3D Industries Offers Drag and Drop Simplicity for Part Searches
As the additive manufacturing (AM) industry continues to expand, more and more 3D designs are making their way on to the Internet. Sites like Thingiverse and Shapeways offer thousands of 3D model designs, and similar sites are popping up all the time. That doesn’t even take into account the private model libraries stored in the computer banks of manufacturers and service bureaus. Taken as a whole, we are awash in 3D models.
While having all that variety and potential floating around out there isn’t a bad thing, it can make finding a supplier that happens to have (and can produce) the same kind of model as the one you need something of a challenge. Naming is part of the problem. What I call a square, you might call a block. If I try Googling service bureaus that can print squares, I’m not as likely to find exactly what I need. 3D Industries (3DI) intends to solve this issue with its new part search service. Continue reading
Rapid Ready Roundup: OsteoFab, Dreambox, RecycleBot and Trains
In the course of my diligent efforts to keep you good people up to date on the state of additive manufacturing (AM), I come across many interesting news items. I’ll gather them up every so often and present them in a Rapid Ready Roundup (like this one). You can find the last Roundup here.
Let’s start today’s Roundup with a look at a new medical use for AM. Oxford Performance Materials (OPM) has received FDA approval for its OsteoFab biomedical process. OsteoFab uses an EOS P800 and PEKK material to build cranial implants. The implants can be used to repair damage and trauma to the skull, replacing missing bone and integrating with surrounding bone. Continue reading
Retiree Invents Low Cost Filament Extruder
As anyone who has ever owned a standard 2D printer can tell you, it isn’t the cost of the machine that gets you. The general theory behind printer sales seems to be to sell the machines as a vehicle for selling you ink. While 3D printers aren’t quite as inexpensive to buy as their 2D brethren yet, the constant between the two seems to be the price of the material used to fuel them.
Two-pound spools of plastic filament run in price anywhere from $30 to $80 (for the really cool glow-in-the-dark variety), and any hobbyist that uses their 3D printer on a consistent basis will run through a roll of the stuff in short order. Oddly, though, you can get 5 pounds of pellets made from exactly the same material for $25 or less. Continue reading
Rapid Ready Roundup: State of the Union, DNA, Autodesk and A Game of Thrones
In the course of my diligent efforts to keep you good people up to date on the state of additive manufacturing (AM), I come across many interesting news items. I’ll gather them up every so often and present them in a Rapid Ready Roundup (like this one). You can find the last Roundup here.
We’ll begin today’s Roundup with some presidential enthusiasm. With NAMII up and running, President Obama is eager to continue pursuit of his vision for manufacturing innovation. In his 2013 State of the Union address, AM was part of the program, and the attention caused a boost to 3D printer manufacturer’s stock.
Piracy on the 3D Printed High Seas
Until fairly recently, the word “pirate” conjured up images of either scruffy thieves with a boat, or, for the more romantically inclined, suave, independent entrepreneurs who lived their lives by no laws except those they made for themselves. Nowadays, the word “pirate” is more likely to conjure up images of either Johnny Depp or scruffy thieves with a computer.
If you believe special interest groups like the RIAA, the internet is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, where every new movie, book or song is immediately pirated by hordes of Cheetos-eating basement dwellers. In truth, these claims are hard to verify. The pirates are unlikely to come forward in large enough numbers to generate solid statistics and, given the creative accounting performed by major studios, it’s possible the entertainment industry has no real idea where their product goes, or how it gets there. Continue reading
