10 Things You Didn't Know about 3D Printing...

3-D printers are all the buzz, but they aren't really printers at all.  They’re “additive manufacturers” more a replicator (Star Trek reference) than a printer, spraying fast curing materials in successive layers through special nozzles to produce complex objects. As seen with this runway outfit, designed in collaboration with Bradley Rothenberg along with Victoria’s Secret and Swarovski’s design team to create the outfit based on a fractal snowflake which they printed in their factory in NYC.  Now of course, if you can wade through the tremendous hype with your hip boots, you may see a smithereen of truth about the practical applications this technology brings to the table.  So we thought this was a perfect opportunity to fill the readers in on, "10 Things You Didn't Know about 3D Printing".

•      Now it’s a little soon for Jean-Luc to order “tea, Earl Grey, hot,” but several food products are already in testing, including candy, cakes, scallops, cookies and burritos.
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•      3D Printer, an online community for sharing 3-D designs, has dozens of sites that share templates for print-at-home Clothing, cutlery, fossils, rings, wearable’s, and other items.

•     From spaced-out to space itself: NASA is sending a 3-D printer to the International Space Station so its crew can build spare parts — a far cry from the 1970 Apollo 13 misadventure when that crew stayed alive by MacGyvering a carbon dioxide filter using duct tape, cardboard and a plastic bag.
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•       For researchers like Bones (famous TV forensic anthropologist) there is a tremendous upside, for now you don’t have to dig to exhume remains, all you have to do is be able to scan it. In fact, Engineers at Loughborough University in the U.K. used a 3-D printer to rebuild the skeleton of King Richard III.  Not our first choice, but we’re good.
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•      When there is an upside, there always is…  The Liberator — a plastic, single-shot pistol - that looks like a hot glue gun, made on a 3-D printer — which easily gets past metal detectors.  Now can it get any worse, yes?  The sex toy industry proudly 3D prints Justin Bieber… Don’t ask.

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•       Now if you are a true subscriber, you would already know that in our May 28th Issue (New IT Tech that Can Save Your Life) a bronchial tube for a child was made using this technology.  However, we now can report that replacement jawbones and hips are among the medical uses of 3-D printing.
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•       Speaking of bronchial tubes, good thing this is one of the first things they can produce, for if the Research in the journal Atmospheric Environment has any credence, there should be serious concerns with operator safety, for many desktop 3-D printers produce emissions linked to health issues ranging from asthma attacks to strokes. Some emissions come from certain plastics used as printer feedstock. But 3-D printers can use many other base materials: metal alloys, paper and even soil.
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•       Car manufacturers have been producing similar computer to part pieces for some
  20 years now.  However, using the additive manufacturing has been the latest focus.  In fact, the James Bond movie Skyfall. The Aston Martin DB5 that Bond appeared to drive was one of three models created using a 3-D printer.  Of course these
  
  were models; however, The URBEE isn’t: This hybrid car in development by Kor Ecologic aims to reach over 200 mpg on the highway. The car’s entire interior and exterior will be made with a 3-D printer.
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•       There’s also cause for old-school audiophiles to party hard. An engineer at the project-sharing site Instructables has figured out how to convert digital music files into vinyl-like LPs.
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•       American Hot Wax.  It takes up to six months for the artists at Madame Tussauds to create one of the wax figures. Yet a solo American 3-D designer, Dan Roarty, recently created a lifelike, printable 3-D model based on his belated grandmother in a third of the time. If you want to get creepy, you can order a 3-D model of your unborn baby. Several new fetal Fotomats specialize in turning sonograms into sculptures, lending new meaning to the term “prenatal development.”

Source(s):

• http://www.3dprinter.net/directory/free-3d-models
• http://ricker-wasabi-roll.blogspot.com/2013/05/it-saves-lives.html
• http://discovermagazine.com/2014/march/24-20-things-you-didnt-know-about-3d-printing

So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

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About Rick Ricker

An IT professional with over 22 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design, development, and support.

For more information, contact Rick at (800) 399-6085 x502