3D metal printer manufacturer Höganäs delivered a new machine to a client this week, but it’s not a typical client. Readers may recall my enthusiasm upon discovering Höganäs last year. The Swedish company produces metal powders for additive manufacturing, but also develops and markets their own 3D metal printing equipment. The 3D metal printer, shown here,…
I’m trying out a new online service that hopes to enable makers to work together on open source hardware projects. 3D Orchard is a web service designed by three enthusiasts hoping to ignite the development of many more open source hardware projects. To that end, the service offers three features: A browser-based community-style 3D CAD…
“I got two words for you brochacho, CARBON FIBER.” Some 3D printers can print in carbon fiber, but this 3D printer is made from carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is an increasingly popular material in the 3D print world, due to its low weight and high strength. Multiple 3D printers now have the capability of 3D…
A recent Kickstarter project from OPENCREATORS has shown a 3D printer with features we haven’t seen previously. The cryptically-named BS210 is a desktop 3D printer using the standard filament extrusion process, and the machine is mostly typical among many in the market, with the exception of a couple of rather unusual features. Certainly it appears…
I’m reading an interesting story about how a photographer designed and 3D printed a specialty film camera and realized what this actually signifies. The camera project in question was undertaken by Paul Kohlhaussen, a photographer and designer based in London. Kohlhauseen, like some professionals, has an affinity for the older film approach to photography, over…
A startup company has launched a 3D printer specifically designed for clay 3D printing. ClayXYZ, found currently on Kickstarter, has developed a simple and low cost 3D printer that prints just clay. But it’s not any clay, it’s the commonly available “air hardening clay” that doesn’t require firing in a furnace as most clay does.…
Mosaic Manufacturing announced a new cloud-based multi-material software tool for 3D printing, CANVAS. The Canadian company has been busy building and marketing the Palette, which we’ve covered previously. This device is an ingenious 3D printer accessory which dynamically splices differently colored input filaments together in just the right sequence and lengths to enable printing of…
Previously the company marketed the AstroBox (no touch), which provided an easy means for you to connect an otherwise standalone desktop 3D printer to a powerful cloud environment, from which many interesting and useful functions became instantly possible. And that’s really what Astroprint is all about: maintaining a huge cloud network of 3D printing participants…
I’ve written on the concept of digital inventory previously, but now a company is doing so directly. The basics of the concept are found here, but in short, the idea is to maintain a digital, rather than a physical, inventory of spare parts to reduce costs. Just 3D print the parts when you require them.…
Desktop Metal has finally shown their 3D metal printing technology, and from a first look, it does appear to be game changing in several respects. The mysterious east coast startup has been a bit of a puzzle for some time now. We’ve seen only glimpses of their equipment and hints of powerful capabilities. But now…
Last week Carbon and Adidas announced a deal to produce 3D printed midsoles. But how big is this deal, exactly? It’s hard to gauge the magnitude of a business deal from popular reports, but I believe it can be estimated based on the statistics shown to the public. Carbon has developed a custom resin specifically…
Looking for an easy way to find/create 3D printable terrain models? Go no further than TouchTerrain. TouchTerrain is a project of the University of Iowa that allows you to select a rectangular surface area of anywhere on the Earth and then download a 3D model of the surface terrain. 3D Print a Terrain Models The…
SketchUp has a very interesting extension called “PlaceMaker” to instantly generate 3D models of cities. I don’t often recommend SketchUp for 3D printing purposes, as it is primarily focused on visual 3D, rather than the solid 3D required for proper 3D printing. It’s just too easy to create non-3D printable models in SketchUp and you are…
I read an interesting announcement from Aleph Objects and colorFabb that begs a question about the latter’s strategy. Aleph Objects is, of course, the producers of the very popular line of LulzBot desktop 3D printers. These are very well regarded machines that have proceeded well through a number of increasingly powerful iterations, leading up to…
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.…
The Hangprinter is one of the most unusual 3D printer concepts yet seen, and it actually works. The Hangprinter is a project by Torbjørn Ludvigsen, based in the city of Umeå in the northern end of Sweden. Ludvigsen, who goes by the handle “Tobben”. It’s a RepRap variant designed by Ludvigsen apparently in 2014, but…
Formlabs has executed a very interesting experiment in hydrographics using their 3D printing equipment. Hydrographics, if you’re not aware, is the process of applying a color texture to a surface of a non-flat 3D object. The idea is to have paint or a texture floating on the surface of a fluid. The object is carefully…
Netherlands-based 3D4Makers seems to have broken through a major barrier to producing unusual 3D print filaments in engineering materials with a new production system. The secret to their venture is a new filament extrusion system that differs significantly from typical filament production operations. But let’s see how most filament production is done. Most filament production…
Last week 3D print service Sculpteo announced a series of AI-based tools to simplify use of their system. But what’s driving them to this? We spoke with Sculpteo CEO Clément Moreau at CES to find out. Moreau explained that their firm really wanted to get into 3D metal printing, because that is the best market…
Monoprice has become very well known for their low-cost 3D printer options, but things are about to change significantly. We managed to get a peek at their new set of equipment to be released soon. Currently the company offers a small selection of basic filament-powered desktop 3D printers, one of which, the Select Mini Desktop…
A wonderful story has been submitted to Fabbaloo describing how a traditional ceramics craftsman was able to vastly simplify his work using 3D print technology. Nicolas Tokotuu of 3D Printing Science directed us to France-based craftsman Alain Canard, who has spent 27 years reproducing ceramic objects using very traditional techniques. Over that period of time,…
You might be familiar with 3D Platform, a company dedicated to making large-format 3D printers. Now it seems they’re working on ways to make large prints much faster. Many of the currently available large format 3D printers are simply scaled up versions of RepRap-style extrusion machines. This style of machine works perfectly well at the…
It seems software giant Microsoft is going deeper into 3D technology, and I’m wondering how this could tilt the 3D printing landscape. In their most recent OS, Windows 10, the company has just provided a series of interesting 3D software tools. You can see how some of them work in this video: https://youtu.be/Itc5ihHDAnY In the…
Remember a few months ago Netherlands-based Eric van Straaten sought funding to acquire a color 3D printer? There’s an interesting update to his story. The idea behind his quest was essentially a lack of sufficient quality from existing color 3D printers. He had been using standard 3D Systems’ ProJet powder-based color printers, which do produce…
Fuel3D announced a new “mirror” 3D scanner that could lead to advanced eyewear applications. The company has long been developing 3D scanning equipment based on an unusual high-speed structured light system. Initially they produced a very effective 3D face scanner, the Scanify, used for both 3D printing and in 3D gaming. Since their introduction in…
Surrey Nanosystems, producers of the amazing Vantablack dark material informed Fabbaloo they have successfully coated a 3D printed object with the world’s darkest material. But first a catchup: Vantablack is a very unusual material composed of extremely long nanofibres, all aligned in a single direction. These fibers tend to trap photons when projected toward a…
Promoting a 3D printing company is more challenging today than ever before due to the huge number of companies in the space. What techniques can a company use to get their message to the 3D printing public? I’ve got seven approaches for you to consider: INFLUENTIAL MARKETING IS NOT A NEW CONCEPT, BUT IT HAS…
Among the small explosion of new 3D print materials is a substance you may not have considered: ASA. ASA, or Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate, is yet another thermoplastic sometimes used in 3D printing. The intention of using ASA is to improve on the deficient qualities of ABS plastic, a very commonly used substance in 3D printing.…
There have been many aborted attempts at producing recycled 3D printer filament, but Reflow’s approach appears to be successful. In the past I’ve seen many attempts at producing desktop machines that recycle plastic into 3D printer filament. Typically the concept is to collect leftover prints or plastic, grind it up into fragments and remelt them…
Some say 3D printing is not useful and is dying, but in fact our world is being slowly changed in fundamental ways behind the scenes. In factories around the world, designers and manufacturers are exploring the advantages of 3D print technology, trying to find ways to optimize their work. With the recent increase in awareness…
I haven’t heard much from 3DPrinterOS for a while, but now the reason for this is clear: they’ve been working on powerful integrations. 3DPrinterOS is a cloud-based system for integration with common 3D printers, which tend to be rather dumb. 3DPrinterOS makes them a lot smarter by hooking them up to a cloud network where…
A newly invented process could enable large-scale use of nano-printed metal materials. 3D printing is most often done at a visible scale, but for many years researchers have sought methods of printing materials at a nano scale to take advantages of molecular effects and microscopic structures. While many of these experiments have been successful, the…
There’s a peculiar startup offering a secure method of handling 3D design files called, Make it LEO. “LEO” stands for “Limited Edition Object”, and Make it LEO enables you to produce LEO files that contain the 3D design. But they also contain information about how it can be used. They explain: In a LEO (Limited…
Monocolor 3D prints are so dull-looking; that’s why many people paint or finish them. But what if you could do so with the world’s darkest material?
There’s an interesting option available for those requiring a large-format desktop 3D printer: the T-Rex from FORMBOT. The open-style cartesian 3D printer appears to have a simple design, but there are some very interesting features beyond the basics of 3D printing. The most important feature, of course, is the huge build volume, which is measured…
Earlier we published a story on the massive CoLiDo Mega 3D printer, but some believed the print was faked.It does look a bit surreal in the image, however. For those accustomed to printing smaller items on smaller 3D printers, the sight of a giant print may seem, well, impossible.
UK-based Laykanics is an interesting service that offers monthly 3D print-based project kits that I think could be very suitable for educators looking to expose students to 3D printing.
There have been multiple attempts to develop a feasible method of 3D printing buildings, and Branch Technology is trying another method.
I’m viewing a very curious video from Tokyo-based ENOMOTO, who seem to have developed a 3D printer that can print in many directions.
A new filament from Avante demonstrates how much more advances in 3D printing filament chemistry can achieve. The new FilaOne GRAY filament from Avante Technology is one of very few materials specifically designed for 3D printing engineering applications. Avante explains: FilaOneTM GRAY provides very high flexural modulus, yet can bend and recover without crack- ing…