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FDA’s Public Workshop to discuss 3D Printing regulations

3D Printing is no longer a hobbyist’s play. It has become a mainstream science thanks to the work of many innovators. The last few years have seen good amount of innovation in the field of 3D printing, with health care being one of the major beneficiaries of the same.

3D printers are being used for a variety of applications like to production of both internal and external medical devices, artificial implants, human tissues, hip joints and even skull implants. With the new technology being so pervasive in a variety of ways, it is very important for someone to keep a check and avoid any unfortunate developments. This is where the role of FDA (Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the overseeing authority for quality of drugs, devices and food supplies, is very important. The FDA has to assure the public that the new technology is not abused and used judiciously to save the lives of thousands of patients.

In this context, the USFDA has announced public workshop on “Additive Manufacturing of Medical Devices: An Interactive Discussion on the Technical Considerations of 3-D Printing” to discuss the technical considerations of 3-D Printing. It will take place on October 8 and 9, 2014, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the FDA’s White Oak Campus, 10903 New Hampshire Ave., Bldg. 31 Conference Center, the Great Room (Rm. 1503), Silver Spring, MD. The workshop is aimed at gathering comments from additive manufacturing companies, and medical device manufacturers on the problems, and solutions to those problems, that 3D printing will bring to the table.

Contrary to a typical regulatory agency which often comes up with restrictive policies, FDA’s proactive initiative to understand, create awareness and coordinate the positive impact of 3D printing in the field of health care is commendable.

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Intel lets you create your own customizable 3D printed Robot

Like many other companies that are all set to broaden their horizon with the 3D printing technology, Intel, the pioneer in chips and processors, seems to have decided to create new bench marks in consumer level robotics, with the help of 3D printing. Jimmy, the new 3D printed robot, will start a mini revolution.

The masterpiece was brought together with the collaborative efforts of Intel and Trossen Robotics. The demo version of this robot was flaunted by the company’s resident futurist Brian David Johnson at the Code Conference. The robot is a little white humanoid that could do tricks like walking, talking, tweeting as well as dancing. The model runs on Intel Edison, which basically is a low cost computer on a chip. The robot is an open source which allows developers to build their own apps and so users can easily download whatever software applications they want to run on their machines.

Intel plans to launch their fully customizable 3D printable robot kit to the market by the end of the year. The price would be as low as $1,600. This would be a small black robot (unnamed) which will be powered by Quark chip. This robot is fully printable except for some parts such as the actuators, motors, and other mechanical parts, these will be supplied by Intel. The hardware designs will be freely available online allowing anyone to access to a 3D printer to generate and assemble the basic parts. This kit will be available online at the website of 21stCenturyRobot.com. Jimmy on the other hand, is said to be priced at $16,000 which is powered by a Core i7 chip. Jimmy is more enigmatic than the prior cheaper version, as it walked onstage and introduced himself, shook a leg and then sat down during the demo.

Johnson compared this to mobile apps, which empowers the owners to make one piece of hardware do a wide variety of tasks. Johnson went on to say that “It’s like a Smartphone with legs”. Johnson also elaborated about the uniqueness of the project by saying that “Your robot will be completely different from mine; you customize it and program the artificial intelligence, not by having a PhD in robotics but by downloading apps.” Intel’s chief executive Brian Krzanich, also added that ‘Robots are coming, Like it or not! According to the claims made by Intel’s chief executive Brian Krzanich, the robot will be available for sale by the end of the year.

Intel executives also flaunted a proto-type “smart shirt” that is expected to replace a sensor mounted on an elastic band that could be worn by cyclists and other athletes. This “smart shirt” would connect a prototype Smartphone app, communicating real-time EKG data.

This fall, a book written by Johnson will be published named; ‘The 21st Century Robot’ will be released. The aim of this book is to inspire more students and makers to build their own robots. The prerelease version is already available free online.

With all these developments, Intel has made it clear that it plans to cruise into various sectors such as mobile space, inside notebooks, phones, tablets, and the galaxy of embedded devices known as the Internet of Things.

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Stratasys launches Wax printers for your Dentist

Stratasys is all set to expand the length and breadth of the business and their strategy towards achieving this is by branching out and creating new printers for niche markets. One of the niche markets that were targeted by Stratasys was the dental industry. Off late, Stratasys introduced two wax 3D printers which are capable of eliminating the need for the plaster casting. In short these printers allow the dentist or orthodontist to scan the mouth of the patient and then print out a 3D wax model of the mouth. They also can produce wax-ups for crowns, bridges and denture frameworks.

The Stratasys CrownWorx and FrameWorx 3D printers are claiming to be the highest precision wax 3D printers that are available.

Stratasys CrownWorx:

As the name suggests this printer is designed for creating crown, bridge and coping wax-ups. The printer uses wax deposition modeling (WDM) technology to jet micro-drops of TrueCast material that builds dental wax-ups, layer after layer. The TrueCast material is a firm yet flexible material that mimics real wax.

Stratasys FrameWorx:

The main purpose of this printer is to create a partial denture wax-up. Similar to the CrownWorx, it uses TrueCast material. The sole difference between the two is that FrameWorx uses a second material known as TrueSupport, this provides support during the 3D printing process of delicate wax-ups.

The costs of these printers are yet to be disclosed. However as per the announcements made by the company, the company aims to make them affordable for the small dental labs who are interested in updating their dental casting technology.

 

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HP will enter the 3D printing industry with a bang

One of the most anticipated entries of all times for 3D printing industry would be the entry of Hewlett Packard. After conquering the 2D printing industry HP is all set to rock the 3D world. The CEO of the company Meg Whiteman announced that the company would be entering the 3D printing industry by the end of this fiscal year. The fiscal year of HP ends on 31st October. The announcement also clarifies HP’s target segment to start with. HP will be announcing a 3-D printing product aimed at business-related 3-D printing and will not be entering the consumer 3-D printing market.

At present the 3D printing industry is dominated by companies such as 3D Systems and Stratasys. However the entry of HP has created a lot of buzz as the competition will surely heat up. The 3D printer range that HP plans to launch is the Designjet 3D printer series. The printer uses recyclable ABS plastic and it has a built-in network card which allows easy workgroup sharing to the user. The HP Designjet Color 3D printer can make larger models as compared to the HP Designjet 3D printer. Since it has two printing modes it allows the user to print bigger models at a speed that is faster than the HP Designjet 3D printer.

HP will stand to benefit from the fact that a host of core patents for FDM, SLS etc have expired recently. As a consequence HP will not have to spend a lot of money on developing new technology and processes for discovering how the modeling of 3D objects is to be done, and can rather focus on business with its vast distribution network.

With the entry of HP in the 3D printing industry, this industry will get its much deserved momentum. This will boost the innovation in the industry as HP has a lot of money that can be used in the R&D to improve future processes. HP can produce in bulk hence reducing the price per unit of 3D printers, making 3D printers at par with technologies such as computers and mobiles.

 

 

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Autodesk’s “Spark” Open Source Platform: The Android of 3D printing

The monopoly of MakerBot, 3D Systems, and other companies in the 3D printing industry is on the verge of breaking by the entry of the world’s largest maker of CAD software: Autodesk.

3D Printing industry is about to witness the next disruption with the announcement of an Spark, open source platform for 3D printing by the world’s largest maker of CAD software: Autodesk. Termed as the Android of 3 printing, this might pose serious challenge to the existing platforms many of which have are neither comprehensive nor open for meddling by enthusiasts.

The president and CEO of Autodesk Carl Bass announced the release of Spark, which is an open software platform for 3D printing which according to him “will make it more reliable yet simpler to print 3D models and easier to control the printing of the model”. He also announced the release of Autodesk 3D printer, the combination of these two will provide the building blocks that product designers, hardware manufacturers, software developers and material scientists can bring to use in order to explore the limits of 3D printing technology. Autodesk hopes that its Spark platform would become the go-to operating systems for commercial 3D printing. The company is also describing the system as the “Android of 3D printing”.

The terming of Spark as the Android of 3D printing does give everyone the perception that Autodesk might want to follow the footsteps of Google, the creator of Android operating system. Android is the operating system that provides life to the handsets that are produced by hardware giants like LG and Samsung. Is Autodesk all set to step into the shoes of Google? The smartest move made by Autodesk would be breaking the barriers of combination of design and technical constraints with the help of an open source community talents. The rest only time will test the durability and the workability of the plans that Autodesk has.

After that being said, Autodesk cannot neglect a few inherent problems that lie in the 3D printing industry. The hardware open source community is very embryonic. This has generated some problems; the first one is related to the capital costs that are associated with the hardware innovation. Open source hardware requires some investments; this is a financial risk which is not viable for enthusiasts who are not entrepreneurs. The other dominant problem is that of the delivery of the hardware. The most interesting problem is that of the dynamics of the community. The success of MakerBot the first 3D printer that streamed into the main stream was largely due to the community. But the acquisition of MakerBot by Stratasys was a reason for the rift in the community. On the other hand Autodesk has been taking this process very slowly yet surely is cultivating the open source community through acquisitions and also by organizing hardware meet ups.

Industry leaders 3D Systems and Stratasys, which still are the major money accumulators in the trade from professional and industrial application in 3D printing, are unlikely to jump at the idea of allowing an open source near their product. For several decades these companies have had the monopoly in the 3D printing business and have been providing high-end printers.

Nevertheless, Autodesk’s Spark is all set to pose some threat to some of the big names of the 3D printing industry and it surely does exhibit some highly transformative industry potential.

 

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Jigsaw chair using MX3D Metal Printer

3D printing being apt for making toys, spare parts, and chess pieces – this thought now belongs to the old school. Thanks to artists like Joris Laarman and several others, who are adamant about changing this mindset.

The use of 3D printing can be extensively seen in the works of Laarman who is a world renowned artist. His work is currently on display at the Friedman Benda gallery in New York City. This exhibition is special because it showcases a bench and chair that have been 3D printed with the help of Laarman’s MX3D printer (MX3D-Metal). This exhibition has four sections: Maker, Micro Structures, Vortex, and Spiro graphic.

The Maker section has the Maker chairs which is an assemblage of parametric parts that is either CNC-milled or 3D-printed so that they fit together like a puzzle or a jigsaw. The pieces are hexagonal, pixilated, or triangular in shape. The Maker chair is a 3D printed chair that was designed using a new technology known as ‘crowdsourcing’. It is also crowned as the first ‘crowd fabricated’ chair that was ever designed. The designers are not keeping the designs to themselves, they are offering access to the 3D files for one of the chairs as a supplement to the Maker series. Earlier the chair has 202 components but with the recent modification it now has 77 components and it can be fabricated in 10days with an investment of $30 on materials.

Once the jigsaw pieces are assembled, a real standardized chair is formed.

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Unraveling the wonders of Nature – 3D Printed Shark skin

Certain mysteries of nature are the toughest to solve and mankind can only wait for technology to evolve to find an answer. Similar was the case for many biologists, engineers who had tried to untangle the secrets of shark skin and understand the ability of the predator to cruise so efficiently.

Scientists have also tried their hand on developing a synthetic version of the skin for use in commercial products like speed boosting swimsuits to drag-reducing coatings for ship hulls. This mystery is on the verge of getting solved, thanks to 3D printing. With the help of 3D printing technology researchers at Harvard University have fabricated the most realistic shark skin that is available till date. This skin consists of a flexible membrane embedded with tens of thousands of denticles or in layman’s term tiny teeth which are microscopic and has rigid scales with a precise geometry. As per the tests that have been made on the denticles, this increases the swimming speed by more than 6% with minimal loss of energy. The shortfin mako shark’s skin was taken as a sample to mimic the shark skin. The surface of the skin was first scanned by a micro-computerized tomography imaging and a three-dimensional model of the denticles was fed to a highly sophisticated 3D printer. The credit of this breakthrough would go to Dr. George V. Lauder, a biologist at the university and his colleagues.

As per Lauder, ‘By using 3D printing we can now modify and manipulate the surface to begin to find out more precisely how the effects are being caused and which structural features are responsible, eventually this technology could be used to improve the efficiency of surfaces moving through water. But a truly biomimetic shark skin swimming suit is unlikely to be on the cards any time soon. ‘The manufacturing challenges are tremendous,’

With the evolution of 3D printers, mimicking the nature in order to learn more about the realms of nature has become quite an easy job for researchers as well as scientists all over the world.

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Tick Tock Tick Tock.. 3D printed mechanical clocks

3D printing opens up many possibilities and exposes to a world that is full of possibilities and probabilities. The latest announcement happens to be from the clock industry. Christoph Laimer has emerged victorious among the many who have attempted to make a mechanical clock completely with the help of a 3D printer machine. All the parts have been printed with the help of the 3d printer right from the gear to the pulley, wheels and also the hands of the clock have been printed in the machine. The things that haven’t been printed are a few screws, axles, a weight and a string. The most astonishing part is that even the crank that is used to wind the clock is 3D printed!

All you folks must be thinking that Christoph must’ve used an advanced Ultimaker or a MakerBot printer to print out this piece of beauty but what he actually used was a Rapman 3.2 printer which has been discontinued. This is quite an old printer which takes more than 3 hours to print out a single gear. It has a nozzle diameter of 0.4mm and the layers are of 0.125mm. The material used to print the clock was PLA.

The clock is gravity powered with an anchor escapement. It has a balance wheel and a hairspring to control the escapement. The hairspring is printed of standard PLA. The entire weight of the clock is suspended from a pulley. The clock is not very efficient. 70cm of height can run the clock for merely 2hours. But in terms of accuracy its unbeatable as it is proven to be accurate to within ¼ seconds per hour.

Chritoph is not the only person who has tried his hands on this project. The director of CASA, University College London, tried to make a clock with the help of his MakerBot replicator 2. It took him 4 days to print the entire clock.

 

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3D printing helps in solving crimes!

With each passing day the 3D printing technology is advancing with leaps and bounds. It has now stepped in for helping the police department in catching criminals. It’s the new technology that will be embraced by Sherlock! The ability to produce physical objects from computer models quickly as well as affordably is the reason behind the success story of 3D printers. Now 3d printing is being used to solve crimes. With the assistance that 3D printing is providing in the field of forensic science soon it will take forensic science to an entirely different level. It’s not only forensic that has felt the impact of 3D printing, the investigation department as a whole could not resist itself from the miraculous functions of a 3D printer.

Police department all over the world are using this technology to give a whole new perspective to crime. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department used this technology to solve the Miyazawa family murder case. With the help of the 3D printer the prosecutor was able to explain the crime scene in a better way to the jury rather than just showing them an array of photographs. It was like recreating the crime scene all over again. A printer was installed in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in 2010 and was thereafter used for printing out evidences for cases such as skull of the victim in a murder case.

On similar ground the University of Alabama at Birmingham used the 3D printer to produce an impression of a footprint. Currently footprint models are created by using crime scene photographs and plaster of Paris castings, but to develop a system that was capable of scanning footprint in 3D had several advantages. It not only saves time but is more accurate than the old method. Once the digitized images of the footprints are generated a comparative study can be made in order to generate a more accurate match. Since the print of the impression can be generated the messy task of plaster cast can be avoided and also multiple copies can be made as the image is digital. The most important usage of this printer is its ability to reverse the impression and take a print of the shoe that the criminal might be wearing and this is considered as physical evidence that can be taken to court.

The popularity of 3D printers can be understood by the usage of these printers in solving crimes both in real world as well as the reel world. In an episode of the popular crime drama CSI:NY, the investigators used Z Corporation’s ZPrinter 310 system to solve the murder mystery of a police officer that took place in the Central Park. The name of the episode was “Officer Blue”.

The most useful thing that a 3D printed crime scene can do is it adds depth to the model. This helps the viewers to visualize the scene in a more precise manner as compared to trying to visualize the scene by looking at the photographs and then the courts acceptance of the evidence that are generated by these printers are surely a step towards the modernization of the justice system in the world.