Researchers have developed a complex system that is able to 3D print tiny structures at very high speeds.  There are few vendors providing microscopic 3D printing today, but those that do enable the production of incredible microscopic devices, lenses, and components. Many use what’s called the “two-photon” approach, where light is focused deep within a…

Carbon introduced a couple of new items that should make their products far more interesting to those intending on production use. The problem with almost all 3D printers when considering “production” is that they are not designed for production. They are designed for prototyping. They require human attention at frequent points during their operational cycle.…

Kickstarter is littered with failed projects that never made it close to their respective pledge goals and then there are those that smash through those goals within a few hours. Projects like Uniz Technology’s Slash 3D printer.

We’ve seen how viable direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) is as a method of reliably producing metal parts in industries ranging from aerospace to dentistry – but what about industries that regularly depend on structures made from multiple metal materials for different structural needs? Standing at the intersection of machine learning, advanced printers and cloud software…

You upload your file, place your order, and in less than four seconds your product is being printed. That’s the answer to the question I asked Mitch Free about how his new venture is changing 3D printing and bringing automation back into the spotlight. It’s also the answer to why they’re able to ship the part to you the same…

It’s no secret that although 3D printing has emerged to become a mainstream technology, the speed of being able to convert a digital file into a physical object leaves much to be desired regardless of the additive manufacturing technology being used. In what sounds like something that’s too good to be true, Redwood City, California…

Picture this – a bustling intersection, the smell of exhaust fumes, the cacophony of honking horns and screeching tires, and then… crash! An unfortunate traffic accident occurs. But don’t fret, as today’s technology has got our back. Enter the world of 3D modeling, an innovative approach that’s transforming the way we understand and deal with…

“Three-Dimensional Rendering” is the art and science of turning two-dimensional images and designs into 3D models that can typically be manipulated on screen. Designs are made for stationary images, like those seen in 3D animation, and dynamic/movable models, like those seen in the design world. Modern 3D rendering can be used for entertainment purposes, such…

3D Printer is a machine small enough to sit on your work table yet powerful enough to manufacture an entire product. They have evolved considerably from being an expensive and risky setup to a competent and reliable device in the last few years. Now 3D printers are more affordable and easily available than ever before.…

Making things with LEGO is cool and pretty easy. The same thing goes for creating the bricks themselves. Due to the toy’s simple design and the amount of stuff you can build with it, there’s a lot of unofficial products which try to emulate the Danish company’s iconic bricks. Even though they might have been…

Unlike the expensive 3D printers, a 3D pen isn’t the most precise instrument for making printed models. That’s not entirely the pen’s fault, however. By adding in a human element, you’re effectively reducing the speed and accuracy for a more personalized 3D print. Still, some people like that human touch – even if it doesn’t…

Voxelab Aquila is the new FDM 3D printer on the market that has managed to establish a compelling reputation right away. Voxelab Aquila 3D Printer Voxelab is the sub-brand of Flashforge which is already known by most of us. Aquila is the first printer of Voxelab and it comes at an alluring $200 price, but…

A resin 3D printer makes highly reliable prints through the use of SLA, LCD, or DLP technology. It solidifies UV resin and transforms the liquid into high-quality 3D models at a greater rate. To dig in further, Stereolithography (SLA) is the earliest form of resin 3D printing and operates by adding a substrate of photosensitive…

Some of the time, nozzle clogging happens when the 3D printer produces an insufficient amount of temperature. This results in the material adhering inside the nozzle. This doesn’t just involve the need for some adjustments or tweaks but a proper cleaning regimen, as well. The answer? The right printer nozzle cleaning kit. A quality printer…

The number of 3D printer products on the market has increased dramatically in recent years, with new and updated models emerging on a larger scale. Interestingly, some stand out as highly powerful, and Prusa is one of them. The Brains Behind Prusa Prusa is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of 3D printers. It continuously…

Delta printer is a type of 3D printer that is designed to perform a more systematic printing procedure. It has three arms that move up and down in a trigonometric manner. They locate the precise location of the printing head which is normally lightweight. This enables it to print faster compared to other types of…

Three dimension printing also referred to as Additive manufacturing or rapid prototyping has improved massively in recent years. The printers have become more popular among many hobbyists and those who are just starting out exploring the said machine. As a result, many companies have come up with advanced models that enable them to produce great…

3D printers, as the name implies, creates any three-dimensional products based on CAD models. These printers, which were only available for industrial manufacturing purposes at first, are now being offered for as low as $500. This made it possible for anyone to own a unit for personal purposes at home. Under the said price range,…

Investing in a high-end 3D printer can almost always guarantee you quality prints. However, given the plethora of choices in the market, you might end up suffering from buyer’s remorse. That is why inspecting their features, capabilities, and capacity are crucial. Through the help of our team of experts led by technicians, 3D enthusiasts, and…

Years of advancement have brought technology closer to us. One proof of this is the 3D printer that we can now enjoy in the comfort of our homes. Compared to the conventional document printers that produce nothing but two-dimensional letters and images, 3D printers can give you more. As its name implies, it is capable…

Adobe announced the coming availability of a new feature in their Capture app: Scantastic. The Capture app, which is available for iOS and Android platforms, has been around for a while and has been used in the Adobe ecosystem for capturing vector graphics. One of the frequently used functions in graphics arts is to convert…

BMF has released details about their new industrial-grade 3D printer targeting the micro parts market – the microArch S240. Projection Micro-Stereolithography The Boston-based company has been on our pages earlier this year when they revealed their technology. The resin-based 3D printing process they use is called “PμSL”, for “Projection Micro-Stereolithography”. PμSL is able to achieve…

It seems that Creality is developing a belt-driven 3D printer, and that has several implications. Creality is well-known for producing several very popular and inexpensive desktop 3D printers that have gained lasting places in the community. The CR-10 was perhaps their first big hit, followed by the immensely successful Ender 3. Most recently they updated…

Or rather, for a sports car, but it’s a start. As of the moment, Porsche has succeeded in 3D printing production-grade pistons for the engine of their newest 911 sports car, the 911 GT2 RS. Now you might wonder why Porsche didn’t try putting 3D printed pistons on a vehicle with less demanding speed capabilities.…

The world would be a much better place if, outside of everyone’s front door, there’s a scenic route, primed and ready for brisk walking, jogging, and – of course – cycling. You can avoid so many tricky logistics like fitting or strapping your mountain bike onto your tiny car. Or what to do with a…

Since it became relatively accessible in the halcyon days of 2009-2017, give or take, 3D printing has been lauded as revolutionary tech – and for a good reason. Even excluding specialized machines that might solve homelessness from the equation, you’ve still got a hefty bit of creative power within reach. When it’s not geared towards…

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a method of using holography in 3D printing. Holography is an optical method of producing and recording a three-dimensional light field by using multiple light sources to create an interference field. You’ve likely seen holograms from time to time; they are those strange images that suddenly burst…

Today I’m looking at a 3D printer I had not seen before, the Incus Hammer Lab35. Incus Background Incus is a spin off of Austria-based Lithoz, who have done very well with their line of ceramic 3D printers. Now it seems they’ve leveraged their expertise to produce a metal 3D printer that is capable of…

A new online service has emerged that hopes to guide 3D printer operators to better printing parameters: 3DOptimizer. FabControl SIA, the producers of 3DOptimizer, seems to be a spinoff from well-known 3D printer manufacturer Mass Portal. Their claim to fame was being able to achieve 3D prints of astonishing quality, so there’s definitely skill present.…

The idea of parallel 3D printing is incredibly powerful. The rap against 3D printers has long been that they are monumentally slower than traditional manufacturing equipment to produce finished units, even though they are able to make objects of any design on the next print job. This slowness has sometimes been the reason for not…

Stratasys has dropped a full-color 3D printed bombshell with the introduction of the new J55 3D Printer that combines a number of features in a printer that’s sized and priced for small and medium design and engineering business. The J55 is a full-color 3D printer with a rotating build platform, stationary head, odor-free operation, native…

Ultimaker has released a new version of Ultimaker Cura 4.5, and as usual there are a couple of very interesting new features. Ultimaker Cura, formerly known simply as Cura, is perhaps the most popular 3D print slicing system. There’s a good reason for that statistic, and it’s because Ultimaker chose to release it as an…

Matt Boyle is the VP of Engineering at Shapeways and, in a recent post from him on StackOverflow, reveals some of the methods the company uses to provide high-speed, global 3D print services.  Shapeways History Shapeways has been one of the longest-running 3D print services available to the public. They launched in the Netherlands long…

Essentium announced a pair of new materials for its high-speed 3D printer.  The Texas-based 3D printer manufacturer’s claim to fame is its highly engineered HSE series of 3D printers that can operate at 3D print speeds unseen in most other FFF devices. They are able to do so due to the precise engineering of the…

The biggest thing to hit 3D printing in the next few years is likely to be volumetric 3D printing. But who’s developing it? If you haven’t seen Fabbaloo’s previous questions about volumetric 3D printing on the tech, let’s start with a quick overview.  Volumetric 3D Printing Volumetric 3D Printing projects the form of an object from…

I’m looking at an interesting project undertaken by Protolabs, the well-known manufacturing service. The project in question is the curiously-named “Wayzn Slide”, a smart robotic door opening system designed for pet access. It’s a mechanism that attaches to a standard sliding door and can open and close the door automatically. It does this through a…

Industrial giant Siemens acquired Atlas 3D to add to their growing additive manufacturing portfolio. Somehow I missed this in the Formnext Frenzy, but on 12 November Siemens and Atlas 3D announced the Indiana-based startup was to be entirely acquired by Siemens. Sunata Features We’ve followed 3D Atlas for a few years now and were impressed…

Built to meet the needs of the full design process in a wide range of industries including consumer goods, consumer electronics, automotive, and even educational settings, the new Stratasys J850 3D printer from Stratasys puts a focus on both speed and quality—including full-color PANTONE® color validation and multi-material capabilities via a PolyJet system. Claiming to…

Whoever said goofing around wouldn’t lead to new discoveries must have not done it long enough. Taking inspiration from the small, spinning whirligig toy, students at the Lambert High School in Georgia have come up with an inexpensive portable centrifuge capable of separating liquids of different densities. Dubbed the 3D-Fuge, the project is actually a…

While in-house 3D printing is commonly used for early concept work, many professionals and businesses still outsource their parts to industrial services when more complicated materials are required. Among others, Protolabs has been a leader of custom 3D printing services over the past decade—with more than 100,000 parts printed every month across six different additive…

United States government invests $15 million towards the development of the next generation of metal 3D printing technology and 3D Systems is joining forces for the ambitious metal 3D printing project. Largest Metal 3D Printer This remarkable $15 million contract is officially targeted at work “to create the world’s largest, fastest, most precise metal 3D…

nTopology announced a revolutionary new tool for product design, nTop Platform. Generative Design for 3D Printing The tool is a bit challenging to describe, as it is a hyper-mix of functions that are today often found in separate tools and products. But let me try to do so! In the old world, product design followed…

Here’s a history lesson for you: back in the 1820s, people used to sculpt pictures onto thin, translucent pieces of porcelain. By varying the cuts and placing a backlight behind the material, a clear image could be viewed. And thus “lithophanes” were born. But that was almost 200 years ago. Times they have a’changed and…

Have you ever wondered why food and product visuals look better than what you buy? Well, there are all sorts of tricks and, if it’s not a complete digital rendered/animated recreation, a lot of what you see on screen, box, and billboard is dolled up with fake ingredients and special effects to make them look…

3D printers (people) have a bad habit of wasting their print improvement effort on the shiny and new instead of the useful. I get it, I do. 3D printers (machines) are cool, and it’s fun to make them look cool. A big part of the fun is customizing and talking shop about mods. We spend…

3D Platform has produced a rather large 3D printer, the WorkCenter 500 – and the build volume on this beast is substantial, at 1400 x 2800 x 700 mm (55″ x 110″ x 27″), or 2.7 cubic meters (95 cubic feet) of volume. It should be able to accommodate the needs of many large part-makers.…

You likely have not heard of Fortify, but you certainly will be hearing a lot more from them in the future. The Boston-based startup, founded by Joshua Martin in 2016 based on his academic thesis, has developed a highly unusual technique to 3D print strongly reinforced objects using magnetic fields in an ingenious manner. They’re…

We seasoned digital craftspeople can take an idea from a digital model to a physical concept with lightning speed. Unfortunately, that process seems prefered over starting with a physical part to create a digital part. For example, when I get an existing item, already designed with complex molded shapes, that I want to add to…

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed an extremely interesting process that is quite different from current approaches to 3D printing with photopolymer resin. The researchers sought to eliminate one of the most pervasive problems when 3D printing photopolymer resin: window adhesion. Window adhesion occurs when the light engine solidifies liquid material at the…

When you think of something on two wheels with a motor, chances are it’s fast, heavy, highly dangerous, and takes an entire assembly line to construct. What if you just needed a 3D printer? Well, 3D printer production company BigRep and their NOWLAB innovation branch are bringing us something lighter, sleeker and (almost) completely 3D…