3D Printing

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, has advanced rapidly in recent years, allowing companies to quickly produce working prototypes and home hobbyists to produce various bits and bobs for the home. While plastic remains the dominant printing material, additive manufacturing with materials including metal, cement and even glass, enables the production of everything from tiny screws to engine components to entire houses ... and it's only just getting started.

3D Printing Audio available

Dichroic 3D-printing material changes color with point of view

Ben Coxworth February 15, 2019

In use since at least the 4th century AD, dichroic glass displays different colors depending on how it's being viewed. Now, Dutch scientists have produced the effect in a material that can be used to create 3D-printed objects – and it's not just a novelty, as it could have practical applications.

A miniature goblet printed from the new material appears both opaque brown and translucent violet

3D Printing

3Doodler App turns your smartphone screen into a 3D drawing canvas

Paul Ridden February 13, 2019

Almost 6 years after launching on Kickstarter, WobbleWorks has announced some new product lines, and an iOS/Android app that will have 3Doodlers creating 3D pen art directly on smartphone or tablet screens.

The 3Doodler App will walk users through 3D drawing basics

3D Printing

3D-printed objects repair themselves after being cut in half

Paul Ridden February 6, 2019

Researchers have developed 3D-printed materials that can repair themselves after becoming fractured or punctured, which have the potential to be a game changer in the shoe industry, tire manufacture, soft robotics development and perhaps even electronics.

3D-printed shoe soles were cut in half and self-healed in around 2 hours

3D Printing Audio available

New 3D-printing tech gets smooth results using light and resin

Ben Coxworth February 1, 2019

Most 3D printers work by either depositing or melting building material in successive layers. Unfortunately, this results in the finished objects looking kind of chunky, as the ridges between layers are visible. A new process, however, uses light to create smooth-edged items out of resin.

3D Printing

Desktop 3D printer goes mobile with some help from Pi

Paul Ridden January 22, 2019

Desktop 3D printers generally spend most of their life in a basement workshop or home office. YouTuber Thomas Sanladerer wanted something that could go where he did so modified a small inexpensive unit to run on battery power and be controlled with a smartphone.

Six battery packs provide enough juice to run this mobile 3D printer and the Raspberry Pi ...

3D Printing Audio available

Greek city locals help design street furniture 3D-printed from their plastic waste

Paul Ridden January 17, 2019

Print Your City, which turned plastic waste into street furniture, has gone from early prototypes to city scale project with the launch of a Zero Waste Lab in Thessaloniki, Greece, where locals can take their plastic waste and have it turned into urban furniture.

New Raw's robotic arm 3D printer transforming plastic waste into street furniture at the Zero Waste ...

3D Printing Audio available

MIT scientists can now shrink 3D objects down to one thousandth of the size

David Nield December 16, 2018

It sounds like a scene from Ant-Man, but this is very much real life: scientists at MIT have devised a super shrinking system that can produce 3D nanoscale versions of much larger, custom-made objects – reducing them to around one thousandth the size of the originals.

Using a new technique, scientists can shrink structures down to the nanoscale

3D Printing Audio available

Titanium 3D-printed wheel provides a glimpse of the future

Ben Coxworth November 23, 2018

In a demonstration of what could be commercially possible within the near future, HRE Wheels recently teamed up with GE Additive’s AddWorks team to create the first-ever titanium wheel to be 3D-printed via Electron Beam Melting. The process is said to be more efficient than traditional machining.

A custom center piece was used to join the HRE3D+ wheel's five main sections together

3D Printing Audio available

BigRep rolls out 3D-printed electric motorcycle prototype

Paul Ridden November 20, 2018

Germany's large-scale 3D printing firm, BigRep, has debuted a number of automotive and e-mobility prototypes at this year's formnext additive manufacturing exhibition, including the world's first 3D-printed working electric motorcycle.

Everything on the Nera prototype except the electrical components was 3D-printed

3D Printing Audio available

Pulped paper replaces plastic as the raw material for this 3D printer

Paul Ridden November 8, 2018

With a few notable exceptions, the majority of objects removed from a 3D printer bed are fashioned with plastic. But plastic has a nasty habit of ruining our environment at the end of its useful life. Beer Holthuis has built a 3D printer that extrudes paper pulp to build three-dimensional objects.

When objects produced by the Paper Pulp Printer are no longer needed, they can be recycled ...