Three-D printers create three-dimensional objects by laying down layer after layer of the printing medium only a few thousandths of an inch at a time.
It is now possible to print a three dimensional object with any complex geometry using nylon, glass, chocolate or titanium.
It won’t be long until anyone will be able to print products quickly and cheaply.
An online search of ‘3-D printing’ reveals the plethora of products and services available to the individual or business right now.
Printers of the future will be able to print using an even wider range of materials, bringing unprecedented opportunities to control the composition of printed materials far beyond mere geometry.
The ability to integrate the internal structure of materials during printing will leave behind the traditional limitations of conventional manufacturing where each part is made separately and assembled.
A tennis racket printed to specifications that compensate for individual strengths and weaknesses is not far in the future.
The ability to print an entire electrical device: circuit boards, chips, case, screens, switches. etc., will allow engineers and designers to move from mere mechanical functionality to new ways to process energy and information. Being able to print complex three-dimensional shapes from multiple materials opens the door to custom-built bone, cartilage and organ implants.
A 3-D bio-printer developed by a U.S. company, Organovo, can already ‘print’ arteries. Company engineers say arteries printed by the machine could be available for heart bypass surgery in five years. Ten years down the road they predict ‘printouts’ of bones, teeth and internal organs using cells from the patient’s body so rejection will not be a problem.
At the University of Exeter, U.K. inventors have developed a chocolate printer that can create detailed 3-D confections. In the works is a consumer interface so that people can upload their own designs for printing and delivery.
A science museum in the U.K. had a 3-D printer on display in 2009 that allowed visitors to make pre-designed objects such as a pen and a light from metal and plastic. This 3-D printing machine is much too expensive for home use, but a smaller 3-D printer for the home is available now for less than the cost of a laser printer less than a decade ago.
The home printer squirts out successive layers of liquid thermoplastic under computer control. The layers of the plastic ‘ink’ fuse to form a solid object to the specifications encoded in a CAD program.
On the plains of Southern England, a team from the University of Southampton last month successfully launched and flew a drone aircraft with a five-foot wingspan. It was like any other drone except that the airframe was designed and built in a week — two days to design and five to print.
The printable airframe allows design modifications to be made in shorter times and allows for airfoil and fuselage shapes that would be impossible with traditional materials.
A future robot printed in its entirety by a 3-D printer, batteries included, might be a whole new creature that shares as much in common with biology as it does with engineering.
