Books about 3D printing start to appear on Amazon.com

Books about 3D printing are starting to appear on Amazon. Expect a lot more over the next few months and years. How many? A LOT more!

Sample of 3D printing books on Amazon.com

 

The Economist reports from EUROMOLD 2011

Points mentioned in the article:

• 300 exhibitors working in 3D print/additive manufacturing
• 3D printers the size of cars, many desktop units
• Building up products layer by layer or drop by drop in plastic, powered metal
• Exhaust manifold, artificial leg, aircraft door hinge, shoes, fashion
• 3D products have flowing lines, more like art with an organic look
• Some 3D printed objects copying nature, human aesthetic 
• 3D printed bones have curves to precisely fit the patient
• Titanium printed bones can replicate lattice-like internal structure of human bone
• Bundles of vertical filaments can make objects light and strong
• Heat exchanger optimum design like a fish gill
• A car mirror 3D printed to include channels for wiring
• Gearbox hydraulics could be 30% lighter if 3D printed
• An unmanned aircraft drone in laser-sintered nylon incorporating a geodetic structure - possible with 3D printing
• Layers are laser sintered into solidity or cured with heat or UV
• Clock mechanism made 'in one go' in a 3D printer
• Compound materials - rubberlike at one end fading to stiff at other
• Camera body soft where gripped, hard where the lens is mounted
• Fashion applications - shoes, smart phone cases

http://www.economist.com/node/21541382

An ATM skimmer made with the help of a 3D printer?

In July 2011, a customer at a Chase Bank branch in West Hills, Calif. noticed something odd about the ATM he was using and reported it to police. Authorities who responded to the incident discovered a sophisticated, professional-grade ATM skimmer that they believe was made with the help of a 3D printer.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/12/09/sophisticated-3d-printed-atm-skimmer-appears-in-la/

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/12/pro-grade-3d-printer-made-atm-skimmer/

Will Maker Culture spark the next tech boom?

The Economist has run a piece on maker culture, automation electronics and 3D printing. As in this blog The Economist has also noted that "The parallel with the hobbyist computer movement of the 1970s is striking". 

http://www.economist.com/node/21540392

"It is easy to laugh at the idea that hobbyists with 3D printers will change the world. But the original industrial revolution grew out of piecework done at home, and look what became of the clunky computers of the 1970s. The maker movement is worth watching." 
(My thanks to Stephen Low for spotting this story)

BNN interview: ZCorp and Terry Wohlers, Additive Manufacturing Consultant

Video interview here:

http://watch.bnn.ca/headline/november-2011-/headline-november-9-2011/#clip565060

Wohlers: "Boeing has 20,000 parts on fighter jets without a single failure."
BNN: "How many of those parts were made with 3D Printing?"
Wohlers: "All 20,000 parts were made with 3D Printing"

Get the latest Wohlers report here

The Rook and the long road to the Cambrian dawn of 3D Printing

All over the world, a tiny group of very special people are hard at work at something hardly anyone understands. No, they are not just printing 3D objects on 3D printers that they can buy, rent or access over the web via a 3D printing service. No, they are 3D printing (and fabricating in other ways) the parts they need to bring their own designs for a 3D printer to life.

The Rook 3D printer is one such development. It's creator Jolijar is blogging about it here. And each time that happens, someone injects a 3D printer innovation into the 3DP-technology innovation stream. In this case, it's something to do with  "getting rid of that horrid threaded rod approach"!

Innovations add up over time. Eventually, these innovations are released or leak onto the Web, via open source hardware specifications, or by uploading designs for parts for new 3D printers into object repositories like the Thingiverse. There, they can be downloaded, printed and used to make new objects, including parts of new 3D printers. And as this happens, each generation of 3D printer design is just a little bit better than the last.

Maybe the rate of innovation in 3DP won't be as rapid as with the far more malleable open source software projects. Maybe it will be a lot slower. Maybe the analogies to the Cambrian explosion of creativity that occurred when we hooked up computers via IP networks to form the WWW are utterly unrealistic. Maybe 'digital evolution' will always over-shadow a 3DP evolution. Nevertheless, something is happening. 3D Stuff is being digitized as 3D models. There, it too can be 'digitally evolved'. That new stuff is then being 3D printed. And some of that stuff is new parts for new kinds of 3D printer.

Talented engineers are working hard to make it work, and to bring about a new industrial Cambrian dawn. It's very exciting, but its also a very long road.

A lot of schools are going to be doing 3DP in the future

The students in an engineering class have acquired the power to transform the designs in their heads into objects they can hold in the palms of their hands.

Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School’s new 3D printer is state of the art technology that gives B-R engineering students a big advantage in applying to college and excelling once they get there.

Read more: http://www.tauntongazette.com/education/x1059073553/MOLDING-YOUNG-MINDS-3D-printer-makes-an-impression-at-Bridgewater-Raynham-High-School#ixzz1ee1QDKq4