Tag: fablab

Valve lawsuit

Volunteers 3D-Print unobtainable valve and get sued

And if you’re wondering why the original manufacturer would risk what is bound to be awful publicity for its actions, over something that only costs 1 euro to make, a detail in the Business Insider Italia article provides an explanation: the official list price for a single valve is $11K.

3D Printing Skills

3D printers are preparing students for life after high school

I had the opportunity to sit in one of the design classes offered to upperclassmen. The teacher divided the students into small groups and asked them to create a holder for their headphones. Using modeling software and a 3D printer, they had to design a project that considered function, durability, and user friendliness.

Each team had a different approach. Some were working on a clamp that attached their headphones to the edge of the table, and others opted for a stand that would sit on the desk. I was blown away by how well thought out each design was. (You can see several of their projects in the video above.)

The school’s unique curriculum is particularly beneficial to some students who may have struggled in middle school. English language learners and students with disabilities seem to thrive at AFSE, since computer science focuses more on numbers and less on language skills. These students benefit from the way even non-specialized classes weave in computer science concepts—for example, a history teacher might ask a student to design a webpage about the War of 1812 instead of preparing an oral presentation.

Material Abundance

is a world where basic needs are provided for and we can print anything a utopia? I posit: No. But it’s no dystopia either. Is a system that ensures nobody goes hungry and that no one person or corporation could manipulate the market beyond its natural elasticity worth the loss of what many of us believe is a fundamental inalienable right? Only the future will tell.

1000x faster Metal Printing

The challenge with all these claims is that there’s no standard measure for printing speed, making these hard to compare. The best seems to be kg / h.

The SPEE3D printer has the potential to turn 3D metal printing, which currently is just making prototypes of parts, into a tool for manufacturing actual parts for use. It is up to 1000x quicker than conventional 3D metal printers.

Copper Rocket Nozzle
Print Time: 199 minutes
Weight: 17.9KG
Cost: $716
Speed: 5.4 kg / h

This 265mm x 300mm high, aerospace rocket nozzle liner was printed in pure copper on the WarpSPEE3D. Parts like these are typically machined out of solid wrought copper, a process that takes weeks and costs 10s of 1000s of $. The lead time for producing these parts is also typically around 6 months.

2022-03-20: Seurat uses a pixelization type approach to speed things up.

With the equivalent of 2.4m pixels projected in each square, the machine can print parts with layers just 25 microns thick at a rate of 3kg an hour. This is 10X faster than a typical L-BPF machine at such a fine resolution. Production versions of the Seurat Large-Area Pulsed Laser Powder Bed Fusion printer are now being built, and future generations of the machine should end up being 100x faster.

Area printing will be competitive with mass-production factory processes, such as machining, stamping and casting. By 2030 it will be possible to produce silverware for $25 a kilo. “That means we could actually print silverware cheaper than you could stamp them out”.

2023-05-13: Seurat lands a big customer

The part Seurat will produce for Siemens Energy is a turbine sealing segment made from a nickel-based alloy — it’s a component the company hadn’t previously considered as a candidate for 3D printing.

Over the 6-year length of the contract, Seurat will produce 59 tons of the sealing segments and related components. The big benefit is the potential cost savings, but the approach also reduces the emissions associated with producing the part, because Seurat’s technology is powered with solar and wind electricity that the company sources locally. The equation Seurat uses to talk about this is 1 metric ton of emissions reductions for every ton of components made. The approach also dramatically reduces the feedstock needed for production, which cuts down on scrap.

Foundry

The team at MIT hopes that Foundry will become 3D printing’s analog to graphic design’s Photoshop. To aid rapid prototyping, the platform enables the designer to assign distinct material properties to each part in a composite print. For example, it could produce a dental appliance containing a rigid, tooth-like material connected to a softer and more malleable material to merge with the gums.