Although 3D printing technology has existed for some time, it’s only now beginning to cross over into mainstream awareness, thanks to increasingly affordable access to the printers themselves as well as attention-grabbing headlines about 3D printed guns and life-saving medical applications. While less eye-catching, perhaps, the innovation is also powering a new class of creatives, who are using 3D… → Read More
Amid grumblings of a “general fatigue” when it comes to software-based startups, a potentially transformative technology called 3D printing is poised to reach critical mass and mainstream awareness. Today’s news headlines about the technology tend to focus on the extreme possibilities in being able to print objects on demand – from the terrors of things like a homemade 3D-printed gun to… → Read More
Joshua Pearce, PhD, is a researcher at Michigan Tech who rearches open source and low-impact solutions to engineering problems. He is also the founder of the Printers For Peace contest, an effort to bring together clever 3D-printed ideas that have loftier aims. You can win one of two 3D printers if you submit the winning project. → Read More
Now that Defense Distributed is on the defensive, it’s time to think a bit harder about what 3D printing really means. To that end, Michigan Tech is sponsoring a Printers For Peace contest that is encouraging designers and engineers to make amazing stuff using a 3D printer that can change the world for the better. “Unfortunately, the only thing many people know about 3D printing is that it can be… → Read More
By now, you have probably heard about the Liberator, a 3D printed plastic gun designed, assembled, and test-fired by Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed. Is it legal? → Read More
It’s rare to see a company that is so established yet so cutting edge as Shapeways. The company, founded in 2007 as a spin-off of Royal Philips Electronics, began as a one-off 3D printing service that offered basic plastic items for sale online. Over the years, however, the company has branched off into some amazing materials – steel, ceramic, and even sandstone – and they’ve already been able to… → Read More
Welcome to the world of the sub-$1,000 3D printer. Manufacturer Pirate3D has promised that their Buccaneer printer will cost a mere $347, about $1,700 less than the cheapest extrusion-based printer available. The printer can print at a maximum of 100 microns – the same as the Makerbot’s – and prints at 50mm/s. It connects to your computer or mobile device via Wi-Fi and is made of stamped steel. → Read More
Gun control is control of all guns. This tautology, in a developed society, is non-negotiable. If guns can exist in our country, then gun plans can exist, and, although I’m firmly on the side of draconian control over most weapons, I find the move to ban Defense Distributed’s plans for their Liberator pistol unconscionable. → Read More
The boy geniuses of Formlabs, David Cranor, Maxim Lobovsky, and Natan Linder have posted a video detailing their Form One 3D printer, one of the most well-put-together 3D printing devices we’ve seen in a while. The Form One uses a form of stereolithography that prints the objects “upside down” by activating polymers with laser light. The resulting objects come out of a bath of plastic looking like… → Read More
Now that we have confirmation that the Liberator 3D-printed pistol can be fired without destroying the body, let’s address what this means for 3D printed weapons and, presumably, homemade weapons in general. → Read More
Buy it in a store, laser scan it at home, upload it to the web, print it anywhere. 3D printing is poised for the mainstream, but what happens when one person’s finely hand-crafted designs can be pirated and reproduced by anyone? Will 3D printing piracy social networks arise? And how will manufacturers lobby to stop them? → Read More
As 3D printers become more ubiquitous, small manufacturers have two choices – build and hope for the best or cede to patent trolls who own a number of basic patents around extrusion and additive manufacturing. Sadly, more of those patents are being filed daily and many have plenty of prior art available that would make them unwelcome at the Patent Office. → Read More
If you’re into 3D printable stuff, or into remote-control cars, then the OpenRC Project is for you. A gentleman in Sweden named Daniel Norée is sharing his progress on a 3D-printed Truggy, as well as sharing the recipe with the OpenRC Project group that he created. A truggy is an off-road vehicle, in case you weren’t sure. The cost of 3D printers is dropping both for at-home use and… → Read More
3D printing is still in its infancy. But, to use an overused phrase, it is the future. From home use to enterprise use, 3D printing will continue to grow and break into new areas. With that comes price reductions. So much so that Gartner predicts enterprise-class 3D printers (read: 3D printers not made by hipsters in Brooklyn) will drop under the $2,000 mark by 2016.
The report pegs continued… → Read More
Sculpteo, a French 3D printing company, is now offering custom iPhone adapters for older iPod docks, allowing you to add connect to your old Bose, Sony, JBL, and other docks with the new Lightning connector. Obviously you need a Lightning adapter but the $17 pieces will make it much easier for you to connect your phone to these older docks. → Read More
3D printing company Shapeways had a banner 2012 — it locked up a $6.2 million Series B last year in a round led by Lux Capital, and established a full-blown factory in Long Island City. And it’s hoping to make the process of designing and printing physical knick-knacks even easier this year.
The plan? To inspire developers to create a slew of new design apps that hook into Shapeways’ printing… → Read More
Like many complex 3D-printed projects, this violin isn’t entirely made on a 3D printer but it’s interesting nonetheless. It is a violin that costs about $12 to build and uses paper, 3D printed parts, and some cheap wire to make an instrument that, while not pretty to look at, is definitely capable of making some sort of music. → Read More
I can’t tell you how many times I wished my virtual pottery collection in Let’s Create! Pottery, a fun game on iOS and Android that lets you sculpt and paint little pottery pieces, could be brought to real life.
Now through the magic of 3D printing, I can do just that. → Read More
Defense Distributed, a group run primarily by gunsmith Cody Wilson, has released a video of an AR-15 with a 3D-printed lower receiver firing off over 600 rounds, a unique feat in the realm of 3D-printed parts. The part, called the AR Lower V5, worked nearly perfectly while firing 600 rounds and, as Wilson notes, “the test ended when we ran out of ammunition, but this lower could easily withstand… → Read More
With 3D printing on the verge of going mainstream, you can manufacture almost anything.
As of November 2010, you can add a 3D-printed car to that list, too. → Read More
Idle 3D printers are the bane of the creative class. That’s why MakeXYZ.com is so important. It is a service that helps you find 3D printers near you and request print jobs. Like the remote batch jobs of yore, you can simply contact a MakeXYZ maker and they’ll print off your item. → Read More
As 3D printing and modeling moves into the mainstream, it’s interesting to see the rise of small players in the market and the capital raised. Take, for example, CGTrader. Originally designed as a marketplace for 3D designers and artists, it’s just raised nearly 200,000 Euro from Practica Capital, a fund in Lithuania. Founded by Marius Kalytis, the company is based in Vilnius. → Read More
3D printing can be complex or, if the 3Doodler is any indication, wildly simple. Built by a team of toy designers, the 3Doodler is a pen with a simple plastic extruder at the tip. When you press a button, a thin string of plastic comes out and almost instantly hardens. You can use the pen to draw plastic pictures or, with a little plastic, even build three-dimensional objects. → Read More
Editor’s note: Michael Weinberg is vice president at Public Knowledge where he focuses primarily on copyright, issues before the FCC and emerging technologies like 3D printing.
Mashups are one of the great art forms of our time. Although remixes, mashups, sampling, and collage predate the Internet by decades (if not centuries), easy and accessible digital tools have allowed anyone to remix… → Read More
As a fan of monsters and 3D printing, in that order, I was intrigued by Autodesk’s new iOS app, 123D Creature. Aimed at beginning 3D modelers, the app allows you to build cute (or scary) monsters right on your screen by pinching, grabbing, and rotating a lump of virtual clay hanging on a skeleton. → Read More
Two makers on opposite ends of the globe, Ivan Owen in Bellingham, Washington and Richard Van As in South Africa, have teamed up to build a custom robotic hand and publish it on Thingiverse. The best part? They built it for Liam, a five-year-old South African boy who was born without fingers on his right hand, by collaborating online between continents. → Read More
There’s already been plenty of talk about 3D printing entire buildings, but those ambitions may not remain strictly earthbound for too long. According to a new report from Phys.org, the European Space Agency and partners from London-based architecture firm Foster + Partners have begun to explore the feasibility of 3D printing a life-sustaining base on the lunar surface. → Read More
Gael Langevin wants to give you a robot. The French artist is posting 3D printer files for a humanoid robot he’s building as he completes the various parts, allowing us all to create our very own plastic helper/lover with some ABS plastic, a few Arduino boards, and some motors. → Read More
Sure, 3D printing is fun and cute. And products like the Makerbot and Form 1 will most certainly disrupt manufacturing, even if it’s only on a small scale. But the possibilities of 3D printing stretch far beyond DIY at-home projects. In fact, it could entirely replace the construction industry.
We’ve already seen folks at MIT’s Research Labs working on ways to 3D print the frame of a home in a… → Read More
As the race – and it’s basically a race – to release as many 3D-printed gun parts as possible heats up, it’s never been harder for me to come down on the side of the “Freedom To Tinker” crowd. Last weekend Defense Distributed, a group dedicated to releasing plans for a 3D printed gun, posted a video and description of their 3D-printed AR-15 thirty-round… → Read More
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