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Another DIY DLP 3D Printer turns to Crowd Funding

date May 13, 2012 comments Comments are closed

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The majority of current DIY 3D printers on the market are based around FDM technology which is a great simple 3D printing process. Put simply it takes a plastic filament, melts it down and pushes it out a tiny nozzle which is directed on to a bed which moves around in the X and Y directions to effectively draw your object. The print head is raised and the next layer is drawn on top until the part is complete. The process is slow and is limited in resolution due to the size of the nozzle opening and the Z stepping for each layer.

DLP (Digital Light Projection) on the other hand is a much faster printing process that is capable of printing very high resolution models and is a technology that is slowly creeping into the DIY 3D printer scene. Continue Reading →

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Dirk’s robot now eats CD’s and prints big transparent things!

date May 2, 2012 comments Comments are closed

Back in 2010 we posted an article about a fellow from the Netherlands who had converted a Robot that was originally used for assembling cars into a giant 3D printer. Dirk Vander Kooij’s robot is capable of printing large objects, mainly furniture, from recycled refrigerator internals. Since we last posted about him he has given his 3D printing robot a fresh coat of paint and is now being feeding it recycled CD’s so it can print clear objects such as a lamps.

Watching Dirk’s robot print is mesmerizing and reminds me of watching my first print from on a Rapman, abet on a much bigger scale. Check out the awesome video below of it in action. For more information head on over to Dirk’s website.

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MiiCraft™ DLP Printer

date March 28, 2012 comments Comments are closed

Home built DLP 3D printers are gaining popularity all over the place. The latest one we have come across has been designed by a bunch of guys who go by the name of MiiCraft. The design is very similar to that of  DLP Printer however this one uses a Pico projector. From the looks of the photos and video’s this thing has got promise! For more information head on over to www.miicraft.com

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Sumpod – DIY 3D Printer and CNC Router

date March 28, 2012 comments Comments are closed

DIY 3D Printers keep popping up all over the place and the latest guy to appear is the Sumpod. With a super solid MDF casing this guy is sturdy enough to swap the print head for a dremel which allows for light CNC machining. The desktop printer is designed, built and sold by Richard Sum of Sutton-in-Ashfield, UK and more information is available at www.sumpod.com

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3D printing at a Nano scale

date March 14, 2012 comments Comments are closed

Printing three dimensional objects with incredibly fine details is now possible using “two-photon lithography”. With this technology, tiny structures on a nanometer scale can be fabricated. Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) have now made a major breakthrough in speeding up this printing technique: The high-precision-3D-printer at TU Vienna is orders of magnitude faster than similar devices (see video below). This opens up completely new areas of application, such as in medicine.

The 3D printer uses a liquid resin, which is hardened at precisely the correct spots by a focused laser beam. The focal point of the laser beam is guided through the resin by movable mirrors and leaves behind a hardened line of solid polymer, just a few hundred nanometers wide. This fine resolution enables the creation of intricately structured sculptures as tiny as a grain of sand. “Until now, this technique used to be quite slow”, says Professor Jürgen Stampfl from the Institute of Materials Science and Technology at the TU Vienna. “The printing speed used to be measured in millimeters per second – our device can do five meters in one second.” In two-photon lithography, this is a world record.

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Aussie’s manufacturing UAV’s via 3D printing!

date October 18, 2011 comments Comments { 60 }

The CyberQuad is an Australian designed unmanned, electric vertical take-off and landing system (Quadrotor) designed by Cyber technology in WA.  It’s a great example of the power of 3D printing, for the production of end-use-parts and assemblies made directly from 3D CAD data – without tooling.

A true direct manufacturing application, the CyberQuad, is produced in a 3D Systems next generation SLS Production 3D Printers.  Using a unique material called DuraForm, parts are capable of withstanding harsh conditions and used for direct low-volume manufacturing, providing the flexibility to modify, optimise and evolve designs on-the-fly.

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Home made DLP printer

date August 15, 2011 comments Comments { 84 }

A while back we posted some pictures of parts that were printed on a home made high resolution DLP 3D printer by . Well it looks as though he has been busy refining his software and printing some serious detailed small parts! From the limited information it looks as though he has some initial funding but may still look a releasing kits on a crowd funding website to help raise capital and get these printers out to the world.

For more information check out his blog.

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Solar Sand 3D Printer

date June 26, 2011 comments Comments { 75 }

Markus Kayser has developed a 3D printer which harnesses the power of the sun to sinter layers of sand to create 3D parts in glass! Dubbed the Solar-Sinter, the semi automatic 3D printer focuses the energy of the sun through a large fresnel lenes and melts the sand, thus turning it into glass, to form 3D objects. The machine in the video is the second machine Kayser has built and was tested in the Sahara desert near Siwa, Egypt. Video after the jump….
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