3D Printing stuff

[Terpit]

Ive been reading about research in printing medicine, printing weapons and now printing toys a lot lately, does anyone know anything about this?

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19813382

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19818815

It seems pretty interesting, but im not sure what the implications are, printing all our food? or even all household goods, only having to shop for whatever material the printers need?

[knell]

It seems pretty interesting, but im not sure what the implications are, printing all our food? or even all household goods, only having to shop for whatever material the printers need?

household goods? there's already plans to make houses themselves 3D printable. if it becomes practical and commercialized then it would be the next big thing, but it wouldn't exactly be the star trek replicator

[Terpit]

It seems pretty interesting, but im not sure what the implications are, printing all our food? or even all household goods, only having to shop for whatever material the printers need?

household goods? there's already plans to make houses themselves 3D printable. if it becomes practical and commercialized then it would be the next big thing, but it wouldn't exactly be the star trek replicator

What exactly does printable mean?

[knell]

automated assembly, essentially

[Terpit]

Sounds like its gonna make people lazier, interesting tho

[wormcode]

Sounds like its gonna make people lazier, interesting tho

Well how many people build their own houses and such anyway? Personally I hope this stuff gets more advanced and becomes the norm, but printing guns is pretty lame.

makerbot is reasonably priced and getting cheaper, open source too. In a few years this will be close enough to actual teleportation for many different kinds of objects. You can already download files or people send you them, and you print them out into actual items. Quality/usability will just improve over a short time.

[Terpit]

Sounds like its gonna make people lazier, interesting tho

Well how many people build their own houses and such anyway? Personally I hope this stuff gets more advanced and becomes the norm, but printing guns is pretty lame.

makerbot is reasonably priced and getting cheaper, open source too. In a few years this will be close enough to actual teleportation for many different kinds of objects. You can already download files or people send you them, and you print them out into actual items. Quality/usability will just improve over a short time.

Dont get me wrong, i wasnt slagging it off at all. I dont know about about it to do so anyway.

[idontreallygiveashit]

i wasnt slagging it off at all. I dont know about about it to do so anyway.

u must be new to internet

[test_recordings]

Printing`s been about for at least a few years, at least openly outside labs so probably more behind closed doors. It`ll be available for the public in the not-so-distance future I reckon (though it`ll probably be for industrial applications first).

[Electric_Head]

Our local University has one of these 3D printers.

[Terpit]

Printing`s been about for at least a few years, at least openly outside labs so probably more behind closed doors. It`ll be available for the public in the not-so-distance future I reckon (though it`ll probably be for industrial applications first).

What have they been printing for the last few years?
Im really curious, i reckon this will make a lot of stuff better and cheaper.

[idontreallygiveashit]

We had a 3D Printer in my school and it was there at least ten years ago. What happened was it was some sort of powder and the printer (or the software it used) recognised a 3D design in a specific program and then heated up the powder, then moved up a layer then repeated until a solid shape was formed. I think.

[Electric_Head]

Printing`s been about for at least a few years, at least openly outside labs so probably more behind closed doors. It`ll be available for the public in the not-so-distance future I reckon (though it`ll probably be for industrial applications first).

What have they been printing for the last few years?
Im really curious, i reckon this will make a lot of stuff better and cheaper.

They use it a lot for body organs now.
Blood Vessels, ears, liver, etc.

http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/7/5/3d ... man-organs
http://singularityhub.com/2011/03/15/gr ... -audience/
http://singularityhub.com/2009/06/08/gr ... n-the-lab/

[Terpit]

I thought it was just for inorganic things, that Anthony Atala TED talk looks really good, will check that out.

[Electric_Head]

I find this stuff to be incredibly interesting.
Especially watching them train a heart valve to pump like a normal valve, or in organic blood vessels that learn to pump like an organic vessel.

http://download.ted.com/talks/AnthonyAtala_2009P.mp4

http://www.hangthebankers.com/cyborg-ti ... ectronics/

[kay]

You can get your own Makerbot fairly cheaply these days. And most major cities also have Hackspaces (or similar setups) available to the general public to join and use. I'd expect community Hackspace workshops to be the way to go, rather than having a 3D printer in each household.

The printing resolution of the home printing systems aren't quite good enough to make fantabulously pretty things, but they're pretty decent for making replacements parts, etc.

Even professional printing systems still come out fairly coarse and grainy. Plus the range of materials available is still fairly limited. Although the Objet system now boasts about 110 combinations of materials. They still tend to be lower strength materials though. Metals printing exists but the cost for the raw material is likely to keep that out of reach of most households.

Experiments in printing houses are looking fairly promising, although they're still a long way off from commercialisation because a lot of design challenges still remain.

Not quite printing, but these guys have used heart muscles to create a jellyfish. It's quite cool.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... alive.html

[wormcode]

You can get your own Makerbot fairly cheaply these days. And most major cities also have Hackspaces (or similar setups) available to the general public to join and use. I'd expect community Hackspace workshops to be the way to go, rather than having a 3D printer in each household.

That's definitely one thing that will happen/is happening. Though in just a few years 3D printers will be the price of video game consoles, and the goal with some of them is to make them even cheaper, affordable for anyone. So in 10-15 years, I think it will be just as common as someone owning a gaming console. Right now the Replicator2 is only about 2 grand, and that's not really a lot of money when you think about the useless dumb shit people already buy these days for that price or more. For example someone I know just spent almost 3 grand on a useless gaming laptop that only lasts about an hour before the battery dies, and gets way too hot to actually be portable.

[kay]

Have you all heard of Sugru? It's not printing related but it's very well associated with the Maker movement.

[wubstep]

My uni has one of these, probably should give it a go.

I know they can do far crazier stuff but it blew my mind again when a friend said he printed a ball inside a ball, like a rattle.

[kay]

Take a look at the website of one of the main industrial 3D printer suppliers in the world, they have some fairly neat examples, especially in the consumer products section:
EOS

I saw loads of "toys" that they made a few years ago just to explore some of the stuff that can be made with 3D printing and no other way.