Too Many 3D Printing Companies

Although 3D Systems has made it their goal to buy every single 3D printer manufacturer (i.e. ZCorp, Bits from Bytes), dozens of new ones are popping up (Buildatron, Printr, UP!, Techzone, Open3DP). So, all the technical expertise (and patents) are being eaten up by one company while a billion others without the expertise (but the tenacity) are proliferating. One wonders - are we gonna get good printers from these new companies, or is 3D Systems (or other big companies...Stratsys) are gonna bust out a kick-ass low-cost printer and wipe the floor with these new startups.

Ponderous.

Well. Let's look regular 2D printers - 3D printer's older and better known cousin. They are difficult to run sometimes and break down, not to mention, run by a few big companies that tie their customers to their ink to keep printer costs low. I would place 2D printers as one of the more unreliable and bloated member in Consumer Electronics. Will 3D printers suffer the same fate?

As always, "The Oatmeal" is spot on.

Full Piece Right here

Air Sponge

A few images of an invention I wish to develop in the future. Let's just say, we 3D print it and it cleans the air with a nano particle treated surface.

The Fog That's Killing Us

Today it was announced that CO2 emission rose dramatically in 2010....bad news as it is, the worst part is that it was an unprecedented increase. Its on the high end of the IPCC's estimates for C02 emissions, trends that equate with a +2 C degree increase by 2100. For those unaware of that number, any increase of 2 degrees or more won't just hurt the earth (and by extension, us) but perhaps hurt its ability to sustain life in general. While we may concern ourselves with trivialities of celebrity life or fashion, we're killing the planet.

Concrete manufacturing (heating kilns to prepare cement), transportation (moving minerals and material), extraction (getting gypsum and aggregates) and impacts related to its use (manufacturing and discarding of formwork, use of rebar, poorly built structures that make building less energy efficient) we can be concerned. Concrete accounts for 7% of CO2 emissions, and we can reduce that significantly if we used 3D printing. But why?

Using local materials, we print everything. Using less formwork and labour, we reduce emission by complimentary goods. By using 3D modelling and programming, we can create more efficient buildings. One way is using the shape of the building to maximize energy use. Another is geometry - more flexibility and freedom in construction = less material used = less emissions. Whatever material we don't use in a DShape is reused. Whatever building we tear down we can reuse by crushing it up into aggregate and using it.

If you're worried about emissions, so am I. But there are solutions. It just means the concrete industry is going to have to realize they have to undergo deep structural change in how they operate, otherwise they'll be going out the door like the oil industry, the music or film industry.

Crowd-funding DShape

I've been considering Crowd-funding over the past few days - it makes complete sense to crowd-fund a sculpture. Here's why.

Great opportunity
-3D Printing is sexy and other printistas have managed to crowd-fund their designs. The most telling is Joshua Harkers Crania Anatomica Filigre He offered rewards like posters, thank you notes and a 3D print for certain donations amounts. And violá!, he raised 77,000 dollars from almost 1000 backers! So having a cool 3D print is worth it to people!

Marketing
-My aim is to market the DShape and find investors. Crowd-funding is much better aligned with my interests and abilities because I have really only involved myself in the music industry - we are all about grassroots funding! Getting a lot of people to donate a little bit rather than one person to give a massive amount is what I think would fly faster. So far all the investors i talk to mention the recession. Ditto, its an emergent technology....why would I invest when i have no clue what sales or interest are like?

This vision plays in the Grass.
Furthermore, I want DShape to be rooted in DIY rather than big-investor types....at least until we find the right, respectful investor. If this project is successful, that shows an aspect of solidarity with people's wishes to see something truly beautiful that they voted for with their cash instead of some bumpkiss pretentious architecture because it was backed by one developer's tasteless pile of money to make tasteless bullshit because they have no fucking taste.

Control
Although we're choosing the sculpture - its only because there are limitations on what we can make. I had this fear that the first investor would want a sculpture of himself and his fucking dog. If we're making a bold move, it has to seem honest. It is also an opportunity to properly sand and smooth the sculpture.

Space
Im moving back to Gropps Gallery after almost 18 months out.. we have a space to install the piece! Its near downtown, and its visible to the public. Also, we have the tools to properly install it.

So this is the plan for the next few months. Ive been in contact with a few designers...usually mathematical artists....George Hart, Carlos Sequin and (please!) Bathesheba Grossman. Depending on what prints best, we will choose one of these. I put a craigslist ad but all i got were character artists...should have been specific.

Mermaid's Delight by George Hart
http://virtualmathmuseum.org/mathart/ArtGalleryGeorge/mermaids_delight.html

Enchinoderm by George Hart
http://www.georgehart.com/sculpture/echinodermania1.html

Tower by Carlos Sequin
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/X/Tower_Model/TowerModel_FDM.JPG

Once we have a design, we price out the costs. I want the standard thank you note, poster and tshirt from 1 - 40. Plus, there will be a chunk of 3d printed material (i wish it was something designed...OH SHIT YES. I had a great idea. How about a 3D printed Pet Rock?) 50 to a 100 rewards are actual 3D prints from shape ways of our design. From 200 upwards we were thinking of actual DStone prints using the leftover space in the bounding box. Ring set..like, linked chains of rock. Also, lamps...because they're easy to make. This all depends on what design we choose, the level of support structure 'within' the bounding box. In all likelihood, we may get Enrico to do a small print run of separate objects and send them here to be repackaged and sent to their respective donors.

Once that is figured out, we develop a video and the project site. Also - must find an american with an account...kickstarter only 'operates' in the US.

And of course, I have to get back to VANCOUVER! Im in ottawa and not to happy about it. SHould have left earlier. But then again, i have all this free time to develop this project. By the time December 31st rolls around, i should be ready to sell.

There are, of course, challenges. A single cubic meter of printed sculpture cost 2000 Euros...after shipping....maybe 2500 or about 3400 dollars. So, we have to raise between 10,000 and 20,000 dollars. Is that even POSSIBLE?

Business as Unusual

Back in Canada! Its good to be home. Let me give you the run down of Europe and my return.

I visited Enrico Dini in Pisa, Italy and developed a deal to bring the D-Shape to Canada. I saw his machine, I saw the prints and I saw the future. We both hit it off very well, talking about what we could make with this machine, his own successes and failures and my own aspirations. Right now I have the rights to sell his printing services and patent license in Canada. So the clock is ticking to find clients and investors.

That was October 5th. Now its November 18th and I have a lot of things on the go. I have my friend Marcelo in Bolivia coding my website, I have brochures to edit and business cards to buy. I have to find seed capital and clients. Enrico has been selling his services to landscape architects, printing beautiful pieces like this below:

This is a print by Rinus Roelofs - a Dutch Mathematician and designer...and developed the 3D modeling program Rhino! I dont see why anyone WOULDNT want one in their garden.

Since I got back to Ottawa on Monday I've met up with a few interesting people...Ian Graham of the Code Factory, a smattering of business types at the Chamber of Commerce and architects at a party. Their response was partly open-mouths and partly excited chatter - which means nothing if they don't sign a check and get things REALLY moving. What I am lacking are a few small stl models and a piece of printed rock to show. I emailed Enrico and they are (apparently) in the mail right now.

On the side, I've been dreaming up some ideas of other applications - mostly combining Ti02 and the DShape. These will be coming down the tube in the next few years if everything goes to plan.

Website will be up soon peeps! For now, I will give you an excerpt from one of our brochures.

The D-Shape™ can use a vast number of materials as an aggregate, ranging from 0.2 to 60 mm in granular size. Sand, gravel, cement, rubber, cork, sawdust, grinded rejects, ceramic shards, crushed glass, pumice, polystyrene, polyurethane, expanded clays, wax spheroids, cellulose grains, etc.

Virtually any fibre, microfibers or nanofibres can be added into the granular material. Polymeric fibres, glass fibres, basalt fibres, vegetable fibres, synthetic fibres, etc.
Any of the above can be mixed together with the D-Sand to produce your design.

A liquid is needed to dissolve and hold the D-Salt, our inorganic binder that is deposited by the DShape onto your mix of D-Sand and the aggregate. The dissolved D-Salt reacts with the D-Sand and binds the aggregate together. This liquid must have a viscosity between water and that of honey, such as water, water based solutions, alcoholic solutions, Pre-polymers, etc.

Assuming that the liquid is able to cement together the grains of the mixture, is easy to see that the materials that can be printed with D-Shape are endless. Colour and texture of a print can be completely different from one material to the next. However we must carefully examine your design and the demanded material to see if it is printable to our standard.

The News

Hi there. In America now. On my way to Europe momentarily. I decided to browse through the internet for recent news in 3D printing. One blog entry about the legal problems of printing weapons (specifically, a rifle magazine of 10 rounds. More than 10 can put you in prison!) And another article about how thieves used a 3D printer to steal 400,000 USD! Oh and 3D systems has released another printer that is not cheap ($14,500) but prints in 6 colours and is 5 times faster than similar printers. The right sort of price for schools, offices and maybe the odd consumer. If you think consumers would buy it, remember that the first Personal Computers like the Macintosh cost half that.

I spent time in NYC checking out the sights and of course, MakerFaire 2011. I saw a few cool things, but I came for the 3D printers. Makerbot was there....and I saw a few printers Ive always wanted to see. Fab@home wasn't as impressive as i thought. Been kind of skeptical of their syringe methods. But printing in Fudge is always a big hit with the audience. Techzone was there...but Ive built their Huxley and it was a BITCH. I met the good men of Buildatron and loved their work. Their new printer is derived from the same Huxley. I wanted to help them out and share a few of my own solutions but sadly there was no time. Ultimaker was kicking butt...by far the best competitor in my opinion. 3D systems was out in force in disguise with their latest acquisition, BotMill. I hate and fear 3D systems simply because of their size and aggressive take-over the industry. I have a good feeling its going to be something like a wack-a-mole. To be fair, a product that can reproduce most of its components is likely an unsellable item. As long as the technology is difficult to use and quality is hard to come by, they'll be fine. But the fact is that quality, speed and materials are following a pseudo-Moore's Law. Perhaps 10 years down the road 3D systems will simply transition to consulting because they can't compete with cheaper models, just like Xerox. (Xerox was forced by anti-trust agencies to give up its patents to photocopy technology in the 1970s. In 10 years they went from 100% marketshare to something like ... 20%?? Guess why? The Japanese made better ones)

The take-away? 3D Printing was representing! The public is becoming a little more aware and they have ideas of their own. That bodes very well for us. But this is still a hacker/DIY arena to play in because .... we dont have the ol' "3D Print" button ready....its a difficult enterprise to print things. So Apple introduced GUI to computer and made a quantum leap (Again, THANK YOU XEROX) in computer-consumer interface. Let's see what comes down the pipeline cost/interface -wise.

Gone Climbin'

I've been going to climbing gyms since I was a young guy ... and they were always fun. However, once you've actually climbed real rocks - the gym doesn't compare. Essentially, Climbing Gyms are modernist nightmares with boltholes for attaching what resembles a robust chunk of dry paint. These indoor gyms are fun - but only because the real cliffs aren't around. Too bad we can't have real rock.

Enter - large scale 3D printing...

Use simple 3D sculpting software, maybe use some randomized filters and 'aging' to create the appearance of 'real' rock, and we have a climbing wall! Well, technically a pillar....but it is what it is. By printing out a design like mine below, we can have something closer to the real experience of rock climbing. When you think about it, large format printing like the DShape is just accelerated sedimentation - yet we can control it.

I am clueless to what makes a 'perfect' wall for climbers, but I'm certain lots of them would love to work these sort of walls.