New 3D Printer

[Fez]

I wonder if I scan myself, I could get a twin???? Then my sister and I could duplicate ourselves and then ther would be four of us!!!! Hehe I'm excited for the future now. ^.^

I was thinking of scanning a titanium skeleton for myself. But then I thought.... How would I get the old one out and the new one in?

It's always something that stops my stupendously brilliant ideas.....sigh.

[joi]

Would this be considered cloning?

[udx]

The 3D printer only prints in plastic raisin fyi.

[Fez]

The 3D printer only prints in plastic raisin fyi.

Yeah I know, but one can dream. And they have just completed the first liver tissue printing experiment in South Africa. The cells "printed", but they can't keep them alive for too long yet because the circulatory system has to be worked on.

Printing

[rjp34652]

Well, you do need the original for it to work.

But it is truly, truly amazing that this is possible!

You don't need an original to make it work. There is software that works like 3D photoshop that can construct a 3D object out of thin air - or one's imagination as it were.

I work in a community college and we have one of these devices in our cad lab.

The printers work with two basic components; a base material/resin and a type of glue or bonding agent. A layer of base material/resin is sprayed onto the working platform and a layer of bonding material is sprayed on top. Layers are repeated according to the digital model that has been constructed by the computer. The basic 3D model thus constructed is usually a white color. More expensive 3D modelers/printers can reproduce in several colors as the designer wishes.

The printer must be thoroughly cleaned and recharged with chemical materials very much like the ink cartridges in a standard 2D printer. The dust the printers create is hellish to clean and the whole operation is conducted in a closed compartment of the printer, which must be opened and cleaned out after a series of operations.

It works, but its really really messy.

Edited July 3, 2012 by rjp34652

[Omegaman 3.0]

On 3/24/2012 at 7:47 PM, udx said:

The 3D printer only prints in plastic raisin fyi.

Actually, try searching for pancakebot!

[other one]

https://i.materialise.com/3d-printing-materials/titanium

 

Models made in Titanium are printed in titanium powder that is sintered together by a laser to produce end-use metal parts that are as equally good as machined models. 3D printed Titanium (unpolished) doesn’t look like the traditional shiny milled titanium. Instead, it’s a bit grayer and more matte with a slightly rougher and less defined surface. Models in Titanium are very strong, precise and can have feature size as small as 0.25 mm.

[Omegaman 3.0]

On 1/19/2017 at 0:59 PM, other one said:

Models made in Titanium are printed in titanium powder that is sintered together by a laser to produce end-use metal parts that are as equally good as machined models. 3D printed Titanium (unpolished) doesn’t look like the traditional shiny milled titanium. Instead, it’s a bit grayer and more matte with a slightly rougher and less defined surface. Models in Titanium are very strong, precise and can have feature size as small as 0.25 mm.

That Asia Minos one, is an excellent example, of what 3D printing is great for. That is a very intricate piece that cannot be fashioned using ordinary machining techniques. In typical machining, you start with a block of solid material can cut away the parts you do not want, similar to carving a statue our of stone.

Conventional, you can fashion a ball, by cutting the corners and sides off of a cube. In 3D printing, you do not have a starting, piece, so there is nothing to remove, and there is no waste. This means that you start at the bottom, of the sphere, and work you way up, adding material onto material, as you progress to the top, much like you could do if you glopped layer upon layer with a hot glue gun, except with precision.

This also means, that unlike conventional machining, you can even built up you sphere, as  hollow one.

[Omegaman 3.0]

On 1/19/2017 at 2:29 PM, Yowm said:

 

On 7/8/2011 at 11:46 AM, sheya joie said:

...um... What does it print on?

My thoughts. 3D paper? A block of wood?

 

Typically, they print on 'nothing'. An ink printer prints on paper usually, printing letters in mid air, is not something useful to most people, and handling printed letters that are not attached to paper, is difficult.

3D printed object are objects that take up space in  3 dimensions, not 2 dimensions as on paper. Usually there is some sort of base, the work area, that 3D printed objects are deposited on, then once complete, they are lifted and removed from the work area.

Below is a screen shot of a youtube video of a 3D Eifeel Tower model being printed:

 

If you want to watch the video, search youtube for "3D printed Eiffel tower time lapse". The video takes about 5 minutes to watch, but it took the printer 20 hours to make the model.

[Omegaman 3.0]

3 hours ago, Yowm said:

So essentially it is  mechanized assembly assembled via a programmed computer?

You have probably seen  regular inkjet of dot matrix printer work. You computer uses a driver to control the printer, to imitate what is on the screen. The printer works in the X (left and right) direction, to deposit ink, on one line across the page, with the ink being off, for the white portion of the print, and on where the image or the text goes.

The computer then instructs the printer to advance the paper in the Z direction (top to bottom), and prints a new line of ink.

A 3D printer is similar, except that it prints left and right (X) and close and far (Y) depositing it's "ink", in most cases a form of plastic), until there is a layer printed on the work area. In the case of that Eiffel Tower, it starts with 4 square pads that are at the "ground" of the Eiffel Tower.

Next it move the print mechanism up (Z) and continues to build the legs of the tower, etc, until if finishes at the very top poin to the tower.

So yes, it is a computer controlled mechanism, that works left and right, forward and backward, layer upon layer until a 3D object is built. Think of having one of those icing guns that cake decorators use, putting icing on top of icing, until the desired effect is achieved, only computer controlled, instead of manual.

The computer can be a personal computer, or it can be built in to the 3D printer. The program usually would consist of a language, that basically just moves the print mechanism around, turning the flow of plastic on and off as it moves. Theoretically, a person could write the program manually, I used to do that when I was in that business, but more often there are drawing programs that the design is created in, and once completed, software translates these electronic blueprints into instructions that that make since to the machine for controlling it's motion, very similar to what a conventional 2D printer does.