Dear readers,
Despite the title of the last post, this will be the final one. We won’t be talking about new topics here. This post is just for uploading the MyStatement Paper that contains a discussion on some of the topics covered on this blog.
Final post
As this will be my last post here I thought it would be a good idea to summarize the topics we covered on this blog.
I think it’s pretty obvious our focus here was mainly on new developments and technologies in the 3D printing world. We covered everything from printed food to weapons, electronics and even retina cells. We talked a bit about affordable 3D printers for home for plastics and metals. Copyright problems surrounding 3D printing and patents were also mentioned. And last but not least, we went over the advantages and disadvantages of 3D printing.
All in all quite a lot of different topics. I hope that you found our blog interesting and maybe even learned something by reading it…
Logistics & 3D printing
VIL (Flemish Institute for Logistics) has put a project that will investigate the potential of 3D printing in the logistics of spare parts. The research group consists of a group of eleven companies, including Atlas Copco, BASF, bpost and DHL Express
According to them, it is extremely important to respond to this hype and estimate its impact logistic operations. It is expected that by 2020 the market will be quadrupled to 7.5 billion dollars. The expectations state that local production will regain an important role and that the image of niche market will be gone.
The project will focus on the spare-parts market and how the current market has to anticipate on the emergence of the 3D printers. According to the McKinsey Global Institute 30 to 50% of all spare parts will be produced by means of an additive manufacturing technology by 2025. And the associated savings for the costumer would be 40 to 55%.
This research will provide the necessary tools and insights to be able to make the right strategic decisions to integrate the additive manufacturing industry.
I think this project will be very useful to get a clear and realistic insight on the large scale possibilities of industrial 3D printing. Additive manufacturing is not suitable for every product, so it is important to first investigate in what industries this system will be applicable.
Ultimaker 2
The Dutch company Ultimaker is a manufacturer of FDM 3D printers for home use. Their first printer, also called Ultimaker (they put a lot of thought into that one), was released in 2011. It became a huge success thanks to the open source character of it. You could buy the printer or just download the designs for free and build the printer yourself. It was especially the last part that made the printer so popular, the possibility to modify the design and build the printer yourself. This is not only cheaper but a real hobby for some people.
Ultimaker
About six months ago the company came up with the Ultimaker 2 which has some improvements compared to the first model. It has an improved, shorter extruder, a heated bed, new electronics, a new interface, etc… And it looks a bit better.
Ultimaker 2
For the Ultimaker 2 the company decided to not release the source files immediately. They are still a company and they need to make a profit to keep existing. And this way they can keep ahead of competitors and make some money. But now, after six months they released the source files. This is good news for the 3D printing community around Ultimaker, since they were starting to worry if the company was going to keep the open source strategy or not.
And if anyone here is interested in building their own 3D printer, just click here for the source files.
Hybrid Manufacturing
Hybrid manufacturing incorporates complementary technologies like additive manufacturing and/or measurement technologies in a CNC machine. The additive manufacturing technology used in these applications is called “laser cladding” .
The toolbox of the CNC machine now includes a “Laser cladding tool”, along with a measurement tool to do some in-line measuring before completing the part. These tools can be loaded using the machines tool changer or through a separate change mechanism. In this way the metal deposition head is able to follow similar NC tool paths as those of 3D milling and may be included in one NC program.
The Laser Cladding tool consists of a laser beam and material is added by spraying metallic powder into this laser beam, depositing a metal layer onto the base material.
Most additive manufactured metal parts need some follow-up machining like drilling, tapping holes or finish milling for a better surface quality. That is why this combination in one machine is so interesting. Reduction of part handling limits opportunities for errors and time and floor space can be saved.
This method generally needs the capability to measure the part to be able to calculate tool paths for both the additive and subtractive manufacturing processes. This happens by use of a tool holder containing a measurement probe that can be used in the same machine.
To illustrate the process, you can watch the video below. (you can skip the first minute)
The next video demonstrates the reparation of a turbine blade in a fully automated hybrid process.
Carbon fiber printing
The company “MarkForg3d” unveiled their printer “the Mark One” at the SolidWorks 2014 Conference in San Diego past month. This printer is the first to make use of a carbon fibre filament.
The ‘MarkForged Carbon Fiber’ has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than 6061-T6 aluminium alloy. This is one of the most common alloys of aluminum for general purpose use.
The printer is able to run either a 1,75mm or a 4mm carbon filament and beside that able to use fiberglass, PLA or nylon. Prices range from $550 a pound for the carbon fiber filament to PLA for about $22 a pound. It has a reasonable build size of 305mm x 160mm x 160mm with a minimum resolution of 100 microns.
Because the printer has 2 printing heads, it has the ability to only add carbon fiber on critical places to reinforce parts locally. The filament can be deposited continuously to maintain its strength and is an important step in the direction of producing mechanically interesting plastic parts. The printer is available in the second half of 2014 for $5000.
(Source: http://markforged.com/#)
3D printed eye cells
Researchers at The University of Cambridge have successfully printed retinal cells using a modified inkjet printer. The goal of the research is to eventually be able to treat retinal diseases and may even aid in the cure of blindness.
What the researchers have achieved so far is taking living cells from a retina, put them into a printer, lay them out in any pattern and prove that those cells can survive all of that. This was actually a bit of a surprise to the researchers since they expected the cells to distort when fired out of a printer at high speed.
For now they are only able to print out two layers of cells: one layer of nerve cells on top of a layer of support cells. So of course the next step is figuring out how to print multiple layers of cells to create fully functional retinas.
For these trials they used the retinal cells of adult rats and while human trials are still way off, the researchers are working on developing the technology for human use. But the main problem I see with this technique is getting the eye cells needed to print since nerve cells are very difficult to make in a laboratory.
Downside of 3D-Printing?
People tend to look only at the benefits of the evolving 3D-printing industry, both in the industrial and the private market. Transportation costs decline, reduced waste production, the environmental impact decreases and possibilities to create things independently. This all sounds nice, but we have to consider several downsides of this story.
- 3D Printers are energy hogs
While melting plastics by means of heat or lasers, the electrical energy consumed by the printers is 50 to 100 times higher than injection molding to produce parts of the same weight. This is an important restriction for the growth of the printer industry in mass production.
- Health risks
Desktop 3D printers for home use lack a decent exhaust system. While printing small figures, machines using PLA wire emit 20 billion particles per minute, and ABS wire up to 200 billion particles. These ultrafine particles are deposited in the lungs or bloodstream and pose health risks similar to burning cigarettes.
A common application of household printers is the production of kitchenware, but most filaments aren’t safe to be used for a spoon or knife.
- Plastics
While most stores tend to avoid the use of plastics bags, printers fully rely on these materials. ABS is in contrast to PLA not biodegradable, but still the most common used printer filament type. It might reduce the waste on first sight, but there is still always some excess material with each print job.
These subjects are accompanied with the potential digital piracy and the safety responsibility linked to this phenomenon, printing of weapons, ethics of bio-printing …
There are many more examples, but I think this creates a decent image of real and potential problems.
(source: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-dark-side-of-3d-printing-10-things-to-watch/)
Multi-material 3D printing
One of the biggest drawbacks of 3D printing is the fact that you are limited to 1 material per printing job. Using different colors or plastics in one model is not possible with most of the existing FDM 3D printers.
Now there is a new printer that is able to print using different materials and combine those with 46 different colors in one model. The Objet500 Connex3 printer developed by Stratasys uses triple-jetting technology. This enables it to mix plastic and rubber to create materials with different properties during the printing process itself. It makes it possible to print rigid, flexible or transparent objects. Or a combination of all of them in one product. This provides a lot of flexibility when creating and designing something with a 3D printer.
Don’t expect however that these printers will be available soon to the general public as the price is around $330,000. So for now if you want a 3D printer of your own, you’ll be stuck with one that can only print in one color and material per job.
Anti-gravity metal printer
The necessity for support structures in the layer based print technology is an important drawback and source of material losses (powder that can’t be reused) and energy losses.
The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) developed in cooperation with the “Joris Laarman lab” design studio a unique way of printing metal: the MX3D-Metal. The basic idea is very simple and similar to the DIY 3D metal printer mentioned in an earlier post. In this case the welding torch is held by a multi-axis industrial robot.
The innovative extrusion technology allows large-scale 3D printing without the need for support materials. The material is able to gain enough stiffness to support itself during the welding procedure. In this way they are not only able to create curved structures based on a horizontal plane, but also starting from a vertical placed baseplate. See the MX3D-metal in action in this video.
The printer is able to make use of a (stainless) steel, aluminum, bronze or copper wire and has a resolution that ranges from 5mm to 10mm lines.
In the current industry, this robot is as useless as the DIY 3D metal printer. The purpose of this robot probably has to be placed in the world of art, where it can be used to create metal sculptures. Also it could be a fine example of what the future industrial scale additive manufacturing systems might look like.
Powder transport and sieving in AM process 