3D
Printing
Seven of Nine eating cheesecake
3D-printing Revolution Moves from Earth into Space
SolidWorks Story
3D printing as the process of creating a three-dimensional object from a digital file, layer by layer.
Contrast this with traditional "subtractive" manufacturing e.g., machining, carving, or milling.
Additive Manufacturing Processes
3D Printing Is Becoming Unstoppable
Localized Production: 3D printing enables the production of goods closer to the point of use, reducing the need for large, centralized factories and complex global supply chains. This can lead to a revitalization of local economies and a decrease in transportation costs and carbon emissions.
Democratization of Innovation: With more accessible and affordable printers and open-source design files, individuals and small businesses can become producers.
Mass Customization: Consumers can move away from mass-produced goods and embrace highly personalized products tailored to their specific needs and preferences.
Job Market Transformation: While 3D printing may lead to a decrease in some traditional manufacturing jobs, it will create new roles in areas such as digital modeling, materials science, and printer maintenance.
Social & Political Implications
Photoshop vs Gimp
Personalized Medicine and Prosthetics: 3D printing is revolutionizing healthcare by allowing for the creation of custom-fit prosthetics, implants, and medical devices.
Bioprinting and Organ Regeneration: The field of bioprinting is advancing rapidly, with the potential to create living tissues and even organs for transplantation.
Education and Skill Development: 3D printing is becoming an important tool in education, helping students with hands-on, project-based learning. It allows for a tangible exploration of abstract concepts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Regulatory Challenges: The ability to print complex items, including weapons, raises security and ethical concerns that governments and societies will need to address.
3D Printing in Education Engineering and Technology
3D Printed Hip Replacement
3D-printed homes get built by robots in Texas neighborhood
3D-printed homes get built by robots in Texas
Robots Build Houses
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A House in 3 Hours?
Robots build full-scale 3D-printed homes in 24 hours
The Big Three Technologies:
Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM): The "hot glue gun" of 3D printing. It melts and extrudes plastic filament. Affordable, easy to use and low resolution, visible layer lines.
Stereolithography (SLA): The "liquid light" method. A laser cures a liquid resin into a solid. Its advantages, high resolution, smooth surface finish, and applications – prototyping.
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS): The "powder and heat" approach. A laser fuses powdered material (like nylon or metal) together, layer by layer. It has strength and ability to create complex geometries.
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3D printed Suzuki Jimny - available on printables
How Does It Work - BeAM Metal 3D Printing
This new type of 3D printing was inspired by Terminator 2
3D printable models may be created with a computer-aided design (CAD) package, via a 3D scanner, or by a plain digital camera and photogrammetry software.
The manual modeling process of preparing geometric data for 3D computer graphics is similar to plastic arts such as sculpting.
3D scanning is a process of collecting digital data on the shape and appearance of a real object, and creating a digital model based on it.
SpaceX shared how the latest Raptor engine has undergone extensive part consolidation, with a claim that SpaceX is home to some of the world’s "most advanced 3D metal printing technology."
The Raptor 3 SN1 has been simplified to include internalized secondary flow paths and regenerative cooling for exposed components. As a result, the Raptor 3 is said to eliminate the need for a heat shield, meaning it has been able to do away with additional mass and complexity, and its fire suppression system.
Part consolidation, weight reduction and the ability to design complex internal structures that were previously impossible to make with other manufacturing methods, are some of the biggest benefits of 3D printing technologies.
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Electron Beam Melting (EBM)
SPEE3D — Game-changing high-speed, low-cost metal 3D printing technology
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When talking about 3D printed organs, it is important to note that we humans are not yet at the stage where we can implant 3D printed hearts into our bodies.
A primary goal of bioprinting has been to solve the organ donor crisis by developing the possibility of printing living organs and other body parts.
For future patients, this means a shorter wait for their organ transplant, as well as an organ tailored to their unique genetic and physiologic profile to reduce the risk of rejection.
Scientists Use 3D Printer and Living "Ink" to Create Body Parts
3D Print Stem Cells Into Joints | Bio-organic Gel
Andrew Michael Spence (born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American economist and Nobel laureate.
Spence believes that, unlike prior digital technologies, which drove firms to deploy underutilized pools of valuable labor around the world, the motivating force in the current wave of digital technologies "is cost reduction via the replacement of labor".
For example, as the cost of 3D printing technology declines, it is "easy to imagine" that production may become "extremely" local and customized. Moreover, production may occur in response to actual demand, not anticipated or forecast demand.
Spence believes that labor, no matter how inexpensive, will become a less important asset for growth and employment expansion, with labor-intensive, process-oriented manufacturing becoming less effective.
Re-localization will appear in both developed and developing countries. In his view, production will not disappear, but it will be less labor-intensive, and all countries will eventually need to rebuild their growth models around digital technologies and the human capital supporting their deployment and expansion.
Spence writes that "the world we are entering is one in which the most powerful global flows will be ideas and digital capital, not goods, services, and traditional capital. Adapting to this will require shifts in mindsets, policies, investments (especially in human capital), and models of employment and distribution."
Player Piano is the debut novel by American writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr., published in 1952.
The novel depicts a dystopia of automation partly inspired by the author's time working at General Electric, describing the negative impact technology can have on quality of life.
The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers.
The widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class, the engineers and managers, who keep society running, and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines.
"Mister Sandman" on a 1916 Behr Bros. Player Piano