News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
Custom 3D printed eyewear is something of a trend in the industry, with a range of startups promising to deliver bespoke frames to customers thanks to AM. If there is one brand you’ll want to keep your eye on, it is probably King Children, a New York-based company that recently secured $2 million in funding for its launch.
The maker community is constantly creating new, fun and often innovative things using 3D printing, but it can sometimes be hard to keep track of all the amazing things going on, especially with so much happening on the industry side of things. At this time of year, however, I always find myself drawn back into what makers are up to, because the creative juices really seem to get going around Halloween.
Though it is somewhat morbid to think about, death faces all of us and along with it, funeral planning and costs. According to Liverpool-based startup Koffin, funeral costs have gone up over 70% in the past 10 years. These high costs, along with the unsustainable nature of traditional coffins were what inspired artist Gina Czarnecki to found Koffin, a company dedicated to creating sustainable, 3D printed eco-coffins.
Razor company Gillette hasn’t been a successful business for over a hundred years by resting on its laurels. The company, known for its “The Best a Man Can Get” slogan, has innovated over the years, introducing the first disposable razor, the iconic Gillette Blue Blade and the first three-blade razor, to name but a few. Most recently, the company introduced a new range of razors featuring customizable 3D printed handles.
Many major companies, including Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Carbon and others, believe that the footwear industry could be the first major adopter of 3D printing technologies for mass production of consumer products. This is true in particular for mass customization applications. Until now, all of these companies have focused primarily on 3D printing the outsole and midsole. Voxel8, a startup with a fascinating history originating from Harvard University, is ready to bet on the rest of the shoe, the “upper” or top section, by introducing its unique ActiveMix® process for extrusion and coloring of advanced polyurethane materials.
Askja Audio, a French developer of audio systems, has revealed how its path to offering high quality sound was heavily reliant on additive manufacturing technologies, and specifically Stratasys’ Fortus 900mc Production 3D printer. The company says 3D printing played a critical role in realizing its flagship product, the Askja Origin.
When you see an incredible looking and innovative device of any kind today, it is almost certain that it was developed and prototyped using 3D printing technologies. If it comes from former Tesla and BMW engineers—two of the most vocal adopters of these technologies—those chances increase. So when the UrmO electric self-balancing scooter was launched and successfully funded on Kickstarter, it did not take long to confirm that the “prototype 0” was 3D printed. The only question was how much and which parts.
The idea of DfAM (Design for Additive Manufacturing) explores how parts can be designed specifically to leverage the expanded geometric possibilities afforded by additive manufacturing technologies. Until now this approach – implemented primarily by forward-thinking engineers – has focused on lattices and trabecular structures to reduce a part’s weight. However, this may be just a scratch on the proverbial surface as many other possibilities exist to exploit mold-less production. For example, the creation of “without-end” designs to replace complex multi-part assemblies. This is exactly what designer Steve Jenkins did in the Continuous Loop Bicycle project recently published on the Yanko Design network.
Whether you’re cycling to work in a traffic-heavy city or cruising down a country lane or bike path, it is always wise to wear a helmet. The plastic encasing could be the deciding factor between life or death if an accident should occur. The things about bike helmets, however, is that, unless you’ve got access to what the pros wear, the structure and build of them hasn’t changed all that much in the past couple of decades.
Ever since it was launched last year (and even earlier when its Connex3 predecessor was launched), many of us working in AM have been wondering why Stratasys never fully leveraged the system’s unique voxel-level control 3D printing capabilities to provide widespread services instead of just continuing to focus on just prototyping. Sure, polyjet material durability and costs are an issue but experience has shown that these issues can often be overcome in the AM industry with valid and innovative applications.