Additive Manufacturing Archives - Creative 3D Printing

How 3D Printing is putting a new perspective on printing

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Cherie Gillette

3D printing is an innovative method of printing that allows people to create a 3D image that is solid from a file that has been created on a computer. This is achieved by using different processes to create layers of material to create the object successfully. Every single layer will be extremely thin allowing even complex copies of faces, animals and tools to be recreated making it easier than ever to create 3D images quickly eradicating the need to build models by hand.
In order to start the 3D printing process you will first need to create a virtual digital design such as a computer aided design. This has to be created with a 3D modelling app, or in the instance of copying an object that already exists a scanner. To create 3D models a lot of different technologies are used including modulated light structured and volumetric scanning to name but a few.

In order to utilize this relatively new technology huge companies including Google have ensured that their hardware is enabled for use with 3D scanning. The future looks extremely bright and it has already been used in different fields from science to medical and the automotive industry. It is thought that as technology advances further the ability to create a digital file to create a 3D image will be just as easy as it is to take a photograph even on a cell phone!

There are different types of 3D scanners available from those that you can make yourself at home for as little as $30 with the right materials and expertise to those that are used to make bigger models in the professional industry. You of course will also need the modelling software which also ranges in price from open source software to industrial professional software that can costs thousands each year for the licence but it all depends on what you hope to create and on what scale.

There are so many choices when you are just starting out that you can be easily overwhelmed which is why you should start with the basic packages that work with your existing software. Some also offer beginners lessons as well as options that allow you to print in 3D from different devices and 3D printing services if you don’t own your own, or we can 3D print your design for you.

If you already have a 3D model it will have to be prepared so that it can be printed. This is known as slicing which breaks down the model into anything from hundreds to thousands of slices that are horizontal through specialist software. Once this has been achieved the information can be fed into your printed by the usual methods. The printed is able to read every single slice so that it can turn the image into a 3D model or object. The 3D printing technology has already helped blind women to have scans of their unborn child so that they can have the same benefit as someone with sight. Imagine the future applications as the technology develops?

What’s the difference between ABS and PLA filaments?

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Cherie Gillette

When you are looking at 3D printing you will need to work out what type of material you want your models/designs to be printed out of and will need to make the decision between using ABS and PLA filaments. Both have benefits for different types of applications.
ABS filaments are strong, flexible and have greater machinability making them ideal for use in professional applications including being the preferred filament plastic for engineers. The one reason this may be reconsidered is the small because its base is petroleum making it unsuitable for some applications. You will need to have a specialist printer that has a heated print bed as other printers without this will be unable to meet the specifications reliably.
The ABS filaments as polymers allow it to be moulded into different forms giving it properties that are suitable for many professional applications. It’s extremely strong and it has mild flexibility when compared to PLA which makes it ideal for use in creating pieces that need to interlock. This capability makes the finished product easier for people to work with. It can also be sanded and processed by machinery and even welded with just a little acetone. For a smooth finish just a little dip or brush with acetone is all that is needed and you can get a high gloss finish. It can also be recycled making it more environmentally friendly as less waste is created from its use. The ABS is most definitely the preferred filament for use by engineers and those that need to make mechanical parts as the properties suit the needs perfectly.
PLA can be created from another of processes using plants including potatoes and corn which is considered to be better for the earth in comparison to using petroleum based filaments like ABS. Because of its properties some say that it can be used to make packaging for foods however we don’t recommend this. If you are looking for food safe filaments we recommend PET filament. PLA can also be composted at special facilities. Although it can be composted this has to be done at a specialist facility so you don’t have to worry about it degrading in normal conditions. The finished product is naturally can be semi transparent but it can be coloured so that you can get the finished result you want and even add opacity when needed. It is stronger than ABS which can make it harder to work with if you wish to make anything interlocking such as pin joints. Once printed the models will be glossier without the need for any further application of substances. It is harder to work with but it is possible to sand and machine.
Unfortunately the melting point is too low for it to be used in any applications where heat is needed. Just being left out in the heat from the sun can warp the shape. That said if you are looking for a filament material that is available in different colours and opaque/translucency levels with a flossy finish it could be suitable for use within the home or business. With more and more people looking for renewable resources it is a desirable material for smaller objects and decorations so long as not exposed to heat. It can be printed at a higher speed for efficiency and has sharper corners. This makes it perfect for those that want to use it for educational purposes and even crafts.

Using 3D Printers in the Classroom

Posted on August 16, 2016August 10, 2016 by Cherie Gillette

Gone are the days of the science teachers holding up a book with a flat picture of a heart. Now, with the availability of 3D printers, a 3 dimensional model of the heart can be made, passed around the classroom and studied collaboratively in real time. Cross sections of organs or molecular structures can be created in a matter of minutes to give details that students simply can’t grasp from looking at a picture. Imagine students looking at heart defects with a model that they are holding in their hands, or cancer cells reproduction to examine their unique structure. This revolutionizing way to educate will turn the passive learners into an extraordinary active learner. The special needs learners will be able to hold, feel and experience the object as never before. The possibilities are literally endless.

In days gone by, if an engineering students wanted to make a prototype, it would likely be made from some sort of clay that was fragile and hard to work with and literally take weeks or months to do. Now consider engineering students designing and printing prototypes in a matter of minutes, geography students printing topography maps, or math students printing out their problems to solve real life situations. Additionally, these 3D printers can bring a student’s creative abilities to life, adding a powerful tool for the teacher.

Not only will 3D printing enable students to see a finished product, it will also enable them to see the mistakes along the way. True education stems from learning from your mistakes. This technology will allow mistakes by actively using higher level thinking and problem solving skills to a practical use. It brings the theory of something into real life applications.

Further, students in auto shop classes can print modified parts at a much lower cost than the school having to purchase parts. History students can recreate historic artifacts and use problem solving skills to determine how or why something happened. Even elementary students can benefit from such technology. With their cognitive minds being very literal, the children need a concrete object to connect with. This 3D printing will make introducing new ideas to students exciting and captivating, thus, easier to remember.

Using a 3D printer, objects are not just made from plastic, students can see medical innovations such as titanium spinal implants, stainless steel rings and intricate objects such as working components and hinges. The architectural student can produce 3D renditions of their new designs and print out the model to check for inaccuracies and possible problems before production.

Teachers are not being thrown into this blind. Creative 3D and other companies are developing and preparing lesson plans for the classroom using 3D printers. Students can also access some of these sites on the own to further their individual thinking and learning process. It is a learning tool that continues to evolve and integrate itself into the curriculum. While some companies are offering free software to schools to use in classrooms others are pay per use or program. 3D printing now holds promising innovations for the education system as a whole.

3D printing at the Rio Olympics and in Russia

Posted on August 14, 2016August 10, 2016 by Cherie Gillette

As the Olympics continue and teams are beginning the final stretch in Rio, athletes continue to look forward to competition and wins. In this day and age with all of our technological advances, 3D printing has been run to the forefront. And quite literally, so it seems.

For this year’s Olympics, Nike invested time and money into the 3D printing process to give athletes a new set of shoes to run in. They worked with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, an Olympic sprinter, and a 3D printing company to design a set of spike shoes for the Olympic runner that would aid in getting her to the finish line even faster. A silly thing, you might think, since she has won gold in the past two summer Olympics. However, when the race comes down to mere tenths of a second, every advantage increases the opportunity to keep winning.

The Nike company utilized the 3D printer to make spike plates, and not just one, but several of varying stiffness to work best with the actual shoes the Fraser-Pryce would be practicing in and later using for the actual race. Fraser-Pryce is not the only athlete to be able to take advantage of these new 3D printing practices, so would over 100 other Nike sponsored athletes at this year’s summer Olympics.
Now, while these athletes will not actually be running in shoes with 3D printer spike plates, the 3D printing process was monumental in creating a design that could later be molded in plastic and give these runners an advantage over their competitors.

In other news, we will leave earth and hurl ourselves to outer space, specifically over Russia, where we find Russian scientists working to create a bio-printer to be used in space. These scientists are working with the country’s national space agency to create this bio-printer that will print actual tissue at the International Space Station. The bio-printer will have to work with magnets because there is no gravity in space. The scientists are hoping that zero gravity will actually provide new answers that can help speed up the process of 3D printing and bio-printing process.

They hope to have this Bio 3D printer up and running in 2018. The study they will be conducting once the printer is operational, is to see what affects long term space travel and zero gravity has on the human body with particular interest in tissue.

With the interest of getting life created and living on Mars, the scientists feel that studying these effects now and have the bio-printing in place, will reduce the length of time to heal certain ailments. Not only on Mars or pre-existing, but also back on earth and with new ailments that crop up. This study will prove to be quite invaluable, as it will catapult space exploration a great distance. Not only will this procedure help our astronauts in space but also civilians on the ground, by providing a quicker way to create and print this tissue.

For more on what Nike is doing with 3D printing, take a look here: http://news.nike.com/news/allyson-felix-track-spike

How hackers used 3D printers againest the your travel locks

The terrifying uses of 3D printing in the USA

Posted on August 12, 2016August 3, 2016 by Cherie Gillette

There is a lot going on in the world of 3D printing. Advances are being made every day.
One big advance in 3D printing, is being used by TSA. Luggage inspections at each airport that your luggage lands at is normal. If your bags are locked, TSA can break the lock to gain access. There are now two companies with the blueprint design to create and print eight master keys.

In order to prove a lack of high security, hackers have now been able to print keys from blueprints inadvertently published in an article by the Washington Post. The high resolution photos of all the keys enabled hackers to use 3D printing to create their own keys, essentially rendering any keys printed by TSA useless. Although the photo has since been removed from the online article, it was too late to stop hackers from using the photo to create the copycat keys. While the hackers were able to easily re-create the first 7 master keys, an eighth key’s digital image was not released. However, by legally purchasing locks, they were able to find the commonalities and create the 8th key. The act of re-creating the keys was not meant to allow them to unlock any actual luggage, but to show the general public how easy it is to accomplish and open our eyes to the dangers of a very powerful entity having access to our personal property without our permission.

A terrifying process that is making way in the 3D printing industry, is the production firearms. While 3D printing may not be the most cost effective way of procuring a firearm, it may be easier. Without all the security checks that are in place for gun buyers, it’s essentially become a way for even more criminals to be armed and dangerous. America is doing its best to counteract the re-creation of firearms and make it more difficult for these plastic harbingers of death to fall through the cracks. And Japan is trying to limit what types of designs are available to be printed by using the software that comes with each printer to prohibit some design applications.

In California, 3D printing operations are now required to apply for an official serial number from the justice department. Forcing them to have background checks on the company. While this process has been in the works for two years and is now a law, it will take about another two years to see it applied and put into action. They are also requiring these 3D printing companies to attach a piece of metal or stainless steel into the body of the gun so that it will not make it through security checkpoints. It will also make these guns easier to track and harder to dispose of if used in committing a crime.
Unfortunately it has become quite easy to find blueprints and schematics for these new 3D printed guns, to the point where it’s not just the little pistol or handgun anymore, but the bigger assault rifles and long-range rifles. There have been several designed that can hold clips and use a larger amount of ammo without reloading.

Some advances in the science of 3D printing are necessary and worthwhile to have around, while other applications are destructive and downright scary.

3D Printed Prosthetics for Children

Posted on August 11, 2016August 10, 2016 by Cherie Gillette

So why can’t we “print” a new limb? As far-fetched as this sounds, it is now a reality with 3D printers and it is changing the lives of so many children. The recent innovations in the 3D printer world have given hope to many children and inspired many scientists.

While many children in Australia are born without limbs each year, according to the US Center for Disease Control, about 2,500 babies, just in the United States, are born with some type of limb defect and that number increases in areas where medical care is limited. Further, the CDC states “The overall goal for treatment of limb reduction defects is to provide the child with a limb that has proper function and appearance.” This is what the 3D printers and scientists are working to achieve.

This new technology has significantly shortened the process of receiving a prosthetic from months to just a couple of days. Likewise, the price of an ordinary prosthetic could run upwards of $50,000, but with the 3D printing, that cost ranges from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars. A significant difference in price also may have insurance companies agreeing, or at least reconsidering, to fund them. Insurance companies are leery of paying tens of thousands for a child’s prosthetics that will need to be changed every year, due to growth. However, with much a substantial savings, insurance companies are reassessing their stance. Additionally, the economic effects on the family having to travel long distances for fitting, subsequent replacements, and creating custom made limb prosthetics may soon be gone as well. More and more local hospitals are assuming the possibility of being able to print a prosthetic limb that is affordable and less evasive.

Now, several non-profits are jumping on board and providing children with a life that they never knew existed. Scientists and volunteers are collaborating on taking the 3D printable prosthetics to kids in over 50 countries Free or at a very low cost. Some of the wrist or hand prosthetics can be made for as little as US$50. Although it is not as strong as other materials, when a child outgrows or breaks the plastic, another can be make for sometimes under a hundred dollars. Professor Jon Schull, who runs such as nonprofit with volunteers, states that with programs such as these, he is proving that there are plenty of humanitarians ready to lend their services. Shiners Hospital doctors are also excited that this 3D printing is enabling them to customize fitting for each child. Just imagine being able to ride a bike, catch a ball, even carry a lunch tray as never before can be accomplished.

As 3D printers advance, compatibility with new materials such as lightweight titanium is helping to increase durability and strength. By being able to incorporate multi materials into 3D methods, more natural feeling and working prosthetics are in the near future.

The integration of 3D printers in the medical field will soon change everyday lives with minimal cost and efforts, but could mean the world to a child.

For more on what Shriners Hospital for Children is doing, pop over and take a look at their site: http://www.shrinershospitalsforchildren.org/news/SL-3DProstheticArm

The latest on 3D printing

Posted on August 6, 2016August 3, 2016 by Cherie Gillette

What’s the latest on 3D printing? Well, for one, science is amazing! From back in the beginning where people usually didn’t even smile in photos and had to stand absolutely perfectly still to being able to make prosthetic arms, legs, and other body parts. 3D printing is the popular term for additive manufacturing that refers to the process of creating a 3D object from plastic.

So in the news now is how a computer science professor at Michigan State University was approached by local P.D. to create a 3D rendering of a dead man’s fingers so that they could gain access to his phone. The police were hoping to find clues to the man’s death by accessing his phone. By using a 3D printer, the professor was able to duplicate the man’s fingers from photos and fingerprints obtained from the crime scene. As the professor worked, knowing that our skin conducts small electrical currents he had to rely on metallic particles because the plastic renderings would not work as living human fingers do. It’s not an exact science yet, but there are large leaps and bounds being accomplished.
Students enrolled at Siena College in New York, made a prosthetic arm for a young girl. The girl, who was born without her right hand, loved the movie “Frozen”. The students formed their own chapter of e-Nable Siena at the college. This chapter of e-Nable works to provide free prosthetics to people in need around the world. The prosthetic hand and arm, which features characters from the movie, took 30 hours of printing to make it real. While this is just one piece of many that e-Nable has created, it is no less of a piece of art for this little girl.

3D printing may one day be used to make buildings in the future. By demonstration, a company in China has already printed a number of 3D houses. One is an 1,100 square meter mansion and the other, a 5 story apartment building. These were created using a vast material extrusion 3D printer. To accomplish this, their printer had to be huge. The printer at 20 feet tall, 33 feet wide and 132 feet long, printed the house out in 24 hours. The parts of the house were all printed out separately. Materials used were recycled construction waste, industrial waste and tailings. It was produced using a mixture of cement and construction waste to build the walls one layer at a time. A CAD design was used as the template and a computer controlled the mechanical arm. The mechanical arm layed down each layer of concrete that was treated with special hardeners. These hardeners created a solid structural base to build the next layer on top of.

A benefit of this type of house building is that the structure is more reliable. The walls won’t crack, heating and cooling is more efficient, they are waterproof and have low carbon pollution. Is this the answer to all of our housing needs? Certainly not, but it’s a fantastic idea.

What is Additive Manufacturing? What is 3D Printing? And do 3D printers work?

Posted on August 4, 2016August 3, 2016 by Cherie Gillette

3D printing is not a new reality although it is a varied one. It’s also a very cool concept, but takes many hours to create a 3D object from one blueprint or picture.

3D printing, also called Additive Manufacturing (AM), is the process by which a flat object is turned into a 3D shape. What actually happens is a process that deposits binder material onto a specific powder bed using inkjet printer heads. The layers are built up one at a time to form the 3D object. A computer controls this layering process so that the replica is exact to the image sought.

It was in the 1980s that the Additive Manufacturing equipment and supporting materials was developed. There are two methods of AM that fabricate these 3d objects. In current times, the inkjet printer heads have been abandoned for the more accurate fused deposition modeling, which is an extrusion application.
There is also metal 3D printing. An AM process called metal sintering or melting. At this time, most metal objects had been producing using applications like casting, fabrication, machining and stamping. While some factories went so far as using robotic technology to assist these processes of adding metal, most people identified the use of metal in it coming off of instead of being added to.

To create 3D printed objects, a worker would design the object on a CAD program, although they also used a simple digital camera in conjunction with photogrammetry software, or using a 3D scanner. While all of these design programs create some kind of errors, there is a “repair” command that can fix many of them before the object is printed.

Most times, the object that is printed using 3D print technology, produces an acceptable version of the desired image. However, objects can also be printed a slight bit larger and material shaved off by another machine to give a more accurate object.

There are 7 different 3D printing processes:
1. Vat Photopolymerisation uses a container filled with a photopolymer resin that is then hardened with a direct UV source;
2. Material Jetting drops material from a small diameter nozzle, then layered into the 3D object and hardened by UV rays;
3. Binder Jetting uses a powder base material and a liquid binder. Within the binding chamber, the powder and liquid are applied in equal layers and becomes glued together into the 3D object;
4. Material Extrusion uses a coil of plastic or metal filament to fill an extrusion nozzle. This nozzle directs the melted filament to the desired shape. It forms layers that are instantly hardened by a UV light;
5. Powder Bed Fusion. In this process, small particles of plastic, ceramic, metal or glass powders are fused together to create the 3D object;
6. Sheet Lamination uses sheets made of metal, paper or some kind of polymer and bound together with an external force;
7. Directed Energy Deposition is used mainly for the high tech industry. The 3D printer is attached to a multi-axis arm. There is a nozzle that deposits the material onto a surface and an energy source to melt it. Which then forms the 3D printed object.