TREK Bicycles prototest using functional 3D Printed parts

Trek Bicycles uses Objet 3D printers and the ABS-like materials to rapidly prototype functional bike parts that can be tested on real bikes - in the field - just 2 hours after on-screen design.

The 3D printing process saves weeks from the conventional CNC milling process, and allows them to perfect their design parts before full production:

• TREK were considering buying an SLA (Stereolithography) machine, an established rapid prototyping technology
• The company knew that SLA could make great parts that customers would like, but wanted to explore all options
• They were attracted by the ability of the Objet Connex 3D Printer to use multiple "digital" materials in the design process
• Looking closer at SLA they found that there was an overhead in post-processing - 4 people to finalize parts - which they viewed as a 'hidden cost'
• Objet Connex offered them a relatively simpler process, with less post-processing overhead
• For TREK, traditional CNC machined parts came with a typical 28 day backlog - that's a big impact if the part is wrong and another machine-run is required
• With Objet Connex the turnaround is 1 day - allowing for multiple iterations in the design process
• It turned out that the ABS-like 3D printed parts are strong enough even for testing brackets under stress
• TREK engineers were amazed at the first parts that came out of the Connex - a real part 'in your hand'

 

3D Printing ideal for replicating important objects with 0.004 inch resolution

Scientists at Drexel University in Philadelphia have announced their intention to build working replica dinosaurs by using a 3D printer to create stand-in bones and tissue.

The team claim they will have a working dinosaur limb by the end of 2012 and a complete dinosaur within two years. And soon thereafter, their robot dino could be revealing how motion looked millions of years ago. [There are no details of which 3D Printer or technology will be used]

Read more: Jurassic Bot: How to Build a Robot Dinosaur With a 3D Printer - Popular Mechanics

In a similar story, The Smithsonian, which has 137 million exhibits in 19 museums, is using a hi-tech scanner to capture its most famous exhibits in high resolution. Once it has captured the item, it will then use an advanced 3D printer to painstakingly recreate the exhibit layer by layer.

Read more: No longer one of a kind: Smithsonian makes copies of artifacts using 3D printer to lend them to other museums

The Smithsonian are working on this project with RedEyeOnDemand - a 3D printing service within the Stratasys umbrella. They employ Fused Deposition 3D printers from Fortus (a brand now owned by Stratasys) but also the PolyJet technology from Objet Geometries which is not part of the Stratasys group of companies.

Resolution for these 3D printed precious object replicas is claimed to be 0.0004 of an inch in the original article. Should that be 0.004?

3D Printing prototype LEGO Bricks

A LEGO brick designer turns a paper sketch into reality using an Objet 3D Printer.

Medical Applications of 3D Printing Expand - a 3D Printed Jaw

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16907104

A 3D printer-created lower jaw has been fitted to an 83-year-old woman's face in what doctors say is the first operation of its kind. The implant was made out of titanium powder - heated and fused together by a laser, one layer at a time. The implant was built by LayerWise - a specialised metal-parts manufacturer.

As we pointed out in another article, with 3D printing, complexity comes for free. The Jaw implant is a complex part - involving articulated joints, cavities to promote muscle attachment and grooves to direct the regrowth of nerves and veins. Once designed, it only took a few hours to print.

"Shortly after waking up from the anaesthetics the patient spoke a few words, and the day after the patient was able to swallow again," said Dr Jules Poukens from Hasselt University, who led the surgical team. "You can build parts that you can't create using any other technique. For example you can print porous titanium structures which allow bone in-growth and allow a better fixation of the implant, giving it a longer lifetime."

Metal Additive Manufacturing is a new solution that enables designers to rethink the way complex parts are made. It is an additive technology similar to the conventional polymer Rapid Prototyping.

The advantages are that the surgery time decreases because the implants perfectly fit the patients and hospitalisation time also lowers - all reducing medical costs.

Impossible Creations and 3D Printing at the London Model Engineering Show

Impossible Creations were exhibiting at the London Model Engineering Show, Alexander Palace. The show is a regular annual event for anyone interested in the intersection between engineering and model making. Stacked full of model boats, trains, planes, tanks and trucks, the show is also host to a wide range of tool makers and engineering process experts, including ... Impossible Creations.

At the show I had the pleasure of meeting Ian Carter, founder, and was able to touch and feel various model parts that had been 3D-printed on their uPrint by Dimension 3D printers.

Dimension is a brand of 3D printers by Stratasys that offers CAD (computer-aided-design) users a low-cost, networked alternative for printing functional 3D models from the desktop. The printers build models layer-by-layer using ABS plastic, one of the most widely used thermoplastics in today's injection-molded products.

Ian Carter founded Impossible Creations after three decades of experience in product design in the automotive industry, and he now is aiming to bring these capabilities to a wider audience - including the hobbyist 'model maker' marketplace and offer a 'design and build' custom modelling service. For example, a model train enthuiast could use a computer to replicate an historic locomotive, and then 3D Print the plastic part as the body of a new engine for his model railway.

While at the Impossible Creations booth, one enthusiastic model maker was discussing the details of a small part which they had test printed using Impossible Creations service. They were brimming over with positive statements and were comparing the previous injection-molded part with the 3D Printed part.  They claimed that "The 3D print is of much higher quality. I can see these parts to my clients. I often have to apologize to my clients for the injection-molded parts."

The company is now moving to dedicated offices and workshop in Essex and we wish them every success for the future.

Aardman 3D-Print 8,000 mouths for Sony Pirates Animation

Aardman Animation studios have employed 3D Printing to produce 8,000 mouths of a Pirate Character for a new movie. You read that right, 8,000!

Traditional molding clay was still used to bring the characters in Sony's new movie "The Pirates! Band of Misfits"  to life, but the animators happily embraced the new technology to make those figures speak.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/21/tech-and-moves-3d-printing-brings-new-angle-to-animation/

The 3D printing of all those different mouths helped speed up the animation process, allowing for more details and characters in the film.

“We’d still be shooting now if we had to sculpt all of these mouths,” key animator Whitlock at Aardman said. “Even with 3D printing, you can easily spend two to three months on a character. I probably did five or six characters in the space of 10 months ....You can get stronger individual animation styles to each face because of the way that they're made ....You retain the style very faithfully, so that's very helpful.”

Having read this story, one wonders how many mouths were printed at a time, on what printer and with what process?

3D Printing means that "Complexity comes for free"

3D Systems was at CES 2012 talking about the capabilities of 3D Printing. Cathy Lewis, VP, Global Marketing, explained how "Complexity comes for free". How true!  Watch the VentureBeat video below to the end and see for yourself.


Cubify from Venturebeat on Vimeo.