Even in its infancy, 3D printing has made designers take notice, not least because of its promise to transform industries and remake manufacturing. Industry watchers even called the process “Wal-Mart in your hands” due to its range and potential. Fashion, food, aeronautics, medicine, construction, device manufacturing—this technology isn’t just changing how certain things are made; it’s changing how things are made in general. This hype has primed the market for rapid growth, with sales of 3D-printing machines predicted to grow 500 percent in five years.
In an attempt to appeal to design-conscious consumers, major athletic shoe brands like Nike and Adidas have been investing heavily in 3-D printing. Now, New Balance is aiming to beat both Nike and Adidas to the finish line.
Local Motors, the world's most prominent maker of 3D-printed cars, announced this week that it plans to offer pre-sales of its series of 3D printed models starting in spring 2016. It estimates the sticker price for the LM3D series, including the new Swim model seen above, to be around the $53,000 mark.
3D Systems Corp., la reina del pujante mercado de impresoras en tres dimensiones (máquinas que fabrican piezas apilando capas de materiales, gota a gota) se tambalea. La empresa ha confirmado esta semana que el que ha sido consejero delegado durante los últimos 12 años, Avi Reichental, dejará el timón.
Mientras Reichental abandonaba su puesto, las acciones de la compañía se dejaban cerca de un 7% a media jornada del jueves y tocaban mínimos de los últimos cuatro años: unos 10 dólares por título, frente a los 97 dólares de comienzos de 2014.
Sometimes an idea and a track record are enough to score big bucks from venture capitalists.
The latest example: Desktop Metal, a nearly two-month-old 3D printing startup in Cambridge, MA, just announced $14 million in its first funding round—despite not having a working prototype or even a website.
Almost daily, new and innovative biomedical uses for 3-D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) are reported. Scientists are exploring, for example, how to use 3-D printing to produce microrobots that deliver medicine inside the human body, how to create a skin-like material—complete with hair follicles and sweat glands—for skin grafts, and how to print human organs from living cells for transplants.
Taking a few lessons learned before and during their time at MakerBot, the founders of Brooklyn-based Voodoo Manufacturing are trying to prove they can turn 3D printing and related services into a scalable business.
On Tuesday, Voodoo unveiled its printing outflow service, which lets businesses and makers upload files and get an instant quote on producing volume orders up to 10,000 units.
The company uses 127 MakerBot Replicator 2 desktop 3D printers in its factory. The printers are set up to create rapid prototypes, small batches, and larger orders. So far Voodoo has raised some $300,000 from private investors.
Bridging the gap between the ends of a torn nerve is the latest biomedical trick performed with the help of a 3-D printer.
Additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing, makes it possible to build more customized biomedical implants, and has become a popular way to make dental implants and even windpipes. A new 3-D printed structure meant to “guide” the regrowth and reconnection of the loose ends of an injured nerve suggests that the technique could appeal to neurosurgeons as well.
The palette of materials that can be used as 3-D printing “ink” is quickly growing in diversity, but one ubiquitous material has, until now, been absent: transparent glass.
It’s already possible to use tiny granules of glass in a powder bed with conventional 3-D printing techniques like jetting and sintering, but the products turn out opaque. Now researchers at MIT have demonstrated the first-ever machine that can print molten glass through a nozzle and make transparent glass objects layer by layer according to digital instructions.
