Category: 3D Printing

3DP Unlimited Offers 3DP1000 3D Printer Lease Option For Under $400/Month

It used to be that we spent many words discussing the expenses of 3D printing and what an obstacle that has been to many aspiring makers, businesses, and entrepreneurs. Whether we are discussing 3D printers, 3D scanners, or materials—lately we are able to do a lot of reporting on the many ways to either save or get around the initial costs that can be a problematic to get started.

While the individual hobbyist may find challenges in parlaying cash to bring their creativity to fruition, finding tens of thousands of dollars in the budget for 3D printing equipment can also be extremely challenging or just impossible for small businesses.

A select few manufacturers like Illinois based, 3DP Unlimited, aware that putting out a lot of cash for a 3D printer at the onset is often more conducive to stress than innovation, have begun offering leasing programs for businesses to offset any financial strain.

I wonder if they’d give a discount to libraries…

Read the full story @ 3Dprint.com

Posted in 3D Printing

NPR: Libraries Make Space For 3-D Printers; Rules Are Sure To Follow

Posted in 3D Printing Tagged with: npr

Turn Any 3D Printer into a Multi-Color, Multi-Material Machine

More @ Kickstarter

Posted in 3D Printing

Independent from Earth

3D printing is one of the most important things we can do to become independent from Earth. – ISS's Julie Robinson @scifri #SciFriHSV

— NASA Marshall News (@NASA_Marshall) April 22, 2015

Posted in 3D Printing

Disney gets into 3D Printing via Fabric

We present a new type of 3D printer that can form precise, but soft and deformable 3D objects from layers of off-the-shelf fabric. Our printer employs an approach where a sheet of fabric forms each layer of a 3D object. The printer cuts this sheet along the 2D contour of the layer using a laser cutter and then bonds it to previously printed layers using a heat sensitive adhesive. Surrounding fabric in each layer is temporarily retained to provide a removable support structure for layers printed above it. This process is repeated to build up a 3D object layer by layer. Our printer is capable of automatically feeding two separate fabric types into a single print. This allows specially cut layers of conductive fabric to be embedded in our soft prints. Using this capability we demonstrate 3D models with touch sensing capability built into a soft print in one complete printing process, and a simple LED display making use of a conductive fabric coil for wireless power reception.

More @ Disney Research

Posted in 3D Printing Tagged with: disney

Help create 3D printed hands for children with Enabling the Future

This website is dedicated to following the growth of the e-NABLE community and the “3d Mechanical Hand – Maker Movement” that was inspired by two strangers (a prop maker from the USA and a carpenter from South Africa) that came together from 10,000 miles apart – to create a prosthetic hand device for a small child in South Africa …and then gave the plans away – for free…so that those in need of the device could make them for themselves or have someone make it for them.

What originally started out as a couple of guys who created something to help one child in need…has grown into a world wide movement of tinkerers, engineers, 3D print enthusiasts, occupational therapists, university professors, designers, parents, families, artists, students, teachers and people who just want to make a difference.

They are coming together to create, innovate, re-design and give a “Helping hand” to those that need it – whether it is helping to print parts for them, creating a completed device for them or simply helping to guide them as they build one themselves.

There are people around the Globe – 3d printing fingers and hands for children they will never meet, classes of high school students who are making hands for people in their local communities, hundreds of Scout troops working together to assemble hands for children in underserved areas around the globe, a group of people that are risking their lives to get these devices onto people in 3rd World countries and new stories every day of parents working with their children to make a hand together.

The seed was planted and the Tree is branching out, growing and becoming more beautiful than ever imagined!
Come watch it grow with us!

Read more @ Enabling the Future

Posted in 3D Printing

3D print with “glass”

HDglass™ is our new amorphous , high strength and ultra-transparent modified PETG compounded 3D printer filament range. HD stands for “Heavy Duty”, as HDglass™ has excellent properties when it comes to strength, toughness and temperature resistance for same like materials. Next to being heavy duty, HDglass™ has a very impressive transparency as it is an amorphous filament, which lets 90% of the visible light pass through its fibre and has less than 1% haze. With HDglass™ you are now able to get the closest approximate to glass-like results for 3D printed objects.

Printing with HDglass™ filament is very easy and comfortable as it has a great thermal stability, and superb first- and interlayer adhesion and does not produce any odors during 3D printing. HDglass™ is a perfectly save material as it does not contain any hazardous substances, is Bisphenol A free, RoHS certified,  REACH compliant, and is even FDA food and drink contact approved.

Because of its unique transparency and glossiness, the HDglass™ compound allows itself to be coloured in the most beautiful transparent and bright opaque colours. This same superb transparency and glossiness makes HDglass™ a perfect base material for adding thermal-, or  UV light sensitive colour effects.

More @ formfutura.

Posted in 3D Printing

Should copyright notices be posted next to 3D Printers?

Someone in the California Legislature thinks so…

For a few years now, folks like Michael Weinberg have been pretty vocal about warning the world not to screw up 3D printing by falling for the same copyright/patenting mistakes that are now holding back other creative industries. Trying to lock up good ideas is not a good idea. Just recently we noted how 3D printing was challenging some long held beliefs about copyright, and we shouldn’t simply fall into the old ways of doing things. At our inaugural Copia Institute summit, we had a really fascinating discussion about not letting intellectual property freakouts destroy the potential of 3D printing.

Well, here comes the start of the freakouts. Via Parker Higgins, we find out that there’s a new bill in the California Assembly, AB-37*, which would require libraries that have 3D printers to post stupid signs warning people not to do nasty infringy things with those printers:

This bill would require every public library that provides public access to a 3D printer, as defined, to post a notice on or near the 3D printer that would alert users of the 3D printer of the potential liability of the user for misuse of the 3D printer, as specified. This bill would require the Department of Justice to draft and distribute this notice, as specified, and annually review and revise the notice for accuracy. By imposing additional duties upon local officials, this bill would create a state-mandated local program. 

Read the full article @ TechDirt.

Posted in 3D Printing, Politics & Law