For all of you students who are drooling to create 3D prints of your SolidWorks parts at school… tough luck. You can’t. The SolidWorks Student Design Kit (SDK) doesn’t allow you to export .STL files and if you complain to the teacher about he will start crying again. So, besides downloading a free trial of…
Not all of us are able to build wild contraptions that strap to our backs and allow us to shoot plastic out the tips of our fingers. That’s why there are places like CloudFab who will take on the task for you. However, instead of depending on a couple three-jointed appendages for plastic forming, they’ve…
Can you 3D print an aircraft engine? Yes, yes you can… granted you have the inclination and enough thermoplastic to scare a small horse. Last year at Autodesk University 2009, Autodesk and Stratasys saddled up to reveal an aircraft engine created in Inventor and printed using the Fortus3D production system. I maintain that it would…
SolidWorks World 2010 is over… I jest, it actually hasn’t started, but a week from now at this time, it will be over and I, along with many others, will be dragging blistered feet from an Anaheim, California hotel bed to shed the light we gleaned from SolidWorks World on our friends, family and supermarket…
Well, I’m about the only one who hasn’t weighed in on the deep, molten pool of plasticy ramifications seeping out of the HP + Stratasys 3D printer deal which happened last week. For good reason too. I’ve been busy running back and forth along the fence in my backyard, pelting the neighbors dog with polycarbonate…
There is certainly no shortage of 3D print or photocopy news the past couple weeks. Now Solido3d is causing a stir. A big stir. Next week, in conjunction with the SolidWorks World 2010 event, they’ll hold a press release announcing new pricing on the SD300 Pro, the only desktop Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM) printer that…
Slowly step away from the cheese spread and permanent markers. You no longer need to dowse your sorrows with imitation milk products to add color to your 3D prints. If you know Shapeways, you know they keep excreting multiple ways to create 3D printed products. Now they’re adding a new machine to the mix that…
Once again 3D is hitting the iPhone with a fearsome tenacity that makes you just plain ignore regular phone users. But this time the 3D goodness isn’t in the iPhone, it’s on it… and it’s on it in a not-over-the-top-at-all, ultra-fashionable way. FreshFiber, with the styling skills of Janne Kyttanen, has launched a fresh line…
I’m serious as printed Nutella when I say this. You’re about to get silly thoughts in your head. Silly thoughts about fabbing up this type of trinket or that type of trinket, in a really different way than ever before. CloudFab is set to provide you with more options for your sly design fabrication needs.…
On a slow, muggy night I’ll sit back, pop open a can of high density polyethylene and take a look at all the activity happening in the world of 3D fabrication. It’s invigorating. I highly recommend it. Recently, on such a night, I came across two bits of info from my two favorite fab sites,…
Prepare your drive systems and Plastruders my Cartesian coordinating friends. The great “Horn of DIY Fab” has sounded and the battle to maintain your 3D print fix and MakerBot units sold is EMINENT. Since MakerBot released it’s printer mid-April 2009, demand has been so high they’re turning to the MakerBot community to keep production of…
OOOOOhhhhh, it is ON. SolidSmack has been challenged… and when I say challenged, I mean we are pickin’ fights with anything or anyone. Mr. Joseph ‘Mass Customization’ Flaherty over at Replicator Blog recently wrote about Why 3D Printers Won’t Go Mainstream. That’s just yelling to have an opposing view thrown at it. So that’s what…
Here’s your chance to give those photos a little more depth and a more monochromatic feel. Today, Shapeways launches PhotoShaper that turns your photo into a 3D printed plastic masterpiece. I’m guessing you probably don’t get many photos printed nowadays with the whole digital camera craze going on now, but if you are thinking about…
You’re probably thinking the same thing I am. Soon 3D printing will be just as sure a part of the design process as having to pluck ticks from your eyelids after a nosedive into a damp, brushy floor of a wooded hillside. Barring analogies to lyme disease and the whole blood-sucking thing, it pretty obvious…
Exactly how rockin’ would you be with your own guitar? Not as rockin’ as you would be with a sweet, custom manufactured axe made to your exact style and specifications. Amit Zoran, from the MIT Ambient Intelligence Group, has been fiddling with the concept of Rapid Prototyping acoustical instruments. But are the materials that rapid…
Speaking of Objet 3D printers , there’s a new rapid-prototyping option available this fall from the company enabling you to upload a 3D designs for rapid-prototyping, Shapeways . It’s smooth, it’s black and just screaming your name. The black photopolymer material is used with their Objet Eden 500 machine and gives you a very fine,…
Imagine for a moment – taking a sip of coffee, scalding your mouth, then slamming your fist upon the keyboard that sends your final SolidWorks generated 3D model to a 3D printer sitting right next to you. The print heads go to work as your brand new 3D desktop printer creates a high-resolution, fully cured,…