Perfection with 14 Sides

One of the primary advantages of additive manufacturing is the ability to build structures that would be impossible to create using traditional subtractive machining. This can be particularly important for aerospace and automotive applications where reducing weight while maintaining structural integrity can generate substantial fuel savings.

Weight reductions can be accomplished by using titanium and other lightweight materials which are easier to print than machine. It can also be accomplished by replacing solid structures with partially hollow structures.  The key is removing as much material as possible without compromising the strength of the part.

To create the internal shape of a strong, lightweight part, a truncated octahedron may be the world's most perfect shape. A fourteen sided polyhedron composed of six square faces and eight hexagonal faces, a truncated octahedron has edges which are all the same length. A truncated octahedron can be created by joining two square pyramids at their based then cutting off all six of the corners to remove one third of the edge length.

One remarkable feature of truncated octahedra is they stack together to completely fill a three dimensional space without any voids. An object constructed of hollow truncated octahedra is lightweight and strong enough to resist shearing and buckling. The strength and weight can be varied within a single part by varying the thickness of the walls or the size and quantity of the octahedra.

What is your favorite shape?

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Electron Beam Melting is Hot

Custom Cranio-Maxillofacial implant

The Swedish Arcam AB, which produces 3D printers that use Electron Beam Melting, does not get much news coverage in the United States. However, the company's 2014 financial results show that it is one of the most interesting success stories in the 3D printing space.

Net sales for 2014 grew 70% over 2013 to $40* million while net income increased 57% to $6.8* million. The number of machines shipped grew from 25 to 35 and the order volume increased from 27 to 42. With five new orders in January, the Arcam is starting the year with a nice backlog.

Low Pressure Turbine blade in γ-titanium aluminide.

Courtesy of Avio Aero.

Arcam's machines use a powerful electron beam to selectively melt powdered metals, primarily Titanium and Cobalt. The most import applications are orthopedic implants and aerospace components.

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*Amounts converted from Swedish Kroner using Google Finance.

Top Tech Stories of 2015

In three weeks, it will already be 2015 which makes this a good time to forecast the top tech stories of the new year. What will we be hearing about the most in the following months?

Internet of Everything

When the 1993 release of the Mosaic browser made the Internet accessible to everyone, the connections were primarily between people. Soon millions of people were connected sending emails and browsing websites. In recent years, most people in the developed world have multiple devices that they can use to go online and most new home entertainment systems and even some appliances are connected. With billions of connected devices, it is the age of the Internet of Things.

In 2015, we will hear much more about the connectivity of smaller devices including light bulbs, thermostats, watches, shoes and clothing. But the biggest surge in connected items will be intelligent packaging of consumer packaged goods. The first applications will track the history of pharmaceuticals and perishable foods, but eventually all consumer packaging will include some form of intelligent identification.  This expansion into trillions of connected items is The Internet of Everything.

Wearable Electronics

NuMetrex Heart Monitoring Sports Bra

Wearable Electronics were a big story in 2014 and will be bigger in 2015. Many examples are already on the market including smart watches, fitness trackers and shirts with OLED displays. With the announcement of the Apple Watch in September, interest in the category exploded into the mainstream. When the Apple Watch is introduced in early 2015, consumers will be eager to learn how they will use it and investors will be eager to learn how it impacts the growth of the world's most valuable company.

Additive Manufacturing

Fabricated by GE Using Additive Manufacturing

3D printing has been one of the biggest stories of 2013 and 2014, but the press is just beginning to realize that the biggest impact will be in the industrial sector where the technology is being used for additive manufacturing. The ability to create parts with complex geometry from materials that are difficult to machine using traditional methods will drive rapid growth in the aerospace and medical fields. Growth in materials like Titanium Aluminide and other exotic metals that can be used in the 3D metal printers will be even greater than the growth in the machines themselves.

 Each of these three were important stories were important in 2014, but will be even bigger in 2015.

What do you believe will be the greatest tech story next year?

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Thankful for Bioprinting

Cross-section of multi-cellular bioprinted human liver tissue

This is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. As always, I have a lot to be thankful for and one of those things is 3D Bioprinting. As an amateur futurist and technology analyst, I enjoy following all types of technical discovery. But medical innovations are particularly exciting.

Last week represented a major inflection point in 3D bioprinting. Organovo, the San Diego based bioprinting company, introduced their first commercial product; a 3D printed human liver tissue that can help predict liver tissue toxicity in potential new drugs. Based on work done at the University of Missouri, this process will speed the development of new drugs by eliminating toxic compounds earlier in the discovery process.

This development, along with advancements in printing of orthopedic implants by companies like Arcam AB and improvements in 3D printed prosthetics, have made 2014 a watershed year for medical applications of 3D printing. Going forward, medical applications will be one of the largest and most important segments of the additive manufacturing market.

Are you thankful for any particular technologies?

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Learning About 3D Printing

Robo 3D Printer

3D printing, or more precisely, additive manufacturing, is one of my favorite areas of research. I believe the technology fits perfectly with the long term trends of more personalized products and shorter manufacturing runs. Here are some of the best sources for 3D printing information and news:

 

The Basics

How to 3D Print - Beginners Guide via 3D Printer Plans

3D Printers For Sale - A guide to consumer level 3D printers that is maintained by 3D Printer Plans

3D Printer News and Blogs

3DPrint.com

3DPrintingIndustry.com

3DPrinterPlans.info/blog/

Tctmagazine.com

Shapeways.com/blog

Investment Opportunities

These are publicly traded companies that manufacture 3D printers:

Stratasys

3D Systems Corp

Arcam AB

ExOne

Voxeljet AG

Organova Holdings

 3D Printing Services

Shapeways

Sculpteo

i.materialise




I feel this information is important enough that I have included it as a new page on this blog to keep it more easily accessible.

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Drug Delivery Via 3D Print

3D Printed Implants for Drug Delivery via 3DPrint.com

The most interesting story I found this week about 3D printing explains a new method of delivering antibiotics and cancer treatment drugs using 3D printed implants. Researchers at Louisiana Tech University have used a Makerbot Replicator to print biodegradable implants using a filament infused with the medication.

3D printing allows the implant to be shaped in a way to provide even and efficient delivery of the medicine directly to the area of the body where it is needed. Delivery of the drugs directly where they are needed is more efficient and reduces side effects. The ability to make the implants on an inexpensive home printer has broad implications for creating personalized treatments anywhere in the world.

What is the most interesting 3D printing story you read this week?

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Can Design Have Integrity?

Integrity is one of the most important characteristics in a business partner, associate, even a customer. We want to work with people we can trust and rely upon. If integrity is important in a person, is it important to design?  Can design have integrity?

Dictionary.com defines integrity as an adherence to principles, honesty, the state of being whole, entire, sound and undiminished. I believe it is possible and essential for great design to live up to this definition.

Howard Roark, the heroic and visionary hero of Ayn Rand's Fountainhead followed these rules for architectural design:

What can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it's made by one central idea and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose. 

These are important rules for mechanical designers to remember as we move into the age of additive manufacturing. 3D printers can build easily with materials that have been difficult or impossible to  shape with machine tools. They can create geometries that are impossible to produce with traditional machining processes. Those are the strengths of 3D printing that need to drive the creativity of the designer.

Direct Metal Laser Melted Part by GE

GE understands these principles and already has over 300 3D printers in operation. Using additive processes, they have been able to reduce the weight and improve the efficiency of their LEAP jet engines. GE projects that they will manufacture over 100,000 additive parts by 2020. 

What are your rules for design integrity?


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Full Color 3D Printing

World of Warcraft Figure by Figure Prints

I have been on a quest to find a full color 3D printing technology that can create beautiful and functional personalized models. In recent months, great progress has been made by several 3D printer manufacturers.

Figure Prints has been making personalized figurines from World of Warcraft avatars for several years using the ColorJet Printing method from 3D Systems. But I don't consider these truly functional. Made of gypsum powder held together with a binder, the models are brittle and best suited to display on a shelf.

CubeJet Print from 3D Systems

At CES in January, 3D Systems announced the CubeJet which offers the ColorJet Printing technology in a desktop version. The samples at CES showed fine color resolution similar to the company's larger ProJet 4500 and a video from CES by Make shows a CubeJet printed iPhone case that is full color and flexible. The CubeJet is not yet available but expected to begin shipping later this year.

For a model that looks, feels and functions similar to wood, the Mcor Iris offers inexpensive 3D printing in full color with over a million colors. Iris builds using paper and the selective deposition lamination process. Since color printing on paper is a mature and well tested method to product accurate color, Iris produces the most accurately colored models that I have seen so far. It is the only 3D printer that supports ICC profiles.

Cyan Magenta Yellow Palette for the Connex3

Arguably, the most durable multi-color parts can be made using the Objet500 Connex3 printer from Stratasys. Connex3 can print using a variety of PolyJet materials including Digital ABS which mimics the strength, toughness and thermal resistance of ABS and high impact polystyrene. The printer's PolyJet technology jets resin droplets of three different colors onto the build tray and he colors can blend to create up to 46 colors in a single model. While there is a choice of 10 different palettes of 46 colors, none of them have the color resolution to create a model with a continuous tone photographic texture map.

Every week, I see a new article on a research lab working on a full color 3D printer and even some new models coming onto the market. The definition of full color varies though and most of these processes would be better described as multi-color because their ability to blend colors is limited.

What would you like to print in full color?

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Construction Paper

If you are the type who believes that printers should stick to putting ink on paper, here is a 3D printer for you! The Iris printer from Mcor Technologies uses an Epson inkjet printer and a stack of 20 lb sheets of paper to build full color 3D parts that look and feel like wood.

In the selective deposition lamination (SDL) process developed by Conor and Fintan MacCormack, each sheet of paper is printed in the area that will become the edge of the final part. The paper is thin enough to allow the ink to be absorbed through the entire thickness of sheet.

Next, the first sheet is placed on the build platform and a layer of glue is applied in the area that represents the solid part of the first layer of the model. The paper is sliced along the printed outline and the next sheet is dropped into position. The process continues, layer after layer, until the entire part is constructed.

When the model is finished, the excess paper is pulled away to reveal the finished part. The finished items are light, strong and brilliantly colored.

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Manufacturing Matters

Rail service between Lowell and Boston began in 1835.

My wife and I have just returned from a road trip in the Eastern United States. The trip gave us a great opportunity to visit some of historical and industrial landmarks from the 19th century. My reading over the last few months has also focused on that time period.

These experiences have brought home how important manufacturing has been to our country.  In the Civil War, the Union had a greater population and greater manufacturing capacity than the Confederacy. While the link between manufacturing capacity and the ability to make more and better weapons is obvious, the population superiority is also linked to industrialization.

The mill towns like Lowell and Fall River, Massachusetts and the railroad centers of New York and Chicago provided employment and opportunity for a much greater group of people than the agrarian economy of the South. Once the Union was able to mobilize its resources and focus on the war effort, the outcome was inevitable.

Cotton looms in a water driven mill in Lowell, Massachusetts

In both of the World Wars, the United States was able to play a pivotal role in preserving democracy. Roosevelt's "Arsenal of Democracy" was possible because of the investments made in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century in rail infrastructure, steel mills and vehicle manufacturing.


In times of peace, manufacturing has been the engine that powered the growth of the middle class. Making things provides employment and opportunity for people with wide sets of skills.  Those people fuel the consumer spending that creates more opportunities to make things.

I feel that our country has outsourced too much manufacturing and I am pleased to see the trend reversing. Apple's announcements that the new models of their desktop computers will be built in Texas is both real and symbolic good news.

Trends away from mass production and toward personalized and personally configurable production also bode well for a manufacturing renaissance in the United States. The future of manufacturing will feature small work cells, equipped with 3D printers, close to the final consumers.

Terri at the first Crane Paper site.

What role do you feel manufacturing should have in the 21st Century United States?


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The Thrill of Ownership

Desktop 3D Printers from Stratasys

For me, it started with Stratasys, the 3D printer company. I had been researching additive manufacturing tools for building a new product and had even visited the Stratasys headquarters to see the machines in operation. Ultimately, we selected an Objet printer for the project and our new product was not successful.

Statasys remained intriguing however.  This was a mostly unknown technology that seemed like it could change the world.  So after carefully research and consideration, I took some of our savings out of some slow growing mutual funds and purchased a portion of the company.

Since that purchase, the company has grown, added new printers, introduced new modeling materials and made several acquisitions.  As an owner, it has been thrilling to watch.

There is an important psychological difference between buying stock and purchasing part of a company, even if the actual financial transaction is exactly the same. Often, buying stocks is similar to a poker game; you try to guess what the other stock buyers are thinking and whether investor sentiment will push the stock price up. In purchasing a company, the focus is on the intrinsic value of the company, the suitability of the products for the marketplace and the skill the management team has in operating the company.

As an owner, I have a responsibility to understand the marketplace and know the strengths and weaknesses of our products compared to those of our competitors. I need to pay attention to revenues and margins.  I need to watch cash flows just like any other business owner. For me, this is both exciting and good practice for the assessments that I have to make regularly for my employer.

Since that initial investment, I have purchased a few other companies. Ownership is a lot more challenging and rewarding than following the daily fluctuations in an index fund. Instead of watching the game, you are in the game.


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Emma's "magic arms" were 3D printed.

In my last post of 2012, I made the observation that I would be following additive manufacturing, sometimes called 3D printing, closely in 2013. In that post, I noted that the technique had reached an inflection point where it would change manufacturing, distribution and marketing radically. Here are some of the most important companies in the industry.

• Stratasys Ltd. manufactures 3D printers that that use the Fusion Deposition Modeling method of extruding molten plastic in layers to build a part. In 2012, Stratasys merged with Objet Ltd. which builds machines that use a PolyJet process. The PolyJet process employs an ink jetting process to apply photo photopolymers in fine layers. Each layer is cured simultaneously with ultraviolet light.
• 3D Systems makes a variety of different 3D printers for personal and professional use. These machines can be used for manufacturing prototypes or final parts. The company was founded by Chuck Hull who invented Stereolithography, the original 3D printing technology. In early 2012, 3D Systems acquired Z Corporation which supplies machines that can build full color models.
• Arcam AB is a Swedish company that provides a unique technology for the production of metal parts. Electron Beam Melting builds parts layer-by-layer from metal powder melted by a powerful electron beam. The technology is used primarily in the medical, aerospace and defense industries.
• Mcor prints photo-realistic 3D parts from paper. This is the printer that Staples is market testing in some of their stores in the Netherlands and Belgium.
• Renishaw is a UK based company with core skills in measurement, motion control, spectroscopy and precision machining. Their product line includes additive manufacturing technologies encompassing laser melting, vacuum casting and injection molding.
• ExOne calls their additive manufacturing process Digital Part Materialization and their machines are used for 3D printing of sand and metal materials.
• The NovoGen MMX Bioprinter™ from Organovo takes primary or other human cells and shapes them into 3D tissue for biological research. This technology was developed by a team led by Professor Gabor Forgacs from the University of Missouri in Columbia.
• Makerbot is a rapidly growing manufacturer of desktop personalized printers. The printers are used by engineers, designers, researchers and people who just like to make things.
• Shapeways is a 3D printing marketplace and community where individuals can make, buy and sell their own products. They 3D print everything on-demand which means that every order is customized and personalized.
• Cubify is a website from 3D Systems to encourage you to "express yourself in 3D!" You can look for something unique that has been 3D printed or design and print your own creations from scratch. If you want to print at home, the site encourages you to purchase a Cube 3D printer which is "plug-and-play easy and looks pretty nice on a worktable."
• Sculpteo offers a 3D printing service which is open to professionals or consumers. They can print from your 3D design or their community platform gives you access to 3D designers allowing you to share models, upload your own 3D designs and make them real through 3D printing.
• i.materialise believes that people have an inherent need to express themselves and provides 3D printing services for demanding designers and inventors. 
• Ponoko claims to be "the world's easiest making system" and offers both 2D laser cutting and 3D printer services.
• To make a file for additive manufacturing, you will need software. Autodesk, Inc., is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software.

These are the companies that will change our world over the next decade. Are there any I should have included but missed?


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3D Printing Crosses an Inflection Point

A few days ago, a major inflection point occurred in the history of manufacturing and the progress of 3D printing. For the first time, a consumer company has started offering replacement parts for its products as 3D CAD drawings that can be printed on demand at a 3D service bureau or on a 3D printer at home.

Teenage Engineering, a Swedish company that produces electronic music synthesizers, has posted the models on Shapeways. Any customer can download the model for free or order the part to be manufactured on-demand by Shapeways.

The production of replacement parts on-demand with a 3D printer has been predicted by manufacturing experts for years including Scott Crumb, the CEO of Stratasys, one of the primary companies building 3D printing equipment. Now that it is beginning to happen, I expect the trend will accelerate and transform the way companies produce and stock parts.

3D printing creates parts by building them layer by layer based upon a 3D computer model. Each layer is added to the layer below until the part is completed. This additive process is completely different from the way most items are manufactured.  Traditional machining processes start with a block of material and remove material until the part desired is completed. The additive process can be much faster and easier for creating prototypes and small production runs.

The term 3D printing is seldom used by its practitioners.  The process was originally called "stereolithography" which is the name of the first method used to manufacture additively. As other types of technology were introduced, the term "rapid prototyping" became popular because that was the most common use for the machines. Currently, the preferred term is "additive manufacturing" because the method is used increasing for short run manufacturing and producing highly specialized products.

Whatever you choose to call it, the speed and costs of the additive process are continually improving and the technology will be highly disruptive to traditional manufacturing.  Teenage Engineering's new approach to parts support is one of many inflection points we will cross over the next decade.



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