don't have open access to a laser cutter, so when I want to use it I have to schedule and pay for it. This way if I decide I don't like the way the panel lines up with the ethernet/USB ports I can just fix and re run that single panel. I'll run a batch on laser once I'm satisfied.

Can be hours, depends on the complexity of the design and the method of printing. And I can assure you this level of detail is almost unheard in consumer level printers, except one and its prohibitively expensive. And still nowhere near as fast as this printer.

Well the first video is at 7x the speed. The platform thing hits the liquid a little bit after the 2 second mark and leaves the liquid about the same amount of time after the 52 second mark so I'm just gonna round to 50 seconds of video time for a rough estimate. 7*50 = 350 seconds which leaves us with a rough time of 5:50. So essentially we're looking at 6ish minutes.

However there's no size given? It could be a rather small model, there needs to be some scale given.

the title of the first video has "7X speed" in it

How am I supposed to know how long it actually takes, if it takes one minute at 7x speed? I'm not a mathematics.

I'm not a mathematics.

I don't even.

This is so fascinating.

Will this same process work with other materials?

As long as it is a UV photopolymer chemistry, yes. Which means acrylates, epoxies, etc. You can do neat things like get rubbery materials or ceramic nanofilled materials to modify the properties of the base material but it's fundamentally limited to "plastic like" materials with this tech, at least with commercially available materials that I am aware of. There are a few nano aluminum materials available that are considered fairly high strength though.

But not with steel or other similar metals/materials used in most types of structures. Resin is great but people need to start figuring out 3d printing with important materials. This new 3d printer seems like a really smart way of applying this particular resin.

HP is developing a enterprise-grade 3D printer to be released in 2016/2017 that can print high resolution objects with multiple materials (with metal under investigation) in multiple colors at 10 times the build speed of SLS and fused deposition modeling.

http://gpiprototype.com/services/metal-3d-printing.html

Metal 3d Printing is already a Thing.

There are already several companies that print in metals, such as titanium, steel, aluminium, cobalt chrome, inconel, etc. They use raw metal powder as a medium and sinter or melt the powder using laser or electron beams.

They are very expensive and more or less require a dedicated plant.

What about powdered superalloys?

Check out modumetal. ;)

I won't worry until they can put the stuff in the "hot side" of a jet engine. ;-)

Is anybody even laser sintering crystal perfect titanium/tungsten/etc alloys?

That's a much more technically astute way of asking my question.....

I'm thinking the answer is "no" and I'll probably be safely retired before it happens.

I think that's totally impossible.

Is there an image of the finished product? Specifically the Eiffel Tower? How detailed/correct is it?

I know there are some 3d printing systems that use metal, but has there been any advancement into mass producing 3d printed metal parts? I imagine engines becoming much more efficient/cost effective if they can make an aluminum 3D printed engine that doesn't rely on casting and machining. I don't know that you'd be able to replace forging for its stength-weight property, but you could certain shave weight in all sorts of other places being able to print engine parts to precise designs.

Most 3d printed steels are weaker - kind of like how cast iron isn't the same as a tool steel isn't the same as a samurai sword.

Saying that, check this out:

http://www.modumetal.com/

This is so cool. Straight out of a science fiction movie cool. :)

Specifically Terminator 2.

That's all kinds of awesome to watch.

ELI5 how does that "work"?

what's the temperature for the melted plastic stuff compared to regular 3d printing?

I work at a local makerspace and this makes me so damn excited

Eiffel Tower, earl grey, hot.

The liquid color in the first video sets off my ick response. Almost expecting it to come alive.

Came here for this. Thanks.

I don't want to sound like an asshole, but that's a lot slower than I thought it would be.

have you seen how slowly a normal 3D printer would generate the same item ?

SLA builds in layer, if you slice it to the finest layer(aka highest defintition) your build time goes up as well. BTW layer optical build such as envisionTec is already much faster than point by point laser build in 3D systems machines. Instead of chasing the outline with a laser beam, it shoots a plane of laser and expose it at the same time.

So this is like how dot-matrix printing was phased out by the inkjet/laser printer? Is that a good comparison kinda sorta?

But still 25x to 100x faster than other methods...

That's incredibly fast for a 3d printer. Something like that would take probably an hour or more with a conventional printer.

Seriously? Have you seen a regular printer? This took less than 10 minutes to build these. It would have taken an hour or more to print these in a regular printer.

Science paper: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/03/16/science.aaa2397

This is known as Stereolithography and has been around since the 1980s. They may have drastically improved upon it but it is in no way new.

It is similar - but major difference is that this is continuous printing due to the liquid interface at the window. When the light polymerizes the resin, the zone just above the window remains a liquid thanks to the oxygen inhibition in that region. Continuous printing is going to avoid the layers introduced from delaminating and realigning in form1. This will have improved mechanical properties, wider range of applicable materials, and much much faster print times

I still don't see how that's not just an improvement on existing technology though.

That's what technology IS, dude...

It is an improvement on existing technologies, like you said it is similar to the SLA. The large improvement is that this is able to print tremendously faster and better by harnessing the inhibitory properties of oxygen at the window to facilitate continuous printing.

improved mechanical properties, wider range of applicable materials, and much much faster print times

Oh I definitely agree that it is a huge improvement and very cool. The thing I take issue with is describing it as "Mind Blowing" and "New" when it is none of those things if you've looked into existing 3D printing technologies. Had the title read something along the lines of a new method of 3D printing revolutionizes stereolithography, sure I'll cede that point.

By your standards no technological advance in the past 80 to 100 years has been mind blowing or new, since pretty much all of them were created by small improvements.

Actually every mind blowing and new technological advancement I can think of happened in the last 80-100 years. Jet propulsion, organ transplants, computers, DNA sequencing, nuclear weaponry. When I say new and mind blowing I think of a car when the only thing that existed before was a bicycle. When I read about this I think of the difference between a penny farthing and a bicycle. One is just a drastic improvement of the same technology.

You are just not aware of the improvements that happened leading up to those technological advances. None of those were literally just invented out of thin air.

The shift from horse drawn cart to car took 50+ years of trial and error and continuous improvements. It's exceedingly rare for new things to arrive and revolutionize what we can do. In the past even revolutionary new technologies like superconductors and plastics took decades to have a large impact. It's hard to say what revolutionary new things have already been invented and simply have not had time to make their impact apparent.

Well you're going to be waiting for a long time then. The physical world is relatively close to being fully understood, the only "mind-blowing" tech would be something that redefines physics as we know it. Everything else has been imagined and is just waiting for details to be hammered out and prerequisite materials to be made.

Seems like a major improvement. Even so, I don't see how its not a big deal.

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I can't remember if it was stereolithography or laser sintering, but last I heard I think the patents you're talking about actually expired last year. There was a bunch of excitement about it, and then nothing... So far.

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Quite true, it will be a while yet before someone really takes advantage of those expired patents. Seems like the smallest of hurdles in bringing something so sophisticated to the average consumer living room...

Stereolithography is a rather general term and there are several new innovations here

Yep, it looks like the Form1.

I'm not really sure what the difference is.

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Never seen a form1 in person. What does "peel" mean? Is there some sort of reset between layers?

Apart from speed and ease of use the main advantage is a product produced in 1 piece without having to cure it. There are no layers of material, it's all just 1 bit.

Soooo just like the form 1

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The Form 1 still leaves visible layers in the finished piece

Speed? Or a cheaper technique? Or plugging a new thing in, discovering it, calling the new thing your own invention, patenting it, then rolling in the moneys because you have the manufacturing and distribution already worked out. Or speed?

Exactly what I was going to say. I remember seeing this on Beyond Tomorrow in the late 80's.

I was gonna say, I'm pretty sure I saw a machine like this on take your kid to work day like ten years ago.

this was the first thing I noticed. My engineering professor made me read up on stereolith like the SLA 250 and 500, despite the fact that the book was from the 90s. Guess it was worthwhile knowledge after all, as I was able to tell how the technology worked as soon as I watched the video.

I saw a Discovery documentary where they recreated a skull by 3D scanning the fossilized fragments with an MRI and assembling them digitally and then using a laser-into-resin print to actually make the skull. It was so cool when the finished skull rose up from the goop!

So yeah, this idea is old.

Shit, APR was using this tech to prototype manifolds in the early '00's. The Main issue was the fluid was hundreds of dolllars a gallon.

Nothing new, just better, faster, stronger, etc.

The basic technique of using light to cure a resin in layers dates back to the 70s, I think. It's ooooold. And the resin still isn't cheap. Hundreds of dollars a gallon still holds today. So rapid prototyping is one thing, but with the cost of the resin (or thermoplastic filament for that matter), and adding a few thousand for the printer itself and you can see that this is still only interesting for engineers, artists and rich hobbyists. Not to mention all the calibration and maintenance.

As a consumer facing 3D printing company that focuses on speed and low cost for our clients, this ls is the most exciting equipment I've seen in years.

Almost 50 times faster than our current SLA process and still high res. Don't even think about comparing this to a Form1.

That part print in 7 minutes a desktop, low res printer takes almost 4 hours to do.

People are saying the fluid used may be very expensive.

Perhaps it would even out? Time=Money after all. Being able to print eight pieces an hour instead of one every four should drastically increase the production rate.(If that is important to this particular company.)

Also, the price would probably go down a lot if it was produced in large quantities. If this can use fluids which are strong enough for production use, imagine if a place like IKEA had a large printer to form parts from a vast catalog in each store without any need for long range distribution.

Isn't most of what Ikea sells wood? Can they 3D print wood stuff yet? (The wood filaments I've seen aren't really 'wood' or have the same properties).

Ikea sells wood because wood is cheap, easy to work with, and reasonably durable. If 3d printed plastic took on those properties Ikea would start selling 3d printed plastic.

Well, it would be generous to call the stuff IKEA sells "wood" more like "cellulose based". I'm not sure if plastic is any LESS authentic actually...

Of course they sell wood... A lot of their stuff is pine.

True. The HEMNES line is full wood, along with their full kitchen units as well as a few scattered pieces in other lines, but a large amount of it is particle board. I can definitely imagine coming up with a cellulose impregnated resin that could work

There are new resins being developed that mimic the properties of wood, so it might be possible.

How about no. I like wood.

Typically printing resins cost between $160 to $800 per litre, got any more details on what very expensive might mean?

Does the material expand when solid? A solid litre of fluid seems like it would make lots of things considering stuff like the Eiffel Tower is mostly empty space.

Just like with any new material it will be expensive when it first comes out and less expensive as more people adopt it.

Is it really much different than form1? Same issues of having to clean off liquid resin, too?

But what if we condense them to the same speed, and do a side-by-side; which one will look cooler, hmm?

Considering one method already appeared (more or less) in what is widely considered the best ~~science fiction~~ film of all time... I'm guessing this method looks infinitely cooler.

What does this cost compared to other techniques?

I think it's fantastic, it reminds me of the first time I saw an inkjet printer in action after all those years with the dot matrix.

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Would you be able to print objects like chains with this type of printer? It seems like everything has to be connected together or it won't work.

You can do it with a small amount of the support material (that they claim they don't need, which isn't actually true). Once it is printed, you break them apart. It is a technique that is already used with many things that are printed in place within an assembly.

every method has its drawbacks.

as long as every discrete part of the thing you're trying to print is self-supporting along every point on the axis of print.

"Geordi, we need a new warp core STAT!"

"Just a second we need 6 more minutes for the printer to finish printing!"

"Geordi you've got 3."

"Got it, Data?"

"I'm on it, Sir."

Got it.............Data?

There's no time for that now!

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I agree. First was experiences like using Shazam on a song playing in a store and listening to the album on the way home. And on a whim downloaded a stop motion app to make a short one to cheer up my gf.

Now you can buy drones with cameras you can control with your phone on Amazon. And just saw an attachment you put between a tripod and camera / camcorder / spotlight and a sensor you wear and it tracks you while you surf or whatever.

3D printers is another one of those things for sure...

Does it require a pool of resin to be heated? What happens if the resin collects then drips into the path of the beam?

It's pretty weird, but the object is hardened / formed at the bottom of the pool of resin! The bottom. And the UV is projected upwards at the bottom. A diagram in this article illustrates it:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a14586/carbon3d-3d-printer-resin/

As far as I can tell, they haven't revealed the exact composition or temperature of the resin.

The ramp test patterns in Fig. 1C were printed with trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TMPTA) using the photoinitiator, diphenyl(2,4,6-trimethyl-benzoyl)phosphine oxide. Other objects were printed with a combination of monomers from Sartomer (CN2920 & CN981), TMPTA, and reactive diluents such as n-vinylpyrrolidone, isobornyl acrylate, and cyclohexane dimethanol di-vinyl ether. We also utilized the photoinitiators, phenylbis(2,4,6-trimethyl-benzoyl)phosphine oxide, 1-hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone, and 2-benzyl-2-(dimethylamino)-4'-morpholinobutyrophenone along with an assortment of dyes from Wikoff and Mayzo.

Anyways, it doesn't matter what temperature it is or the composition so long as your resin meets certain properties delineated in the paper. As long as the mechanism of polymerization is radical polymerization, your resin should work given that the resin falls within certain parameters.

The resin used is $50 for 100 grams

The photoinitiator used is $40 for 10 grams

Buying even slightly in bulk makes it way cheaper. It's 50 for 100, but 114 for 500.

Plus: With every material, when it's used widely, it gets cheaper, because people figure out how to produce it cheaper.

it's worth noting, though, that that puts the price, even at your discounted quote, at ~10% the price of gold (which is pretty damned expensive). Granted, that corresponds to greater volume, but it's worth keeping prices in perspective.

EDIT: I apologize for terrible comma splice. Will not edit, though.

Gold is heavy, so 10% price doesn't mean 10x the volume of material, much more volume.

yes, in fact if you look carefully you'll see I even mentioned that in my post.

As a trivia bit, uv resins have densities roughly similar (within 5-10%) of water (1g/mL) Gold has a density approaching 20.

What am I gonna do read your whole post?

It's funny because it's not uncommon for me to make essay/wall of text posts and that is actually one of my shorter ones. heh.

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This... this made my day.

Thanks for those links! Do you know what the mixing ratio is?

You would have a rubbery model, but why wouldn't something like screenprinting emulsion work for this machine? UV activated and like $60/gal.

Ohh, so it's like "laser etching" with heat on the bottom of the pool? That's... really smart and elegant

I'm almost certain that it's koolaid

Seems to me that the resin does not need to be heated. It's prevented from solidifying by the oxygen they are sending through it.

http://carbon3d.com/

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I get it now. The oxygen prevents the UV light (that is shining through from the bottom) from curing the resin at the very bottom on the bath, the "dead zone". So thereby the resin is cured by the UV light just above the dead zone, where the build platform is. This is good because the cured resin will be prevented from sticking to the bottom, and can be easily moved up by the platform for the next layer to be cured.

I've had no experience in 3D printing so took a little bit of extra study :)

Here's an overview of what's actually happening here, I only hope this gets some attention since i showed up to the thread so late...

In a normal SLA printer, you have a vat of resin that turns into plastic when exposed to UV light. The bottom of the vat is clear, and there's a platform inside the cat which you can move up and down. To print, you put that platform very close to the bottom, shine a laser on the bottom of the vat to cure some resin into plastic, then somehow peel that layer off the bottom so it's stuck to the platform. Then you lift the platform a bit, laser again, and stick a layer to that first layer. Peel off the bottom again and repeat hundreds of times.

In DLP printing, you do the same thing but use a DLP projector instead of alaser, so you can do the whole layer at once, and it's quicker. This isn't what's new here.

In both kinds, you spend most of your time peeling the layers off the bottom. That's a delicate trick you have to get just right to print well.

In this new tech, CLIP, the bottom of the vat is made to let a little bit of oxygen in, and the resin is made with special chemicals such that light can't harden it if there's oxygen in it.

The result is that the resin at the bottom of the vat can't harden, so the light goes through and the resin above that oxygenated resin does harden. But since there's that oxygen layer, the hardened resin isn't stuck to the bottom of the vat, it's only stuck to the platform.

Since you don't have to peel layers anymore, you can do them really fast. In fact, there's no reason not to make them insanely thin because without the peeling part, it's actually faster to have super thin layers.

I think this new tech is very cool, and it should blow normal SLA/DLP out of the water, but it still shares their other weaknesses, so I don't think this spells the end for FDM or SLS by any means.

You should ask the mods why they removed this comment and see in they'll put it back. Thanks for the explanation.

Thanks for the tip off, I've sent them a message. I suspect the look of disapproval I had at the beginning broke their rule on memes.

Why isn't this post at the top? This description completely nails it in explaining the operation!

I put the look of disapproval at the beginning initially, in reference to some of the other descriptions in here. AutoMod caught that and removed the comment pretty quickly, and by the time it was reinstated the thread was mostly dead.

This is actually one of the most informative comments in this thread, thank you for explaining clearly.

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Is anyone studying the effects of extended exposure to curing resin?

You! Congrats

Photosensitive methacrylate resins for 3D printing are quite stable. When curing, they polymerize. It's only a slightly exothermic reaction. What makes you think curing lets off toxic gases?

This is a solvable problem: consumer versions should be enclosed (good idea for safety and quality control anyway) and ventilated with positive pressure into an exhaust pipe that can be run out of a window.

For now, you can solve it for yourself with a sheet of plexiglass, a couple of computer case fans, a few feet of flexible tubing, and some hot glue.

Ah, yes, the good old out-of-the-window approach.

"Dilution is the solution to pollution" I suppose.

If you were actually worried aboutt it you could just add an inline carbon filter. Since most of the actually toxic gasses should be fairly large, it might be doable. Obiviously you won't be trapping the Co2 or anything quite that simple though. An oil bubbler of solvent might work though...

Second hand experience here but I haven't heard of any similar issues of fumes in the Form 1 resins. Is it possible the commercial 3d printing resins are slightly different or more stable?

Got a source on that? Couldn't find much info by myself

Here is a link to the actual science article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/03/16/science.aaa2397

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Man, this was super exciting -- I was researching how to build one, until I tried finding sources for the Telfon AF 2400 that they're using as the oxygen-permeable membrane. The stuff is $1800 / 25 grams! Definitely not hobbyist level materials... :-/

Someone should invent a chemical printer that produces this 3D printer ink. I wonder if this chemical printer could be 3D printed?

Sorry for the ignorance here but I'm not very experienced in this subject. I get that it's cool and all, but why is 3D printing such a big deal?

Asking a question is not ignorant at all. 3D printing has an unlimited number of uses. Such as printing prosthetic arms and legs for a cheaper price, to printing and assembling a working gun. Whether you want to create and design your own model toys, or your very own guitar, a 3D printer can help you with that.

And it can print using a useful material? From the little I've seen of those, they printed with what looked like a paper substance. Would that not render those examples useless? Or is this exciting because it can lead to that?

3D printers can use a variety of materials, depending on the printer. Examples: Plastic, nylon, epoxy resins, steel, wax, polycarbonate, and some others that don't come to mind.

Thank you!

It is also useful for printing objects which in turn may be used to make a mold; so, you design your product, embed it into something like plaster or sand or whatever, and then pour in molten metal. The plastic simply vaporizes, and (if done correctly) the metal replaces it.

You're welcome!

Steel?!

Edit: Holy Shit!

FYI, the process in that video is called "Indirect 3D Printing", where you print a porous part and infiltrate with a softer metal such as bronze or copper.

Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) produces solid metal parts directly, by heating a bed of powder with a laser. The finished products are up to 100% as strong as milled, and this system supports almost any metal-- steel, stainless steel, aluminum, titanium, and engineering superalloys such as Inconel. Here's a video showing the actual process on an EOS M270.

That was pretty cool. Why does the laser start each layer by dancing around to make a rough outline? Why not just start scanning across the part right from the get go?

In my experience working with these machines, scanning the outline first leads to better dimensional accuracy and a better surface finish on the vertical surfaces.

better dimensional accuracy and a better surface finish on the vertical surfaces.

Perfectly stated. The scanning patterns on these machines are proprietary, but I know that EOS always scans the outline first.

It may depend on the material. Inconel 718 in the EOS process appears to have the outermost contour exposed just before recoating.

I work mainly with aluminum mixes in the EOS machines, but interesting, thanks.

What manufacturer/materials were you using?

ConceptLaser M1 Cusing, Argon inerted process chamber

Material: AlSi10Mg powder, average diameter 50µ

Thank you!

You're welcome!

up to 100% as strong as milled

DMLS sounds cool (and makes perfect sense) but the above phrase is a bit weasel wordy isn't it? Can you indicate what kind of comparative strengths are typically achieved? I can't imagine a sintered part is really as strong as a cast part.

Also, doesn't the sintering cause a lot of oxidation? After all, any surface oxide that forms during the sintering becomes included in the internal structure of the final part.

I can't imagine a sintered part is really as strong as a cast part.

Cast parts have their own difficulties, both on the macroscopic level (e.g. internal cavities) and the mciroscopic (e.g. inclusions, segregation and other microstructural phenomena) due to solidification with little control over process parameters. DMLS parts can achieve equal or better mechanical properties compared to traditional casting methods. Source: my Master's thesis on the mechanical properties of AlSi10Mg DMLS parts.

Also, doesn't the sintering cause a lot of oxidation? After all, any surface oxide that forms during the sintering becomes included in the internal structure of the final part.

Oxidation is a real problem, which can be alleviated by operating under protective atmosphere (in my particular case: Argon).

A last point: these DMLS or Selective Laser Melting processes shouldn't be called sintering. The laser creates a melt pool, and all the material in a layer is brought to a molten state (and rapidly solidified).

All in all, very interesting stuff! This technology is already used in medical implants and the aerospace industry.

Can you indicate what kind of comparative strengths are typically achieved?

http://imgur.com/eW7mgDU

Some results for mechanical properties of tensile bars produced by SLM. (Material: AlSi10Mg), in comparison to typical values for cast pieces. Do note the directional anisotropy, als the layer by layer production produces parts that exhibit different properties along the build direction vs across it.

Interesting! (en leuk om onverwacht iets in het Nederlands tegen te komen).

Do I read correctly that the ultimate tensile strength is greater in DMLS parts than in cast parts? And if so, how do you explain that? Smaller grain boundaries and less crystal plane slippage?

As I was only tangentially involved with the materials science behind it, I cannot offer a definitive answer. Small grain size due to rapid cooling is most likely part of the answer (aided in particular by the high thermal conductivity of Al ), but also phenomena like precipitation hardening play a part.

Cast parts also suffer from various defects due to the casting process which in turn can lead to stress concentrations etc. Experts in metallurgy could probably offer a more specific answer.

Not weasel wordy at all, DMLS can produce parts that are stronger than cast, and close to wrought properties. Let me find a good paper which compares mechanical properties.

Oxidation isn't an issue as the entire printing process takes place in an inert atmosphere, usually nitrogen gas.

Damn, Sintering is like magic.

You can 3D print Inconel? Coolest thing I learned all day.

Someone built a solar powered one that uses a lens to focus sunlight to melt sand for 3D printing.

Space-X uses 3D-printing for their engines.

Amazing.

I wonder how many people and man(people?) hours it would take to make such an engine.

That was amazing.

I imagine there's a lot of obstacles still to be overcome, especially with steel. It sounds like it would be difficult to work with it at it's molten temperature with great precision.

Any weld able alloy can be currently printed. Time is the only constraint that really needs to be dealt with. It is currently, in most cases, cheaper to print with titanium than with steel. Just because the print time is halved.

I'd also like to add that paper 3D printing does actually exist and I can't think of too many other examples but composite filaments allow for wood 3D printing!

An Italian guy came up with one that essentially prints sandstone.

Have you not seen the 3D printers that can use ABS plastics? I have seen ones printing metal.

While 3D printing is relatively new to the consumer market, I've seen stuff that came from an industrial 3D printer in 2002...which looks blocky compared to today's low end models.

So does this mean when the printers become widespread a 1-2 thousand dollar item will only cost the base cost of materials? Or do you think they will control access to preserve our conceived notion of values?

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So our money may change into particular resources used to print as currency? That's my immediate reaction to this.

I seriously doubt 3D printing will ever get to that point. Plus, you still have food and wages for those who have to produce the materials, you can't just... pay them in what they're producing...

But this could be a stepping stone to printing organic materials like food. This could change life.

That'd be an interesting thing to see, but people cling to tradition pretty well, too. I guess it remains to be seen.

To an extent. I think in todays society, at least some people cling to ease of living more than tradition. There's a widespread use of things like grocery delivery and working from home.

Grocery delivery actually used to be very popular before the ubiquity of cars and the rise of supermarkets. It is returning now due to online shopping and more people living in cities.

I think when corporations feel threatened by it, they will lobby for stronger regulations of the technology. The government is already considering control, especially after there was a whole website dedicated to freely downloadable one time use 3D printed guns, that did work as intended.

I think that is a good thing though. That company demonstrated exactly what could happen: the arming of regular people without the skills necessary to safely control a weapon on a large scale.

Problem was...it wasn't from a company, it was people like you and me that designed them, and put the models on the web for anyone to download. Think "Linux", they were all open source, improve the models, update them, create your own....

But that clearly shows one of the biggest issues with this. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge supporter of any technology that can positively influence fields such as medicine and scientific research. But this being uncontrolled looks to me like a potentially dangerous mistake.

That's a problem, now how do you control something that all you do is have a 3D model you create in CAD-3D/Maya/3DSMax, and hit "print"

You really can't, and that's my only issue with 3D printing. If it's released to the public, regulation will be virtually impossible.

It's already here, you can commercially buy a 3D printer capable of printing ABS plastic for less than $1,000. They have plans online that you can build your own 3D printer using various rods, stepper motors, controllers that can be made using a Raspberry Pi. The only real specialty part is the print head, which is about $80.

I was not aware we were already there. Thank you.

If the 1-2 thousand dollar part is made of weak plastic only then yes. If not then no.

But a rifle's worth of metal costs way less than a rifle.

made of weak plastic only then yes

But for one or two shots https://defdist.org/

There are a rainbow of materials to print with! All sorts of exotic resins that allow great visual or mechanical properties to take place in your printed part, or simple and strong materials like Nylon, ABS plastic, polycarbonate, etc.

It's not a paper substance - it's a huge range of materials. There are companies doing direct-to-print prosthesis in addition to mechanical and visual verification models for new products, and even some companies that are making 3D printing as part of their product manufacturing process.

3D printing normally uses plastics; I've used some and they're pretty strong. There are lots of kinds though, including flexible ones and whatnot.

Talking about uses, I was recently doing a computing project where we needed some small shapes to test on; the lab I was in had a 3D printer and we got a large batch to test with in just a couple of days. It was pretty cool.

So do you think the printers are reliable enough to eventually have the field of medicine rely on them? (Ie prosthetics, syringes, etc).

That's way outside my field of knowledge, although I think some teeth might already be 3D printed.

Thanks, I appreciate your input. Despite my lack of knowledge on the subject it greatly interests me.

I remember someone made a prosthetic arm for like 1k that worked better than his 10k commercial bought one

There's a company called Glidewell that uses 3d scanning and mills to make teeth out of zirconium. Then they used their mills to make breadbox sized mills that fit on your desk, like an inkjet laid on its short side, standing up. These can cut an upper or lower set in a dentist's office in maybe 30 minutes. The cost of the tiny teeth mills was slated to be about $12,000.

A real CNC mill for $12,000 that could work on aluminum and zirconium seemed really cool when i saw them working.

edit: the tiny mills changed the process of getting tooth implants. used to be go to dentist, he scans your teeth with a 3d scanning wand; data is uploaded to glidewell, where a large floor of people work on computers to align the 3d images so there is no clipping of the polygons in the models. Then the data would be exported to a mill, where the teeth would be milled, then QA, then shipped out. Took about a week turnaround.

New process: Dentist takes 3d capture of your teeth, uploads to glidewell, where their servers algorithmically align the polygons, then the model is sent for a fast QA by a human; then the model is sent back to the dentist's office, where the mill is loaded with a zirconium disc and mills your teeth on the spot. Total time maybe 2 hours turnaround.

Syringes probably don't make sense to 3D-print. 3D printing is mostly interesting for making small batches - prototypes, unique designs, things that can't be mass-produced economically because you won't sell enough units to recoup the upfront investment. A 3D printer is analogous to a printer, whereas an assembly line is analogous to a printing press: you use a printer for your school paper, but when you're printing a million copies of a book, you use a printing press.

Now, prosthetics are a great potential use case. 3D printing combined with 3D scanning can allow a prosthetic to be fitted exactly to a patient. But I'd still expect that a combined approach would be the most effective and economical method in most cases: mass-produce the body of the prosthetic, and then print the components that interface with the patient's body.

To answer your question, it will be reliable enough. The technology is getting better and cheaper every day, and there's no reason that shouldn't continue.

University of central Florida has a project going on to produce inexpensive customized prosthetic devices for children. In the range of $300 instead of $18,000.

So, I think there certainly is potential.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/technology/tech_check/os-ucf-boy-meets-iron-man-20150312-post.html

Just because it prints something that might not be immediately useful as a plastic doesn't mean you can't use that plastic to then create the mold to pour something more serious into.

Make figurine in 3D program. Print in plastic. Mold in silicon or special plaster. cast in pewter, or chocolate, or anything else.

The different 3D printing processes have different costs/resolutions/capabilities/materials. Some are more advanced than others, and some require expensive infrastructure that you can't currently have at home. But you can already order pretty much anything (that you create or that others create) printed in a variety of materials. There are many websites dedicated to it like Shapeways. Look at all the materials they have.

Even if you can't print in the material you want, you can print a mold for it.

So skilled labour will essentially be made invalid? I don't need a blacksmith when I can print a hammer.

You already don't need a blacksmith as hammers are mass produced in factories.

Going from a mold to a finished product is non-trivial, though, and requires some skill and expertise.

But it doesn't if you can 3D print the hammer.

I guess I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

What I mean is why would you need people making things if you can just print them yourself? Won't this completely invalidate at least some stores and most factories/plants?

Some, yes, definitely.

At a certain point? Sure. We're not even close to that point though. It will also still be cheaper to manufacture many things than to 3d print them.

Well I don't need a prosthetic or plastic toys so I guess I'll skip it for now. This reminds me of auto CAD machines from tech class in HS

Maybe you need a dildo \^^

Dildos are no longer allowed to be printed on the schools 3d printers. There was an official statement made to that effect.

It's great for companies needing to print up prototypes. For actual practical allocations, nothing really. Toys? I can buy one for a dollar. Prostethic arms? Cheaper to mass produce. Anything else? Cheaper to mass produce. Prototyypes for companies! Cheaper to print. So that's like one thing.. Cool.

I completely agree with most of that, but prosthetics should be tailored directly to the person. In that case, it does make sense.

But yeah, in general it's all for prototyping and niche applications. For everything else, high throughput methods are better.

Yeah, but even then, most good prostesis have some metal in them, so they would still be hard to justify.

True. But it's about being able to print anything YOU want at the specific moment in time. Maybe you need a screwdriver to open something, but you can't seem to find yours, and all the stores are closed. Oh, why not just 3D print one?

So you pay 10,000 dollars to be able to print out a screwdrive or something else that doesn't move. Meh. It's at least a decade away from being something remotely consumer oriented, if ever.

You can get a decent home 3D printer for $250-600.

So then it will take 32 hours to print your screwdriver, and 400 dollars, instead of a 10 minute trip to the store.

You're missing the point. You can print an unlimited number of things. And its not a one time use machine either. Plus, I don't know where you got the 32 hours from. I can tell you are trying to be a smart-ass, and aren't genuinely interested in this thread. I will not reply to you any longer.

but why is 3D printing such a big deal?

its a fundamental change in how things are made, with what materials, where, by whom/what, and when.

a gun receiver that used to be regulated and would require substantial manufacturing resources and expertise can be 3d printed by anyone anywhere.

sculptures, brackets, anything and everything can be 3d printed by just about anyone.

what used to take a skilled craftsman years to learn to carve out of a figure in clay is made in days by a person and 3d software and a printer....

and what used to take thousands upon thousands of dollars in tooling to create 1 specific part, piece, or mold is now reduced to just a few hours of print time and material cost.

and don't even get started on complex geometries that would be impossible to make by all previous manufacturing techniques.

hollow metal structures/lattices, hollow plastic structures, you can design every single aspect of your part and it won't cost a whole lot more to make, and generally speaking hollowing it out saves time and material which is a huge plus.

then you get into custom fit/applications. You have a specific part that you need that you can't buy in store? 3d print it. Instead of going to a mold maker, sculptor, or some kind of craftsman, you now have the tools to make it on your own. (the expertise is still an issue though)

soon we will be 3d printing custom fit and designed shoes, for the same price if not less than a traditionally made pair of shoes.

You could go to a store and say "hey i want more foam here, here and here for more cushioning" and "this part of the shoe generally wears too fast for me, lets make it thicker in those places, and use a stronger material"

And keep in mind it would be custom fitted to your foot already in ever way.

The barrier to custom items is drastically lowered, in terms of cost and time.

applications are basically endless.

Basically, before cheap consumer 3d printing, people said "i don't have the resources to make that". But now you do.

I'm not trying to be a party pooper, because most of what you're saying is correct. It's important to keep in mind, though, that additive manufacturing is not a magic bullet.

In this comment and the one below, you talk about gun production. First off, we still don't have the capability to print an entire firearm-- there's no way to create a rifled and machined barrel surface. Mostly though, the type of printing needed for full-strength metal parts is called DMLS (direct metal laser sintering), and it still requires highly skilled technicians for operation. Builds need to be set up, parameters varied based on part geometries, and post-processing is still highly intensive. In fact, most engineered DMLS parts will be machined after printing "the old fashioned way", on a CNC mill or lathe.

These types of machines are still hundreds of thousands of dollars, and require an industrial level of peripheral machines and skilled individuals to actually produce a good finished part. The production company I work with for my research actually hires artists to do some of the post-processing by hand.

As long as I can eventuality download a car...

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Again, I mostly agree with you, just cherry-picking for discussion here.

its absurdly expensive and leaves much to be desired compared to machined/forged parts.

Definitely absurdly expensive, but what is so much worse compared to traditionally manufactured parts? DMLS produces parts that are generally stronger than cast, with close to wrought mechanical properties.

However, 3d printing a rifled barrel out of ABS and using it with some kind of low temp compressed gas based propellant would probably work ok for a few rounds right now.

Eh, maybe for a little BB gun, but I doubt it. Rifling is only effective when the bullet plastically deforms into the grooves, which requires a certain strength of barrel material. Maybe if the bullets were made of foam or rubber. I also see problems with the inner surface finish.

This is what I was saying about the magic bullet thing... I doubt it will ever be cheaper to 3D print a barrel than to bore through a metal blank and rifle by hand.

Cheaper? probably not.

But more accessible? possibly.

I suppose the barrel is not the best thing to look at when printing, but definitely all the other parts of the gun come up for discussion, and most of those are very practical to print. Much more so than the barrel.

extended mags, receivers, some of the weaker/smaller mechanical parts, triggers, stocks, sights, mounts, holsters, and more...

But how will we regulate illegal things (Guns and other types of weapons) when literally anybody with a printer can just make them?

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As australia keeps finding out.

This just makes it so much easier to make. Also I believe a specified properly made receiver does beat some pipes, doesn't it?

It is easier to make a proper receiver than to print one... ABS is shit for building guns out of.

That is a very tough question for which there is no answer yet, because making such a thing will no longer be tied to having the specific manufacturing capabilities and expertise to do so and our system currently relies on that for regulation.

So you either have to censor that information, or prevent people from learning it on their own (censoring the very idea of a gun and thus knowledge), or ban 3d printers.

How crazy would it be if gangsters just bought a bunch of 3d printers and just started printing a bunch of guns or other weapons? How could you stop them?

Or if some angry guy just decided to print a gun one day and shoot some people? How could you stop that?

(some might say just run some kind of thing to check if they're printing a gun, and it is not that simple, especially given all kinds of hacks that could be done, not to mention never being able to truly know what combination of individually printed pieces when joined together could act as a gun)

Would you say something as general as a 3d printer could be used for bad things and people shouldn't have them?

Its the same problem with digital copyrights/software patents. You're not stealing anything when you download a movie, its just a copy, and you can't control who will share it with who because they don't have to give anything up to share it.

Someone else does not need to lose something in order for you to benefit.

It's quite simple - you control gunpowder. It's actually very difficult to make a truly high performance, consistent gunpowder without really expensive tools. Plus, you must synthesize the nitrocellullose and nitroglycerin to sufficient quality that they don't decompose on storage and self ignite (a real problem).

Just wait till genetics machines become cheaper. Price your own genomes and proteins. Anyone can make viruses and simple bacteria then. Guns pale in comparison to this...

good insight, didn't know that about gunpowder.

but that doesn't solve the problem of printing of anything else that could be used for violence and not a gun.

Why would you wait for hours/days to print a weapon out when you could just grab any of the other potentially deadly things in your home and go ham?

I'm not convinced that widespread 3D printing would increase incidence or severity of violence, because if people want to do serious harm to another person, they could do it extremely easily using one of hundreds of everyday items already.

It is easy to make rudimentary gunpowder.

I've seen a YouTube video where someone scraped the coating off matchstick heads, ground it up, and successfully used it to fire bullets.

Black powder is simple to make. Gun cotton is simple to make.

The hard part is making consistent powder.

Mostly the same way we regulate stuff now, if you have bought illegal stuff that you weren't supposed to have.

It will be harder because they won't be able to stop the illegal items in big quuantities or at the border. The main problem is that most thing needed to create illegal items will be legal.

So you can control the source material you actually need, and do controls and checks if you do acquire more than the normal "personal" usage (like they do with drugs, fertilizers, and other potentially dangerous items), or if you buy stuff that combined could be dangerous.

Being illegal to create the items, will probably make you still want to buy them at the black market, because it will be safer than do them yourself at home (even if you could with your personal 3d printer), and they still will go after illegal big producers so, it will still be mainly a black market problem.

Other than it's the "normal" privacy debate. How much personal info will you let the government have in exchange of your safety ? They could force every printer to have a log of everything that has been printed, put red flags if you download blueprints of dangerous items, etc...

As with anything it won't stop everything, and there will be accedients but you probably can find a ways to keep everything to a minimum.

making such a thing will no longer be tied to having the specific manufacturing capabilities and expertise to do so and our system currently relies on that for regulation.

That is so completely false...

Are you familiar with firearms law in the US? At all? There is zero regulation on the knowledge or tools required to make firearms (with some exceptions for international distribution). None. You can download plans from the internet and make a rifle in your garage with basic tools. That is the current state of things. People who have the will to do it can make their own guns. They can even make silencers and machinegun parts, both of which would be illegal (without a license or appropriate paperwork). Silencers are ridiculously simple, but people don't make them illegally, because they don't want to break the law.

So how are homemade guns regulated? People don't make illegal guns because it is illegal. It is also much easier and simpler to simply buy a gun than to buy and setup a 3D printer (which would produce finicky, fragile parts).

Or maybe control who has a 3D printer, in a government monopoly type situation. Which, considering some of the people in this world, may not be a horrible idea.

So you should deny people access to technology?

The problem is that basically any 3d printer could print something bad that could be used for something bad.

Just like a gun can be used responsibly, a 3d printer needs to also be used responsibly. But the issue is that the gun generally only does a few things and cannot really ever be more than just a gun.

The 3d printer could make almost anything, guns included. How could you deny someone the right to make things for themselves?

Should countries be like consumer prisons where you are forced to work, unable to create, and must consume the goods available to you?

I would argue the government monopoly type situation is a far more horrible idea "considering some of the people in this world".....

But how far are you willing to risk your right to life for someone else's right to freedom? What if your neighbour uses it to easily make a bomb? What if a kid makes a handgun? Unless there's a control it will result in possible chaos.

At the end of the day it just comes down to responsibility.

Unless there's a control it will result in possible chaos.

You see that just applies to everything which is why its not really applicable.

Who should have cars? They're very deadly, especially when used by angry people to commit crimes/harm people, and they're extremely effective.

Who should have knives? Many people are killed every day by stabbing.

Who should have hammers? Also much harm inflicted by people with hammers.

Who should have anything that could ever be used as a weapon? Basically anything could be used as a weapon.

How do you know when to stop? Where exactly is that line between weapon and object? Or does that come down to responsible use?

Heck, you could pick up the 3d printer and hit someone with it and kill them.... Or smack them with a roll of filament...

The saying goes, guns don't kill people, people kill people....

But this would change everything. You'd be allowing anybody to make anything they wished for. Combine this with a few chemicals and your neighbour has a hand grenade.

Quick edit: I'm not saying that determined people wouldn't be able to obtain these weapons, but the ease of access these printers would give may certainly encourage troubled individuals.

Anyone inclined to make pipe bombs now could do so without much difficulty.

The real interesting part is when 3d printers get so advanced they can print genetic material and chemicals.

You could 3d print ebola, anthrax, cyanide, anything.

Because those aren't special materials, their harm comes from the organization of common materials.

In the same way, 3d printed objects aren't harmful, its how they're used....

But where does it end? You could print a nuclear missile at that point. At what point do we need to stand back and say "maybe people shouldn't have access to whatever they want"?

I don't know where it ends, but I think trying to control it would end worse than not controlling it at this point in time.

in the distant future, we will see.

To bad. People can do all the things you worry about now.

There's far easier and cheaper ways of making a bomb. In fact 3D printed plastic would probably make a bad choice because it does not hold a very high PSI. It's much easier to make bombs using piping...which any kid could purchase and assemble much easier than using a 3D printer. You still also need explosive material.

As for a gun? It's actually easier to make a zip gun than it is to 3D print a gun. Also zip guns usually have metal in them...and are less likely to catastrophically explode in your hand.

You are essentially saying that we need to stop people from doing what they already could do for the past 50 years. Be it using a 3D printer or buying pipes from home depot to make a crude gun, there hasn't been an issue with it and there shouldn't be in the future.

You could just switch gun control to bullet control. Even we get to the point of having a consumer 3d printer that can print guns, it won't be able to print bullets unless it's an air rifle or something.

Even we get to the point of having a consumer 3d printer that can print guns, it won't be able to print bullets unless it's an air rifle or something.

please tell me why an advanced 3d printer wouldn't be able to 3d print bullets in the future?

Heck, its even possible right now

With lost PLA casting and a good amount of hand finishing work, it wouldn't be unfeasible to:

  1. Print bullet shape

  2. Make it into mold with plaster/sand

  3. Pour molten lead or other metal in

  4. Make bullet from that casting

  5. 3d print shell casings, reinforce with some sheet metal, and add in gunpowder and primer.

Or use used shell casings or something.

Obviously theres a lot of work to be done there, but it is possible and not terribly difficult even now.

hell even with compressed air/potato gun setup you could just 3d print a decent sized bullet and glue in a chunk of metal and really do some damage.

you could even 3d print the rifiling of a barrel for an airpistol...... (assuming a strong enough plastic is used, along with little heat when firing)

I think the relevant part here is the "low explosive powder".

Forget the 3D printer part; I could carve a bullet mold from wood with a pocket knife. It'd not be a terribly good bullet, but that doesn't matter unless you're at enough range for the aerodynamics to matter.

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You'd carve the mold, not the bullet. Hell, a drilled hole would probably get you something fairly decent, and you could do that orders of magnitude faster than something with 3D printing. It sounds a little weird, but I've used wood for casting before: it catches fire a little, but not enough to really matter. You lose a bit of fine detail (partially due to surface tension effects), but that's fine for a case like this where you want it smooth anyway. Would it be a nice perfectly symmetric shape? No. Would that matter? Probably not.

whether its gunpowder or highly compressed gas, a properly made bullet at relatively close range will do serious damage.

IIRC about a few hundred years of some nasty warfare, a terribly made bullet at relatively close range will do serious damage as well. Something about stuffing cannons with nails and broken glass...

You'd carve the mold, not the bullet.

Once again, equally time consuming and prone to bad tolerances because you're doing it by hand.

3d printer would get it close to perfect.

Would it be a nice perfectly symmetric shape? No. Would that matter? Probably not.

Yes, it matters a lot. Much of bullet's power comes from tight tolerances to the barrel. Not to mention if your barrel is rifled your imbalanced bullet's rotation and aerodynamics will also cause it to veer in a weird direction or yaw.

IIRC about a few hundred years of some nasty warfare, a terribly made bullet at relatively close range will do serious damage as well. Something about stuffing cannons with nails and broken glass...

Yea, but why not just use a 3d printer, because you could do a lot more with it in general, and save yourself the time, labor, and headache of manually carving a mold, and likely get a better result out of the printer than you could do by hand?

The point being is that you could buy this printer, and just let it run and do something else. Thats the other way its powerful, it frees up time to do other things...

technically yea, everyone could make most of what a printer could print. But why do they exist? because everyone can agree its generally a huge pain in the ass.

Want to carve a nice sculpture? Well you gotta learn how to sculpt..........

Want to build something with tight tolerances? better have the right tools to cut everything and line it up.... and the expertise to do all that....not to mention the time....

Saving time and getting better results are the driving force of automation, and 3d printing is representative of that.

Your hand carved mold might do alright, but I'd much rather save myself the time and headache of hand carving any mold and just buy the printer....

You have a really poor understanding of how guns work... Modern ammunition relies on precise dimensions, but it does not have to be that way. Patches and driving bands are simple solutions. Bullets with hollow bases will expand to engage rifling.

And all of that is rather moot. Even if a bullet is roughly cast from lead, it can be forced through a sizing die too shave it down to the proper size. That is a common step for at-home bullet casting.

That is all tremendously complicated compared to the ways that bullets and cases are manufactured today...

Cartridge cases actually need to have some rather specific properties in order to function reliably and safely.

People obsess over all the things 3D printers can do without actually researching all the things that can be done without 3D printers! Using 3D printers makes a lot of things more difficult!

I'll admit to not knowing that much about guns. I thought that adding gunpowder would be nontrivial, I should have done some research before posting though.

Edit: I was envisioning an advanced 3d printer that could print metal just printing full bullets, and that didn't seem very feasible.

Don't overestimate how easy it is to do all these things without 3D printers.

Lead bullets are fairly trivial to make with a mold. Gun powder can be made with easy to obtain materials, although doing so is dangerous (obviously).

You really should do some research about how things are done before drawing conclusions about how 3D printers will change things.

it is a careful thing. definitely not trivial, but not impossible either.

but i imagine one would get a lot more utility at close range out of a heavily modified co2 based gun (a stock airsoft pistol could potentially be modified using 3d printed parts to do different things) and 3d printed projectiles

In any case, gun control is not the best way to keep people safe, and measures to reduce gang profitability like drug and prostitution legalization would do far more.

yes, my thoughts exactly.

fundamentally many bad things happen from economic inequality, and fixing that is the only effective way to prevent those things from happening.

Even in economic equality, some people will always want more. If you make everyone equal, equal just becomes the new bottom rung.

You are massively overestimating the difficulty in making firearms and ammunition with traditional or modern methods.

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That turns into a whole other issue then. The ease of access to dangerous objects could result in higher crime rate, violence, etc.

Things don't work that way really.

3D printers won't make guns and knives easier to acquire than they are now. For anyone who is legally allowed to own firearms in the US, the process of acquiring one is literally "walk into gun store, pick gun, fill out paperwork, wait five minutes for a background check, pay for gun, leave."

It takes less time and effort than calibrating a 3D printer.

But you don't need to be a licensed firearm owner to print a firearm.

You don't need to be a licensed firearm owner to buy a firearm.

There is no "firearm license" in the US.

If you are a citizen or permanent resident, not a convicted felon, and have never been involuntarily committed to a mental institution, you can buy or make a gun. It's as simple as that.

Again: 3D printing won't really change anything.

You clearly have no understanding of firearms laws or manufacturing.

So you're saying everybody on the Internet lives in the United States? That's what I took from that.

In a word, we won't.

Look at the amount of copyright infringement currently taking place. Look at things like The Anarchist's Cookbook, which have been around for decades.

Moving information around was pretty easy in the days of BBSes and closed networks like MSN / CompuServe, etc. Now with the connectivity of the Internet, you can forget about it.

And banning 3D printers isn't an option. They have already become too ubiquitous in various communities, like the Maker folks, for instance.

Pft, The Anarchist's Cookbook...

FYI: You can buy old Army handbooks on how to manufacture improvised explosives. Army/Navy stores sell them sometimes. They are probably also available online. It is extremely illegal to actually make high explosives, but it is completely legal to read about it. If you are knowledgeable about chemistry, you probably need look no further than Wikipedia. You can also find plans for all sorts of firearms, both ones which are legal to make and ones that are illegal.

So, while The Anarchist's Cookbook is infamous, it's hardly illegal or restricted.

Having the information to make an item is different than having an easy means to make the item though. Being able to forge a knife is a lot better than knowing how to make one.

You are much better off starting with bar stock and grinding out a knife, actually.

Making something that can hurt someone is easy.

Making a knife that looks nice and is pleasant to use is difficult.

But how will we regulate illegal things (Guns and other types of weapons) when literally anybody with a printer can just make them?

The same way we regulate illegal things when literally anybody with basic machining tools can just make them?

People do make guns in their garages as a hobby. Yes, it can be done legally in the US.

But not everyone has the skills to do that. Now anybody can make a rifle as long as they're willing to buy some basic materials.

Anyone can make a functioning gun right now with a bit of knowledge and some metal.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Real-Gun

Making it with a 3D printer just means people can do it with more bells/whistles.

Just a heads up: Some of those would be illegal to make in the US without a proper tax stamp (AOW). Know the laws etc etc.

Depends on jurisdiction. Your mileage may vary... etc etc etc.

Why do you think anybody can just make a rifle now that 3D printers are available?

Simple exercise for you: Research how to actually make a functioning rifle with a 3D printer. And how to do it without.

When designing mechanical parts you can make prototypes in minutes, test it, refine it, and make the next version. This means you can engineer a product in a fraction of the time. Prior to 3D printing, plastic prototypes had to be made using injection moulding; basically building casts and pouring/injecting plastic into the casts. That process takes days or weeks and is very expensive. So each iteration costs thousands of dollars and takes weeks. With 3D printing that process can be repeated dozens of times in a week and cost next to nothing.

Came here to ask the same question. All this stuff looks really easy to break. I guess it's cool to make cups or a plate but this stuff isn't as tough as metal.

  • Work is being done on 3D printed metal
  • Consider what proportion of the things in your life are made of plastic already. That's not a very limiting restriction, since plastic is usually strong enough.
  • The things look super delicate for two reasons:
  • resin is expensive, so people prefer to demonstrate their printers using as little material as possible, and
  • the defining feature of printers of this class is "how smooth and fine can it print?" Thus, to show off, people print the smallest, most delicate things that they can. Sure, they could print a big clunky block of plastic, but so can a $500 extrusion printer off Newegg.

Thanks for the explanation.

yes and No, when we design a vacuum, the model is build with thicker wall thickness to compensate for the weaker material or sometime we build the part with cnc milled PC. The keyword here is rapid prototype, it's a process that we used to proof a point or try to solve a problem(fitment, mechanical, principle, etc).

it's not there to replace mold-flow controlled 50 tons injection molding giant for sure. But at the development phase, it's a perfect tool. A multi-cavities tooling can cost you 10k to 100 times more than that. It's an investment you don't simply made just to test or proof a point.

I'll tell you why. It lowers the cost of making things. It automates the process to create things. You have a file format that the 3D things are designed in that can be downloaded or sold and people with the 3D printer can print them out.

Instead of having to buy a factory to make a plastic part, you just buy a 3D printer and make it in your living room.

You can print out small parts that fit together to make larger things.

Won't this severely impact the job market though? In a worse way than the assembly line did? It will also radically standardize quality, which is both a good and bad thing.

What job market? Manufacturing jobs have been leaving Western nations for cheaper overseas labor for decades now. 3D printing will likely replace a lot of the stuff that's currently made in China.

Just because the jobs aren't here, doesn't mean they aren't important to someone.

In the next 50 years, automation will put way more people than that out of jobs. Self driving cars alone will put millions of cab drivers and truckers out of work. It's inevitable. We're approaching a post scarcity society while still stuck in the mind set of "everyone needs to work all the time." We're going to have to adapt, because it's not something that will stop without the collapse of human civilization.

We have that mindset because the economic system we use demands it though. If I stop working I will not be able to pay bills or buy food.

you don't understand how reality works. by your logic we should all be wearing metal armor just so a blacksmith could keep his job. you're insane.

Right, and the issue is that this shouldn't be the case. We're getting to the point where a large number of people around the world will not need to work, because manual labor is getting phased out. This is not a choice that we have. We cannot outlaw cars because we don't want to put horse and buggies out of business. We, as a society and as a civilization, need to find alternatives for what will soon be a growing number of people ill-equipped to earn a wage in the very near future, where the manufacturing and service industries become increasingly automated.

And make no mistake, if you're under the age of 30, these are events which will happen in our lifetime.

slavery used to keep a roof over a slaves' head. that doesn't mean it was good. new industries create new opportunities and new markets. yes, there's child in china who won't have a job anymore.. she shouldn't have had that exploitative job in the first place.

It will. The fact that to have a thing, you need to create/construct/shape/harvest/manufacture that thing, is the imperative behind human labor and all social constructs surrounding it (money, jobs, etc). This concept here will, if brought into common use, will drop a significant amount of fabrication-type work from the total demand load of needed labor. How we handle that is up to us.

Best case scenario: humans start depending on machines to do most of the work of maintaining a high standard of living and do less work because less work is needed, resulting in everybody working less and enjoying a great deal of leisure time. (AKA people in Star Trek getting their dinners from a replicator instead of a human-employing McDonald's.)

Worst case scenario: humans continue to enforce the imperative to be fully productive in the terms of the previous necessary workload, and cut people off from access to their needs if they can't find work, resulting in an underclass of "redundant" or "superfluous" humans, who can then be easily exploited for any low-value drudge work not suitable or profitable for doing by machine. (AKA the situation for a lot of people during the Great Depression.)

Other possible outcomes:

The bonus in productivity is used to upgrade lots of people's standards of living primarily in terms of consumption, and has little effect on the amount of hours worked. (AKA you work a lot but you have 50 sets of clothes instead of 3.)

The bonus in productivity is used to upgrade people's standards of living in terms of accessible technology and the effects thereof. (AKA you work a lot but you have a microwave and a color TV and don't have to wash your clothes by hand anymore.)

The bonus in productivity is used to alleviate certain aspects of severe poverty by making X item readily accessible to those who need it. (AKA you're still poor but you have clean water now because you can buy a water filter for fifty cents and your kids don't get cholera anymore.)

Judging by history, I predict that all of these will come into play in varying amounts.

Edit: This thing somehow posted when I hit the cancel button and now I had to finish it.

It lowers the cost of making things.

Not so. Most forms of additive manufacturing are still prohibitively expensive (outside the Makerbot-style desktop FDM machine that everyone is familiar with).

What is revolutionary is that parts are created without any tooling, streamlining the manufacturing process. Designers can produce physical parts without having to make custom jigs, custom molds or dies, or any other supporting tooling. Each part might cost $10K to print, but if you only need 10 of them, it beats spending $500K on a custom mold.

The other huge advantage is the potential to destroy physical shipping & handling. Instead of transporting physical goods, in the future we will only need to transfer information, digital signals, and parts will be produced on-site.

It lowers the cost of making things.

Not so

Not so is an incorrect statement because it's too sweeping. 3D printing can lower the cost of making things in certain situations.

Yes of course, but you have to be careful about blanket statements.

In many cases the parts are orders of magnitude more expensive than traditionally manufactured, but savings are made over the lifetime of the part through lighter weight and less maintenance.

It's a home replicator. Do you buy anything made of plastic from the store? What if you just downloaded the blueprint and printed it at home?

Do you know that you can also print metal objects?

but why is 3D printing such a big deal?

Because in 20 years we will be able to literally print a car.

Great for companies for drawing up prototypes. For personal use? Not so much. Don't let the hype train fool you..

Basically they lower the cost of prototype and very low rate parts. Provided those parts for the most part are not load bearing components. Standard injection molding processes for plastic parts require you to cut a mold out of metal which is very expensive. The economics generally only work If you're making tens of thousands copies of a part or more.
Before someone yells, Yes it is possible to produce of "load bearing" components in plastic and even in metal, but the properties of the finished product are generally not isotropic and more variable than those produced using more traditional processes)

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Part resolution is far far greater, the polymer itself is stronger. The same reason SLA is 5-10 times the cost of FDM for the same part.

But again, if you are building a part for mechanical testing/proof of concept you DONT need that but if you are digital sculptor working for Marvel, it's a must to have the best resolution to showcase the 250 man hour you spent building a character.

The polymer is stronger? I don't have an account to read the article in Science, did they say that there? I didn't see anything about strength in the articles I read.

SLA builds in a single block instead a bunch of filament melted together.

When we do proof of concept model(aka smash it in the lab model) we build it in SLA or we CNC out from a block of PC.

Yeah but he was asking about SLS, which is the strongest (albeit inaccurate) method of 3D printing plastics I've heard of. Are you talking about FDM?

You heard or you actually compare part with? SLS is strong if you build a big block of plastic but again if you need to build a big block of plastic you can CNC a block of PC, the surface will be better and MUCH cheaper.

If you try to build a housing for a mixer, let's say a 2-3mm housing/shell SLS part will most likely to break on you. that's why I model maker pour a layer of super glue on raw SLS part, it's to fill up the pores and voids in the build.

You say the resolution is far greater. Does this also mean that tolerances are smaller or the parts are just smoother.

Both, a SLA 50mircon build will have build line as thin as a human hair vs FDM build with 200-100 micron. But treat the rating carefully, the FDM head might be as small as 100 micron but as you heat up plastic to make it flow thru the extructor head, as it colds and solidify it will shrink. The different in temp and material thickness will also add variable to the surface quality.

Tolerances and surface quality goes hand in hand, let's say we are building 2 moving part, most of the time time if the part tolerance is low, we will over build the part with additional hundreds of mm. What we will do after the build is to have the model maker sand it down to spec. Even the most expensive strasys/3d systems parts still needs secondary treatment if you are doing paint work or making a working prototype/breadboard prototype.

edit: For commercial SLA printer there's a digital control which monitor and adjust the temp, humidity of the room. There's a ventilation system inside the machines as well to keep the thermal expansion to the min. A technician also caliber the thing to level out the recoater blade and zero all the laser every other week or so. On the side note: Those 3D printing tech guys also makes tons of money, a great trade if some of you younger guy want to make some decent buck. It's super niche but once you get a client it's set for long long time.

How is this any different from the B9 and other DLP printers or the Form9?

Meh, SLA is pretty cheap these days. I have FDM in my lab but rarely bother firing it up because it is cheaper to order SLA with a 50 micron resolution and next day delivery.

That's exactly it, even for big car company and toy company they don't bother owning a SLA because of the overhead and expense to keep it running. The resin doesn't last forever, it requires chemcial bath and UV curing machine.(actone and other fire hazard chemical which you need ventilation work, chemical wash and fire inspection).

Totally not worth it unless you are doing secretive project all the time that cannot be outsourced. Three of the biggest US toy companies build their prototype with a vendor in SoCal before shipping it to Hong Kong/Shenzhen for production btw.

This is absolutely amazing, but I'd say in all likelihood printers using this technique will be extremely expensive (say $10k+) for the foreseeable future, whether for technological reasons or because the inventors hold patents and making the printers expensive would be a business decision. Someone please give me some hope to the contrary.

A guy in another comment said the oxygen permeable membrane costs $1800 for 25 grams, so it's probably going to be pretty expensive.

/u/aspiringvoiceactor said:

The resin used is $50 for 100 grams[1] The photoinitiator used is $40 for 10 grams

But /u/mrbaggins said:

Buying even slightly in bulk makes it way cheaper. It's 50 for >100, but 114 for 500.

So after the high start up cost it seems it might be a good replacement.

I am unsure if the membrane needs to be replaced after a while, or even how large a 25g piece is. If you were to use this to build large objects I could see this getting really expensive.

isn't this basicly the first way it was done?

This is very scalable, Just WOW

I think its actually far less scalable than the bottom-up method. That's like its only drawback.

And probably the price. If it's more than $3000 right now, it won't go far too fast (it will probably still succeed though, unless they run out of funds or the investors get pissed off that it takes 10 years to recover their money).

3K? you have no idea of what you're talking about, do you?

Uh, we have one in my department, but I don't think I ever asked how much it was...

Commercial printers can cost a quarter to a half of a million dollars. If this thing can really shave off that much time, they could charge tens of thousands and they'll sell like hotcakes.

for a similar process? i dont see how. similar machines that cure a resin with a UV light that work from the bottom up will drop the part down into the vat of resin as it's printed. so that means you're limited by the size of not only the tank but you have to fill the tank all the way. doing it the reverse way as long as there's resin at the bottom, even a thin layer, the laser can keep adding layers. you could almost just add just enough resin to make the part.

I mean that a bigger object would require a bigger pool area-wise, which isn't going to be as efficient as bottom-up methods.

no it wouldn't. the size of the object would dictate the size of the platter and the amount of resin which would only be a bit more than what you'd need. bottom up requires the whole part sink into a vat of resin which means it's always just surrounded by resin that's not doing anything. in this machine the part is pulled out into the air and only just enough resin to complete the part stays in the platter.

Why, because it needs to support its own weight? I imagine additional supporting structures could be introduced if that was the reason...

That's definitely one aspect, but I think it's mainly that it has to pull out of that basin. Like say you wanted to 3d print a whole house, as an extreme example. Instead of having some arm that can just move around the whole area needed, maybe even attached to a vehicle or something, you're going to need a pool with that glass bottom big enough for that object.

You'd need more support than using the bottom down method.

With traditional SL, the density of the solidified resin is very close to the liquid resin, so you need just a bit of support to hold the difference in weight up + keep the part together when it comes out. With this bottom's up design, I'd think you need to support the whole weight of the piece. For small pieces ok, but if you scale it up in the Z-direction, you need linearly more support structure.

The principle is still SL: using a UV-initiated chemical reaction to solidify a liquid; this reaction typically isn't a matter of seconds, but depending on the resin it can take hours to meet its final strength.

I'm not saying it isn't doable, but imo you either need a fast-curing high tensile strength resin or either a lot of support structures.

The thing is, this printer does start from the bottom up. So it could be expanded, or at least made taller, without a problem.

Sorry, confusing wording I guess. I consider this to be top-down, so the opposite of that. And yeah, it can go as tall as it wants, but it has huge limits on width compared to other methods.

Thats all i could thing of was massive build volume with insane ressolution and i dont think theres a need for any support materials

Except that you'd have to keep it light enough that it wouldn't fall off the plate at the top.

I imagine there will be some solution when that problem presents itself

I wonder if you could design drain holes in strategic locations to help reduce weight

I don't think it'd be an issue, any layer that could contain a liquid will have an open bottom up to the point its sealed, so no liquid would be stored.

How is that different from what the form1 does using, if i recall correctly, stereo lithography?

Wasn't this also a fabrication technique shown in that movie with the toys with military microchips giving them A.I. and mobility?

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What's the difference between this printer and this one

http://www.3dartistonline.com/news/2013/09/the-first-3d-printer-and-scanner-for-less-than-100/

So could the same principle be applied to other liquids that can be solidified? For example - could this be done with a molten steel drawn up and selectively quenched in three dimensions?

as long as the 3d printer can withstand the heat from the molten metals it should already be capable of handling liquid metals, the problem with liquid metal is that it would be extremely difficult to have it come out as a paste/liquid and having it cool in place without moving/deforming

presumably, could you make a fiberglass (or carbon fiber/nanotubes/whatever) skeleton and then use the 3d printing to bind the resin to the skeletal structure and make incredibly strong structures such as, i don't know, really, really good prosthetic limbs or Star-wars style bionic ones?

Not with this method, with this method you're pulling the cured structure out from the bottom of the tank of the stuff. Maybe you could do it some other way, but it would basically defeat the whole point of 3d printing. You 3d print to avoid the work of actually shaping the thing you want made yourself. If you're going to go through the trouble of building the structure of the thing you want, there's really nothing 3-d printing has to offer you, unless it is to build some whole component that you put inside/use with the structure.

This is not a new technique, Its a new machine implementing it in a slightly different way. I remember seeing DIYer' scavenging DLP systems from projector screen tv's to do this exact same technique about 3-4 years ago. Beyond that some 3D printers used a pair of UV lasers to fix voxels in a UV sensitive polymer/resin bath about 20 years ago.

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No idea how the technology works in the article, but perhaps time and bit life could be considered waste in milling.

why did they choose that geometric shape to print?

Because for normal SLA to build that part(a hollow sphere with detail inside), it bottom half of the sphere will need to be supported as well as all the interior space. This "new" reverse SLA technique(actually not that new, it's a few years old in the making in the commercial end, I believe was being pushed by 3D system?) doesn't need support because the part is not "fighting" the gravity.

It's a buckyball. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene

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successive layers of 2D slices

That isn't true. If it was 2d over and over again it would never break into the third dimension. Both methods are 3D printing. Something very very small in regards to its 3rd dimension is still, necessarily and fundamentally 3-dimensional. Let's not muddy the waters and the collective understanding of things to falsely aggrandize things. That is insanity.

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Yeah, and they're doing the same thing except the "layers" are more continuous. By their logic, it would only be 3D if the object was instantaneously built in all 3 dimensions.

-/u/cspreddit

The reply I was going to make said this thing exactly so I'm just gonna quote it instead of getting riled up by having to engage with your supranatural wrongness.

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You're dumb. I speak english and can understand schemes without tarnishing them. The scheme you are conveying in english words is wrong. And stupid.

Mathematically speaking, if you layered 2D over 2D an infinite number of times, it would never be 3D

It would be if you separated the layers in the third dimension.

This is a really cool concept.

I believe the peachy printer works in a similar way. http://www.peachyprinter.com/

The Peachy Printer is still layer-based, because the water is dripping in. Every drop is a new layer.

Can this tech create objects with moving (detached) parts?

AFAIK those need to be suspended unmoving in the material, if not by the structure.

This looks very neat, looking forward to seeing what other materials can be printed like this

Everything that hardens when you shine light on it. Which is to say, not much except some polymers.

I'm not sure I understand completely. I mean, the way I'm reading it is the light projects an image onto the glass/membrane/whatever that can also allow oxygen molecules to pass through it. Anywhere the light touches is hardened and anywhere the oxygen touches remains liquid? So if I wanted to make a giant O I would project a ring of light onto the resin and all the "negative space" would be exposed to oxygen? If that's right then how does one prevent the oxygen from also touching the parts that are exposed to light? Also is the membrane like a cellular one in that oxygen molecules are small enough to pass through but whatever these resin molecules are, they are too big to pass through?

Oxygen keeps it a liquid, and "wins" against the light. However, the Oxygen doesn't penetrate very far into the liquid.

This means that the light will harden the liquid a little bit in from the bottom, but the very bottom will stay a liquid because of the oxygen there. This means that it doesn't stick to the bottom, and can be pulled up from it.

If we turn it on its side, so it's top -- bottom:

<old stuff> <hardened by light> <liquid because oxygen> <membrane>

In the article it describes "shooting" the oxygen at the resin, as if it were targeted, but it sounds to me like oxygen is continuously diffusing evenly through the membrane.

In all seriousness, can someone simplify how it works for my simpleton mind?

We have a bath of raw material. The bottom of the bath is a transparent semi-permeable membranne: light and oxygen can go through it.

A special resin is used for the raw material. Exposure to oxygen keeps it a liquid, and "wins" against the light. However, the Oxygen doesn't penetrate very far into the liquid. The light penetrates further.

Thus, we apply both light and oxygen from the bottom, causing the resin to harden a little bit up from the bottom. However, the very bottom part says liquid because of the oxygen, which means it doesn't stick.

If we turn it on its side, so it's top -- bottom:

This is amazing. I wonder what is the strength of the objects created. Other 3d printers don't seem to be able to make very strong objects.

Depends on the material, but it is likely pretty strong, but brittle if other sla printers are any indication.

To be fair, if you want something to be durable when using 3D printing, you print a resin blank with the 3D printer, then take it over to the casting station, make a cast of the blank, and then use the cast to re-do it in something like metal.

I think humans make past fictions, a reality.

Can someone explain how this works? Please explain it to me like I am 5 because I have no idea what is going on but damn does it look awesome.

Now the question is, how much does it cost to get something printed with this machine as current commercial high resolution prints are rather expensive.

Another example of science fiction becoming a reality. It amazes me how sci-fi writers can predict what can actually be done even if it's only tweaked

My question is, how does it handle colour?

I find one of the most amazing cases of 3D printing to be those that print in colour ( like that used for Laika's productions )... being able to print an item in full colour is pretty incredible.

Isn't this technique a step backwards there, being that it has to be just the colour of the goo it's rising from?

when will it be cheap enough for the masses? will action figure prices drop after this is on everyone's home? and what other business opportunities do you think will rises up (sorry for the pun) from it?

Do want! My question is how does the strength (as in durability) of the output compared to other 3d printing technology?

That's funny, I have a Pegasus Touch 3d printer that has been printing similar to this for a year. It's basically stereo lithography but using a projector instead of a scanning laser,

I understand that the formOne uses a laser to heat the resin but isn't this printer just the principle same as this http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-high-resolution-3D-DLP-printer-3D-printer/ only with more polish and faster.

Is this really new? I swear I remember hearing about this form of 3D printing long before I heard of the plastic being layered up. I'm thinking 2+ years ago...

Although currently commercialized 3D printing technologies have advanced rapidly, they have done so along a fairly linear line of advancement (better, faster, smaller, cheaper). The new "Terminator" technologies is one of those exponential leaps forward.

They used to do this at the fun engineering fair at my university 15+ years ago. They would build these cool mini cages/boxes with detached balls inside them (like a rattle).

I was wondering if it would ever be made commercially!

" 'We think that popular 3D printing is actually misnamed — it's really just 2D printing over and over again', said Joseph DeSimone"

That's what 3D means.

Its DLP. uses a projector instead of a laser.

This is technology, not science.

One thing to clarify is that this is appears to be an insightful tweak on a popular form of 3D printing, rather than a new technology all together. This uses a standard vat photopolymerization process with a DLP projector. The key difference is the oxygen permeable window that removes the detachment step between layers.

This is still a layer-by-layer process: the DLP takes a 3D object and uses a 2D projection (in both the mathematical and physical sense) per layer. Due to pixel constraints, this process will produce objects with similar resolution, although may have more organic edges instead of harder ones. I’d bet the software stack being used still slices the object into layers, so the projector still operates in a layer-by-layer fashion, and likely well below the theoretical 60 or 120 layers / second max dictated by frame-rate. The key advantage here, and it’s a big one, is speed.

So when will there be a 3d printer I can actually afford?

This isn't new, the earliest 3-d printers worked this way

Isn't this just photo polymer 3d printing? What's so new about it?

The SPEED, minutes instead of hours.

I had dinner with ‘a guy’ who was on the editorial board of Popular Electronics in the 1960-70’s, who told me a possibly apocryphal story of how they build a similar setup to what’s described here. It was, of course, a bit more primitive but had a rotating platform that held a jar of resin that would solidify into a model after having a pulsed laser light shone through it. They were going to publish a giant “how to build your own” project article. However, one day they were visited by government agents who scooped up all their equipment and forced them to sign a document stating they were giving all rights to the government and would never publish their article.

Does "journalism" really need to dumb down these titles for people to read them?

Whenever I'm feeling blue I visit /r/science, there seems to always be something wonderful or amazing that can distract me from my mood! Such as 3D printing, it really comes off as one of the most interesting and exciting aspects of the future.

Think bigger.

You want to build a house. Three trucks pull up to the lot. One is a flatbed with an empty aquarium on it. One has a tank of brown goo and the other is a crane.

Pump the goo into the aquarium, dunk the crane head into the goo and shine light on it, pulling forth the structural components of the house one by one.

Or think bigger...

There's no reservoir (aquarium). The resin (goo) is pumped onto a shallow basin with a lens on the bottom which allows oxygen and light to pass through.

Think bigger:

Traditional construction techniques.

And is there an inexpensive material (or evidence of) with the same resilience as traditional construction products (ie. wood/steel) that reacts properly to light in order to allow this technique to function?

Inexpensive is a relative term.

You'd have to adjust the geometry of a part for the material properties of the plastic, increasing the cross sectional area and/or moment of inertia because this will be weaker than steel or some woods.

You make a great point about light degrading plastics, and we already know that this one is photoreactive...

Not as simple as adjusting geometry. Plastic undergoes permanent (plastic) deformation under load (also known as creep) and is typically unsuitable for structural applications unless the plastic is utilized as a composite with another material... and I would assume these composites wouldn't really qualify for this printing technique, but I could be wrong.

Very good point about creep, and adding reinforcement to this machine may not be possible, but perhaps this process in conjunction with the powders used for selective laser sintering could work. Or by inserting precut slices of metal mesh? Would increase the cycle time...

I don't know what kind of resin they use specifically here, but the resin used in photolithography (which is basically the layer-by-layer version of this technology) costs a lot, like ~1k$ per liter.

We use those techniques because they work, and we invent tools to make that work easier.

How far back are you looking for your definition of "traditional?"

My original comment may have sounded dumbed down and/or because I typed it in reply to a comment that was deleted before I could finish and post. On mobile, had it typed up so I just put it here.

And there is clearly a reservoir, but its depth does not limit the build volume, which is nice. One benefit of a large reservoir over constantly pumping new material is a static (laminar?) fluid with better known optical qualities.

Sorry, but "think bigger" kind of talk just sounds like salesmen/motivational speakers... Call me jaded, but knowledge of why current techniques are used shuts this kind us thing down pdq.

This kind of thing will very likely always be relegated to small volumes and small production numbers because traditional methods are the result of centuries of trial and error. Things aren't bad because they are the status quo. They just are.

The revolutionary thing is the flexibility to make shapes that were very hard, very time consuming or expensive to make in the past, easily, quickly or cheaply. The point of this technology isn't to replace every single method of manufacture and construction.

The price of the resin used by this technique is prohibitively expensive, think printer ink cartridges. It's no coincidence that the article was talking about microstructures, like microneedles and tiny sensors for smartphones.

Wow, this is really impressive. I think it handily beats the laser sintering / melting and the filament extrusion methods for 3D printing.

Compared to laser sintering, the machine is much smaller for the apparent print quality, which is even a bit better than what sintering / melting can achieve.

Compared to filament extrusion, the print quality is much higher.

This could be the dominant technology for small printers in the future. It sounds like Carbon3D is going to work hard to monetize this thing, and they have the right, but hopefully competition with filament extrusion is enough to keep the machine affordable. That said, I doubt there'll a machine using this technique below a couple thousand dollars until their patents expire a long ways hence.

Yep looks like this tech is true 3d printing.... Imagine this tech in 10 years time !

I think it handily beats the laser sintering / melting and the filament extrusion methods for 3D printing.

If your only metric is "resolution of resulting object", then yes. If you care about strength, metal-based laser sintering will probably win out, and if you care about price, filament extrusion will. Actually, if you care about price, anything is better than resin.

Conventional resin is more expensive because it has a complicated and slow printing process. SLS is powerful but the capital costs are high.

I think the best thing about this CLIP method is the simplicity of it all. The build platform probably needs fewer moving parts than a filament printer. Handling the resin sounds easier than dealing with SLS powder, cleaning out the powder from parts, and trying to recycle the power too. So I think it would be cool to have resolution like SLS and cost / simplicity like filament, and perhaps this method can enable it. Heck, it seems simple enough that you could build your own for a couple grand.

It really depends on the application.

The resulting polymers available for this printer may not be suitable for many applications. It definitely won't be able to print functional metal parts like sls can.

Resolution and speed is not the be all end all of rapid prototyping.

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As many posters compare this to the Form 1 printer: That printer uses a laser to draw each layer, just as the printhead of a filament 3D printer needs to move all over the workpiece to deposit one layer, before moving on to the next.

What makes this invention much faster is that it uses a projector to deposit (cure) a complete layer at a time. So no scanning, but a full cross-section at a time. This also means that more resolution in the XY direction just needs a better projector, but doesn't increase the printing time.

I may be wrong, but it seems like technology is evolving faster and faster as time goes by. It makes me really excited to see what is going to be created in my lifetime. I just hope they figure out how to stop the aging process by the time I reach 30.

Hmmm... this looks pretty similar to the Form1?

It's been around for at least a couple of years.

Form1 still uses a layer by layer approach. This uses oxygen (in addition to the light you use for curing in Form1) to control the curing process so you no longer need to do it in separate layers. It produces an object faster and with a smoother finish, without the visible separate layers you currently get if you use Form1. Basically a novel extension of the technology rather than a whole new method.

Don't buy the "we don't print layer by layer" marketing. The part is still sliced and built layer by layer as the build platform moves up. They obviously have some new techniques to make the process drastically faster, but it is still fundamentally the same process as a form1.

Instead of regurgitating what the articles say, explain to me how it isn't printing in layers. Otherwise, you just sound like you're telling me that Brawndo has got what plants crave.

It is the difference between an object setting from one end to the other rather than setting a layer, adding a new layer and then setting that layer. I should've said you no longer need to cure it in separate layers to be clearer. It still moves it up and then determines the next coordinates that need to start being treated with light, it just hasn't been fully set at the point the next layer starts enabling the layers to remain homogeneous.

Probably the more important aspect is the fact that due to the way it cures it enables you to print from the top down easier which removes a lot of the need for support structures being printed.

Did any of the backers actually get one?

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While I agree with you, the innovation seems to be that they are using an oxygen - permeable membrane to inhibit the curing at the resin/membrane interface. This way they do not have to be concerned with forming a vacuum at the bottom of the vat. This allows them to continuously move the part and build platform upward rather than having discrete layers.

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At some point in the not so distant future, you'll be able to say the same about this 3D printer

If you thought like that you would never buy anything in technology I wont buy 5.25" floppies when 3.5" are almost here! I wont buy laser disc when CDROM is almost here ... etc forever. In 10 years there will be a 3d printer that makes this thing look old, slow, and dated as well. Should I start waiting now?

"Terminator-inspired"? I assure you, they did not kick off the planning stage with "what process can we use that looks like something out of a James Cameron sci-fi movie?"

Think that's what the article stated.

pretty sure this was the original 3d printer. i remember seeing it on the beyond 2000 show back in the 90s.

I don't quite understand the oxygen part. How can they be accurate at shooting oxygen over increasingly distant details?

Well the main problems I can see with this is that it will need to store pure oxygen. That stuff is dangerous enough when it's not being sprayed around electronics, imagine it being in constant use in production plants.

I hope this can be further developed to use some other oxidation agent. Maybe Nitrous Oxide?

1) Can I print the printer?

2) Can the liquid resin I choose become finished / hardened via the light and oxygen process to be made up to the strength of... ABS plastic, wood, or steel?

I thought this was how 3D printing originally started. I had a friend whose father was working on it in the early 90's and seem to recall a similar description.

This basic technique actually has been around since the 80s. This particular version is just way, way faster and far better.

Looks to have a vastly superior surface finish compared to other systems I have seen. I guess we are kind of in the competing technologies era, will the best or the cheapest win out though..

I just watched the live demo of this today. Six minutes to print that bright red tessellated ball-thing. It was really dang impressive. Since it's not, like, just layers of toothpaste squirted on top of each other, the objets are apparently really strong. And he had a list of like 20 different types of materials it could work with, so you could select for bounciness or tensile strength or ability for the body to safely absorb it, for example.

One thing the demo-er said was that he thinks he might be able to get it up to 1000x the speed of current 3D printing. Who knows, of course, but it's pretty fun to think about.

New technology doesn't usually get me excited, but seemingly magically pulling a solid object from a pool of liquid is one of the most fascinating things I've seen in a long time. Why aren't you people more excited? It's like we are leaving in the future, but not, because it's now.

aww yiss. I signed up for a 3D printing class for this semester just yesterday. Really looking forward to it!

If anyone wants to see the talk including a live demo - it's available via TED Live http://tedlive.ted.com/

Session 1: Opening Gambit - Joseph DeSimone

The curing of the resin appears to be dependent on exposure to light/oxygen, so won't the layer of uncured resin that coats the print cure as the piece sits in the open air? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this lead to difficulty in producing small details like screw threads or small holes?

Oxygen prevents the material from curing. The material cures via the laser.

How is this different than the FSL3D?

It's got an oxygen permeable membrane at the bottom of the resin container. Oxygen is diffused through that, preventing the resin at the bottom from curing. Meanwhile a dlp projector projects light up into the resin past the oxygen layer, curing it.

"Industrial applications within a year". Move on people, nothing to see here.

Very interesting, though it probably won't be able to replace current printing as I suspect it's limited in the materials it can handle, can only manage one colour at a time and wouldn't be usable in micro gravity.

Something that would be nice to know though is whether this technology can work with recycled material.

Can't wait to see what the next advances in 3D printing are 5/10 years from now. Super exciting.

So is there like a prototype version of this? I'm on a robotics team and this is exactly the kind of thing we'd want.

I'm a bit late for the party, but does anyone have any information of the strength and different materials that can be used when 3D printing. Also what are the weakness of this style of printing?

This looks incredible, ive always wanted a 3D printer, i keep waiting till they get a bit better then an even better method comes out so i wait a bit longer till its cheaper and then it happens allover again!!!

I find this kind of innovation inspiring. I dream for that creative idea to speed up an existing process. We can't all be pioneer's and create the technology, but improving existing technology can equally change the world and how we interact with it.

They should 3D print the 'thumbs up' from T2. It would look cool, slowly rising from the resin.

Neat! My company makes the servo motor that runs the pulling mechanism on these machines. Very cool to see them getting some exposure!

All I'm thinking of is Small Soldiers. That's the same way the built the model for the toys.

I was hoping he would pull out a dildo

This type of printing isn't really anything new. Tons of desktop 3D printers use this exact same technology. If it does something better than those printers that's pretty cool but otherwise I don't know why they are trying to market it as a revolutionary way to 3D print

Can some one come up with an application for this for seating components in machinery? I'm thinking like a refractive fitting filled with resin that's seats into a corresponding cavity that can be sealed at the point of install (like to replace threaded components and other coupling methods). Like for spark plugs, the mating surfaces could be honey combed to prevent slipping/form an adequate bonded surface.

Honestly I can't think of anything I have or need that's made out of resin. If they craft something that can use metal I'll be very (very) excited.

This sounds a lot like how the form1 works just based on the title. Which already exists.

Will something like this be able to overcome the obstacles of machined/printed nozzles? afaik most fans nozzles are cast from molds, but making molds for one off specialty equipment is spendy. 3D printing can mimic this, but the interior edge isn't completely smooth, which is a no-no if your intended application is a feed for something like a microwave spectrometer.

I watched the vid and read the article. Where does the light and oxygen come from? the plate that is holding the structures?

FEP film used in flex bottomed tanks is decently permeable. 11,000 cm^3 / m^2 per day

Gore-tex is translucent, but soft, and allows a lot of gas through. Perhaps this is what they are using?

Many on the build your own sla forums have shown impressive build speeds for DLP modified using near-uv LEDs as a light source, and FEP flex bottom vats. Perhaps what they are seeing is partly due to this effect? Perhaps trying to optimize for full cure at the FEP layer boundary is not what we should be doing, but trying for a offset cure about 25 microns in. Maybe the reason the cures can take so long is due to the action of O2 at the FEP film/resin boundary.

Hmm, gonna need to mount my pico projector on a micrometer, and then once I get it in focus on the fep film, move the focus about 0.001" beyond it, and try from there.

I leave this here.

Is this not stereolithography? Whats new? The speed?

The stratysus at my work has been down for a week... makes my job as a designer quite difficult

Next they should get a 7 year old child to teach them how to upload a video with compression that isn't complete shit.

I think it would have been safe to make the video 10x speed.

So this is basically a form one with some marketing speak? www.formlabs.com

no it's a similar concept (light to harden a liquid resin) but uses a constant process at the bottom of the tank to do all the work. The Form One does layer-by-layer at incredible resolution but it still has to "dunk" the part before hardening the resin.

I'm not sure I fully understand this.. I have a Form One, the laser hardens the resin on the bottom of the resin tank and then the system peels that hardened layer off the resin tank bottom and moves down for the next layer to be cured. The part is hardened when it comes out of the resin. An IPA bath is used to remove residual resin.

This is nearly identical to the FormLabs 1+ machine and most other SLA machines. This looks like it has the potential to offer higher precision and faster build tines by using the directed oxygen. Anyone know if the material properties are affected? (I'd imagine at the least a higher density because of the oxygen pressure)

edit: I assume that the resin is a compressible fluid because we're dealing with microns and I trust nothing

Isn't that laser sintering?

Dissenting opinions in this thread are being deleted and only the super supportive posts of the employees are left. What the hell mods?

No. Jokes and off topic discussion are being deleted. Dissenting opinions are not being deleted.

I'm excited that we are experiencing the future now. As in the things considered impossible or outlandish are starting to become reality. My only concern is when our slave robots turn on us and we have this long drawn out war in a post apocalyptic world.

One of the few times in my life where I have no notion or even a guess of how this work.

Light shoots up through the bottom of the container and causes the special photosensitive liquid to solidify.

If anyone wants to watch this talk (for a fee to support TED) click over to http://tedlive.ted.com/

It happens in Session 1

So, when can we start printing food?

We think that popular 3-D printing is actually misnamed — it's really just 2-D printing over and over again," said Joseph DeSimone, a professor of chemistry at University of North Carolina and North Carolina State as well as one of Carbon3D's co-founders.

What an idiotic thing to say. If you print something in 2D over and over again, it wouldn't add up to 3D. Yes, it's printing slices, but they do have height.

Agreed. That's like saying regular printing isn't 2d because it prints the image one line at a time on the page.

How is this different from the form1+ ? Does it use cheaper resins? Is it more user friendly or easier to clean?

Resin printers have been around for a while. You can buy consumer-grade ones for your desktop. The big complaint I've read from users over in /r/3dprinting is that resin is weak and doesn't maintain its shape very well. A 1cm cube printed like this will slowly become deformed weeks later as the resin cures. The main selling point is that it does organic shapes very well with very high resolution.

Depends on the resin. Ceramic filled ones do better.

If this can be engineered to use organics in place of the resin, it can possibly be used to create limbs and organs for people with injuries, illnesses, and those born with defects.

The most useful place for a 3D printer would be in space, where resources are obviously limited. This concept will likely not work in 0 gravity, but it can be re-engineered. What if the resin was more of a film within a ring and that ring constantly fed the substance into the layer as the print formed? Liquids in space have a tendency to coalesce, which could keep holes from forming in that film. I'm not scientist but I do know that perfecting 3D printing will push the boundaries of space exploration.

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