Recent advances in rapid prototyping technology allow engineers to produce plastic objects of their own design right on their desks. A development attracting the attention of everyone from hobbyists to entertainment and automotive industry professionals. While most printers have cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, newer models, such as 2010’s BFB panther, lower the price to a few thousand. Rapid prototyping technology offers both efficient and cost-saving advantages to the design process.
Engineer Keith Curtis is with Microchip Technology Inc., a semiconductor manufacturer based in Arizona. The company often needs prototypes to show customers how small items, like some plastic car parts, might work when attached to a larger unit. He says that the ability to produce an object in the office has enhanced the design process.
Before they had a 3D printer, Curtis says that crafting these objects was complicated, often involving a third-party.
Curtis and his team use one of the least expensive 3D printers, a $1,500 model that requires assembly by the user. He says learning how to build and best use the machine were the difficult parts, and since then it has operated without malfunction.
Some 3D printers can run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Smaller models, like the one Microchip uses, can fit on a desktop, while others span several feet in width and height.
Purple Platypus, a 3D distribution company based in California, carries several printer models. Its founder, David Cox, says that regardless of their size or expense, most of these printers operate under the same principle.
Inside each printer on display at Purple Platypus, a mechanism feeds extremely thin layers of material, mostly plastic and rubber, back and forth over a base. Often within several hours, the printer turns a computer-designed image into a 3D prototype from the bottom-up.
Cox says these 3D printers offer several advantages. First, sending a design to a third party production team usually requires days of waiting for one object. Second, for businesses with a high demand for prototypes, these in-house machines and their materials are more cost effective.
Current 3D printers do not offer consumers much beyond prototyping, but research into 3D printing technology extends far beyond plastic models. Joel Johnson is a reporter who has covered rapid prototyping for Gizmodo, an online technology guide.
Bio-engineers are currently researching the machines’ ability to print organic tissue while some inventors are looking into ways to produce large-scale objects for more long-term use.
While many industries are looking into the future of this technology, for the moment 3D printers offer a unique tool for design application.
As Jay Leno once said, 3D printing technology is “pretty amazing.” Now, more and more people are becoming fascinated and interested in learning more about it. But what exactly is involved in 3D modeling, and moreover, how can printers get in on this latest technology craze?
Z Corp., located in Burlington, Mass., develops and manufactures printers and scanners that produce 3D models from computer-aided design (CAD), building information modeling (BIM), and other digital data. Companies use Z Corp.’s 3D printers to make prototypes ranging from toys for market feedback to fan blades for functional testing. Similar to how conventional desktop printers provide a paper output of documents, 3D printers provide 3D CAD and BIM users a physical prototype of objects such as a mobile phone, a camera, or a scale model building.
Companies including MTV, Nike, Converse, and Electronic Arts Inc.—creators of the video game Spore—use Z Corp.’s 3D technology for product design and prototypes.
How Is it Done?
“What’s involved in the 3D process itself is the software that’s used to generate the file. The software is broken down into three categories: mechanical and design such as Autodesk, architectural software such as Bentley Component and Form Z, and animation-oriented software such as 3DS Max,” explained Scott Harmon, vice president of business development for Z Corp.
“The 3D printers then take the design and generate a replica of it, but in order for it to be printed, the model has to have volume: It needs to be a sphere, not a circle,” he said.
“Z Corp.’s 3D printers suit applications from high school education through demanding commercial environments. Our 3D printers are the fastest on the market, have the lowest operating costs, and are affordable. The entry-level ZPrinter 310 Plus is a monochrome machine that builds volume of 8×10x8 inches. The mid-range ZPrinter 450 is a full color machine mixes color on the fly. It prints the same volume as the 310 Plus and makes it easy to create creature features,” Harmon noted.
The ZPrinter 650 is considered Z Corp.’s “high end” machine and prints in high definition full color by adding a black channel. The volume output is 10×15x8 inches. Z Corp. machines feature four-color printing through a layer-based system rather than one line at a time. Z Corp. also offers material systems for each printer to satisfy varying modeling needs. The material options allow for customization of model properties for each application.
Many 3D printers do not require an industrial environment to operate. Roughly 18,000 machines in the 3D printing industry are priced below $100,000, but even if you obtain the printers to perform capabilities, “if you don’t have the 3D software, you won’t have a use for the printer,” stated Harmon.
After purchasing Palm earlier this month for a cool $1.2B, HP promised to “double down” on WebOS. As many are expecting, the company will produce and release a WebOS tablet this year and it could come as early as this summer or very early fall.
Wong also promised that the newly acquired OS will be on smartphones too but not netbooks. Netbooks are more like regular notebook computers is the rationale. So one would assume HP will not spurn Microsoft in that market.
Other devices HP is going to put WebOS on include printers. According to the company’s Twitter feed HP CEO Mark Hurd said they would be loading the OS on web connected printers. What would you want WebOS on a printer for? Maybe it would allow printing over the Internet or as a new kind of Fax machine to both send and receive documents sent to the printer.
While this is not shocking to anyone, it is the closest thing we have to a confirmation, if you can believe the report.
It is hard to read this without remembering of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showing off the HP tablet with Windows 7 running on it at CES earlier this year. Will HP have both a Windows and WebOS version of this tablet? I think that is unlikely. So it looks like Microsoft is the odd corporation out. No more Windows 7 on an HP Tablet or Windows Phone 7 on HP handsets, if that was ever in the works.
Small commercial printers have to be extra savvy when it comes to major business decisions. Smart choices are a must if they want to keep up with larger competitors. No one knows that better than Big Print, a large format graphics production house based in Minneapolis, MN.
From wall murals and vehicle wraps to tradeshow graphics and fine art reproductions, the small shop is always looking for new ways to deliver big results for print buyers. That’s why owner Herb Fick jumped at the chance to beta test the new HP Scitex FB500 Printer.
“For smaller shops like us who want to grow business in a difficult environment, it helps to be able to offer a full range of capabilities to customers,” said Fick. “When you need to please people who need high volume at a low cost, the HP Scitex FB500-and the cost savings it offers-is a big plus.”
Along with the significant cost savings offered by the new HP Scitex FB500, the printer’s ability to create high-quality prints on virtually any rigid and flexible media, and its use of new HP Scitex FB251 White Ink, is expanding the possibilities of what Big Print can offer.
After using solvent- and aqueous-based solutions, Fick believes the decision to add the new HP Scitex FB500, which uses HP UV-curable inks, was an easy one to make-especially because of the savings.
Plastic extrusion machines that can make 3-D objects will be commonplace in homes one day, people in the field believe.
Home computer printers gave people the ability to produce bank statements, concert tickets, holiday cards and party invitations at the touch of a button.
But what if you wanted to “print out” a dinner plate, the leg of an armchair or an eyeglass frame? It may sound far-fetched and futuristic, but plastic extrusion machines that can do this — popularly known as 3-D printers — are poised to enter the home electronics market.
“Tonight Show” host Jay Leno has an industrial version in the warehouse-sized Burbank garage that houses his collection of more than 200 cars and motorcycles. His mechanics design hard-to-find parts on a laptop computer and then use the machine to make them real.