News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
More affordable, more customizable, more elegant and, soon, available to anywhere in the world: this is the future of 3D printed customized jewelry. The Jewelry Maker app on Google Play, by Taiwan based Elements Lab, is quite literally bringing 3D printed jewelry it to everyone’s fingertips.
People ask if and when 3D printing will become a method of mass production. As far as plastics go, I don’t know. For metals, though, it is a whole different story: it is already happening. Metal 3D printing technologies are evolving at breakneck speed, constantly increasing their size and velocity capabilities. One of the reasons for this, in my opinion, is the intense competition, both between different technologies and different approaches to the same technology. This is not, however, the only reason.
As we’ve seen from the recent explosion of industry-grade open material 3D printers, even relatively low cost and affordable systems are now able to 3D print with temperature, high resistance products. We’ve seen nylon evolve into polycarbonates and even PEEK. And now we see Sabic’s 9085 Ultem, added to the range of the materials offered by 3DXTECH.
We often say that 3D printing’s biggest limit is not in the technology but in awareness of what the technology can be used for. All you need is a touch of creativity and inventiveness and even a low cost 3D printer can become a strategic tool in the making of high-end fashion products. For example for a glamorous 3D printed pochette.
The expansion of 3ntr, the Italian company known for its industrial 3D printers, crosses the Atlantic: Plural Additive Manufacturing (Plural) is now the sole U.S. provider of printers, technical support, and services for 3ntr systems.
The Toulouse FabLab ARTILECT continues to expand and a new component – ARTILECT LAB – was recently created to meet new professional requirements by accompanying the emergence of innovative technological projects. For the occasion, I was asked to create a 3D Voice Print work that would be revealed to the public during the inauguration ceremony of the new “Salle des Machines” area.
The 3D Printing Business Directory was created in order to give companies a map and their own window on the global 3D printing marketplace. At the same time we are happy to collaborate with other companies who specifically focus on areas that are entirely compatible and complementary with our own, for example Aniwaa.com for a directory of 3D printers and 3D scanners.
Under the Leadership of Professor Ferdinando Auricchio of the Computational Mechanics and Advanced Materials Group, 3D printing is now playing a major role in the activities that the University of Pavia, one of the oldest and most important in Italy, considers strategic for its students curricula. The new 3D printing center is going gorw in the present and in the medium to long term future, with a particular focus on medical modeling.
Finland born, Netherlands raised Janne Kyttanen is one of the foremost visionaries of innovative 3D printing applications. His work continues to shake up the world of design at the Design Shanghai event, where he proposed several works in his latests collections: Them Romans and Rollercoaster Tables.
On Wednesday March 9th, Additive Industries announced the finalists of Additive World Design for Additive Manufacturing Challenge 2016. From a group of 47 contestants, both professionals and students, 3 finalists were selected per category. ‘The redesigns submitted from all over the world (USA, Belgium, Germany, UK, Spain, Egypt and Finland) demonstrate perfectly how product designs can be improved when the freedom of 3D printing is applied’, says Daan Kersten, co-founder and CEO of Additive Industries. The large variation of industrial applications confirms the growing interest for additive manufacturing in multiple industries.