While there are many methods of quality assurance and print testing, some can be more intrusive than others. That’s where non-destructive analysis and quality assurance methods come in. Particularly as it pertains to internal structures, it’s difficult to know what you’ve got during the process. However, there appears to be a growing preference among industrial […]
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For the past five years, Scott Dunham has been preparing the Additive Manufacturing with Metal Powders Report for SmarTech. SmarTech, part-owned by 3DPrint.com, is the only analysis and research firm that is focused on the Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing market. With the release of the new Additive Manufacturing with Metal Powders Report, we thought we’d delve into the report to share some of Scott’s findings and methodologies.
The report focuses on Powder Bed Fusion, Directed Energy Deposition, and Binder Jetting metals. It goes into the major players in each segment and catalogs mayor market events over the past year. Another section looks at standards formation, M&A activity as well as investments and things such as VC activity. It catalogs leading companies in metal printing and looks at the overall competitive landscape. It delves deeper at industrial use of metal 3D printing and looks at key trends in the industry. Through interviews and surveys, industry participants help identify key trends in the industry.
Things such as customer openness, competency, and spare parts are some of the elements the report looks at more in-depth. Things such as the industrialization of Powder Bed Fusion, increases in machine costs, process parameters, and market share are shared. For Directed Energy Deposition things such as the repair market, adding other AM processes to DED business units and segmentation are looked at. The growth in the binder jetting part of the market is revealed. Trends and drivers in metal powders are cataloged as well. Sales channels for powder, demand for custom alloys, and long term supply are discussed. The overall market growth in 2018 is shared, as are the differences across regions and new developments.
Scott says that the primary audience for this report is “business unit or business line managers of companies in metal powders or machine OEMs, or those companies that wish to enter the market. Consultancy firms, analysts, financial analysts, and business development people also make up a strong contingent of customers. One surprisingly large group of customers is researchers at research institutes and universities.”
Different customers have different motivations for buying the report. With prices starting at $5000 a copy it often requires a degree of interest or investment in 3D printing metals to consider it.
“Researchers and academics, for example, will use it to identify problems that do not yet have solutions or where adequate solutions have not yet been commercialized. For startups, it is used by the whole team to validate business cases and plans. For large teams at industrials or other multinationals, the entire product team would get a license to accompany their evaluation of the market. A business unit leader elsewhere may be very interested in drivers, market outlook, and developments. Consultants will use the report to get up to speed on 3D printing in relevant client engagements. OEMs and powder companies like to be abreast of the latest developments but also use it to benchmark themselves, measure unit performance, establish performance goals, and goal setting.”
Scott considers the Fifth Additive Manufacturing Metal Powders report to be a “full resource on metal additive manufacturing.”
“As per all of the powder based technologies, we provide a guide and detailed analysis based on dozens of interviews and many more surveys of market participants. Why should you trust us? We were the first to offer a market research report focused on powder processes. Over the five years, we’ve refined it, learned and sifted through a lot of data to make it more accurate and usable for customers. At SmarTech, we only do Additive Manufacturing; for us, this is not a part-time thing, but a complete focus for us as a business. This lets us build up and sharpen our knowledge. The effect is that our reports gain in useful information and in depth. The specific expertise and research we do let us make a more solid report than other firms that may have the same people cover IoT, the cloud, or other subjects. Additive Manufacturing is a fast growing, very competitive industry that deserves full time committed analysts, not tourists.”
With regards to specific trends Scott points out a “few soft last quarters” that are due to many factors, but one is the increasing complexity of implementations while others is a gulf between what is promised and what is achievable.
“The promise and hype of binder jetting has also given some customers some pause with powder bed fusion implementations. The landscape can be very confusing for new market entrants, and some decisions are tough to make and require technical expertise and understanding that new entrants often don’t have.”
He goes on to say, “the market is strengthening this quarter, and we are seeing a rapid rate of change in the industry.” Interested? Download the SmarTech Additive Manufacturing with Metal Powders report here.
3DPrint.com is part owner of SmarTech.
Wood materials would normally be impossible to process without a range of sharp tools to manipulate them into the desired form; however, as researchers often are famous for (within the 3D printing industry especially), thinking outside the normal range of conventional processes has allowed the team at Chalmers University of Technology to come up with a way to make new products with what is, essentially, wood pulp. They also added hemicellulose, a natural component derived from plants, that acts like a gluing agent.
Creating such a material works against the actual genetic code that wood contains, making it hard—offering durability, toughness, and porosity and torsional strength. In most construction projects, wood must be handled with a saw or other basic tools. Unlike many other materials, options such as melting or reshaping wood are normally not available.
3D printing with sustainable Swedish forest materials. The microscopy images of real wood tissue and the 3D printed version show how the researchers mimicked the real wood’s cellular architecture. The printed version is at a larger scale for ease of handling and display, but the researchers are able to print at any scale.
“Processes which do involve conversion, to make products such as paper, card and textiles, destroy the underlying ultrastructure, or architecture of the wood cells. But the new technology now presented allows wood to be, in effect, grown into exactly the shape desired for the final product, through the medium of 3D printing,” states a recent press release regarding the research from Chalmers.
As researchers, developers, and manufacturers around the world continue to study materials and the science of how they work with various technologies—especially 3D printing today—it is astounding how many different types of plastics, metals, fibers, ink, and more can be used to create complex geometries. Even a material as unique as wood has already been used for innovations like digital wood and complex textures, to tire technology, and wood as a better alternative to plastics.
With this new ultrastructure, the researchers see the potential for making a wide range of items with their wood composite ink, to include:
Professor Paul Gatenholm
Once they had the material in place, Chalmers researchers were ready to take their project to the next level as they began using the ink to ‘instruct a 3D printer’ and create a structure showing off the benefits of wood cellulose.
“This is a breakthrough in manufacturing technology. It allows us to move beyond the limits of nature, to create new sustainable, green products. It means that those products which today are already forest-based can now be 3D printed, in a much shorter time. And the metals and plastics currently used in 3D printing can be replaced with a renewable, sustainable alternative,” says Professor Paul Gatenholm, who has led this research within the Wallenberg Wood Science Centre at Chalmers University of Technology.
The ramifications go far beyond just the typical benefits of 3D printing as products manufactured with the wood ink could be created and then ‘grown to order’ – and quickly so.
“Manufacturing products in this way could lead to huge savings in terms of resources and harmful emissions,” said Gatenholm. “Imagine, for example, if we could start printing packaging locally. It would mean an alternative to today’s industries, with heavy reliance on plastics and C02-generating transport. Packaging could be designed and manufactured to order without any waste.”
“The source material of plants is fantastically renewable so that the raw materials can be produced on site during longer space travel, or the moon or on Mars. If you are growing food, there will probably be access to both cellulose and hemicellulose.”
A honeycomb structure with solid particles encapsulated in the air gaps between the printed walls. Cellulose has excellent oxygen barrier properties, meaning this could be a promising method for creating airtight packaging, for foodstuffs or pharmaceuticals for example.
Taking the manufacturing innovation full circle, Gatenholm’s group has even created a new packaging concept with honeycomb structures that could serve as airtight packaging—even for food or medication. They have also designed prototypes for clothing, healthcare products, and more. Gatenholm also envisions the potential for the use of their materials and products in space, with the technology recently presented at a European Space Agency (ESA) workshop. Other projects are also in the works with Florida Tech and NASA.
“Traveling in space has always acted as a catalyst for material development on earth,” he says.
Find out more about this recent Chalmers University of Technology research in their recently published article, ‘Materials from trees assembled by 3D printing – Wood tissue beyond nature limits.’
What do you think of this news? Let us know your thoughts! Join the discussion of this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com.
The microscope images show how the researchers are able to precisely control the orientation of the cellulose nanofibrils, printing in different directions in the same way that natural wood grows.
[Source / Images: Chalmers University of Technology]
We’ve got so much happening here at Adafruit that it’s not always easy to keep up! Don’t fret, we’ve got you covered. Each week we’ll be posting a handy round-up of what we’ve been up to, ranging from learn guides to blog articles, videos, and more.
Tiny Machine Learning on the Edge with TensorFlow Lite Running on SAMD51
Tiny Machine Learning on the Edge with TensorFlow Lite Running on SAMD51 (video and/or skip to the demo part at 7 min 28 secs). You’ve heard of machine learning (ML), but what is it? And do you have to buy specialty hardware to experiment? If you have some Adafruit hardware, you can build some Tiny ML projects today!
More BLOG:
Keeping with tradition, we covered quite a bit this past week. Here’s a kinda short nearing medium length list of highlights:
1,900th GUIDE! Trash Panda 2: Garbage Day
Our 1,900th guide has landed in the Learn System! It’s John Park’s Trash Panda 2: Garbage Day and it’s lots of fun! You can make it with MakeCode Arcade, and mod and hack it all you like.
In Trash Panda 2: Garbage Day, you play as the suburban dweller just trying to get some sleep when the raccoons and cats decide its time to make noise and throw garbage our of the trash bins! You must try to stop them by shining your flashlight on them. But you can only play at night, so be sure that your PyGamer or PyBadge’s light sensor indicates it’s dark out!
More LEARN:
Browse all that’s new in the Adafruit Learning System here!
From Team Plant Protector: Brian Cottrell, Christine Cottrell, Joe Gonzalez, Ruby Hsu, Chih-Wei Hsu on Hackster.io:
In order to efficiently distribute water and nutrients to our plants regardless of the shape or size of the planter, we place a small inexpensive ultrasonic humidifier into a 3D-printed enclosure so that it would fit in the base of the planter and allow air to flow inside so that it could be pushed through the vaporized fluid and into the interior of the planter.
Read more and see more on YouTube
Researchers from Germany are exploring democratizing bioprinting with their findings outlined in ‘Nydus One Syringe Extruder (NOSE): A Prusa i3 3D printer conversion for bioprinting applications.’ Recognizing the promise of this new technology and all that surrounds it, the authors focus on the potential for eliminating animal testing in the pharmaceutical industry, along with the ability to offer patient-specific treatment in nearly every area of medicine. But, applications could extend far beyond these.
In this study, the research team studies the performance of a Prusa i3 converted with a Nydus One Syringe Extruder (NOSE), allowing for hydrogel extrusion and ‘tunable deposition precision’ with a syringe holder. Projects like these are possible because of open-source technology, and here, the team was able to alter their low-cost 3D printing hardware to experiment in bioprinting. The combination of NOSE and the Prusa i3 platform in an open source bioprinting package is a potentially powerful one that could democratize bioprinting worldwide. Building on CMU’s FRESH research that has already lead to tissues being made on low-cost printers this is really a potentially groundbreaking moment in bioprinting.
So far bioprinters have been niche and cost 100,000’s or tens of thousands. With FRESH CMU already has demonstrated for three years that low-cost bioprinting for $500 to a $1000 is possible. But, this GPL licensed research combined wit the popular Prusa i3 open source 3D printer could be the thing that makes bioprinting accessible. What this paper does is give you a step by step guide on how to bioprint using a modified Prusa printer and some extra parts. In one fell swoop, hundreds of thousands of Prusa operators could potentially now experiment with bioprinting.
No matter what type of hardware, software, or materials are used though, challenges still abound in bioprinting as researchers must work hard to keep cells alive in the lab. Open sourcing allows for smaller labs to forge ahead in bioprinting also as they can bypass the cost of commercial hardware which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Modifications to the Prusa i3 with the NOSE offer many benefits, to include:
Once parameters are set, the researchers promise an algorithm delivering a ‘collision-free path.’ They must be set carefully and correctly, however, and the team suggests that users practice first by fabricating and experimenting with basic samples. If desired, the printer mainframe can also be replaced with a RebelliX frame.
The research paper also includes information regarding:
A selection of the most commonly used bioprinting techniques: a) Inkjet bioprinting describes the deposition of biomaterials (and cells) in a low viscosity range by production and depositioning of drops in the 1-100 pL range. b) Extrusion Bioprinting: a continuous thread of biomaterial containing cells is extruded through a needle and deposited on a print surface. A broad range of viscosities is possible. c) Laser-induced forward transfer: the biomaterial is deposited on a gel ribbon. Laser impulses then initialize the release of small drops onto a receiver plate. The choice of the printing technique depends on the desired resolution, the type of biomaterials and the cell-type and -density.
Costs for converting the Prusa i3 into a comprehensive bioprinter are minimal, and the FRESH method means that users can print complex geometries, using concentrated hydrogels for bioprinting purposes. The researchers did note, however, that the NOSE system was lacking in some areas:
“A completely screw-based extruder assembly would enhance the modifiability for following iterations,” stated the researchers. “Rapid infill motions caused by the high center of mass might increase the material fatigue. One potential solution here could be the placement of the servo closer to the y-carriage. Extra mechanical-endstops would improve the user-friendliness, by automatizing the repositioning of the mechanical press. Additionally, thermal extrusion control or UV-emitting diodes could increase the cross-linking capabilities and thus the range of hydrogels in future.”
The NOSE bioprinting setup exhibited an 81 percent survival rate of HEK293 cells during experimentation and promising 85 percent rate for embryonic stem cells (mESC). Again, however, some major issues did arise as the FRESH microgel proved to be ‘non-ideal’ for cells exposed over 30 minutes.
The NOSE modification consists of four 3D-printed parts: (1) the mounting part of the y-carriage and adapter for the modular syringe holder (“main adapter”), (2) a syringe holder with a diameter suitable for common 10 mL disposable syringes (“syringe holder”), (3) part to mount a NEMA17 servo engine (“servo mounter”), (4) the press part to move the syringe-piston (“mechanical press”). All parts have been printed using 0,01 mm layer height using support structures. Any support structure leftovers or unfitting hinges were gently polished using fine sandpaper.
“Overall these findings open up further optimization of the embedded bioprinting method by creating a physiological environment,” concluded the researchers. “Our bioprinting approach is protected with the GPLv3 license, hence we invite you to reproduce our data and modify our approach.”
Bioprinting may be much more common in research labs around the world today, from microfluidic platforms to scaffolds for bone regeneration and more, but for most scientists, the ultimate goal is that of 3D printing human organs. Impressive strides have already been made, however, with cellularized hearts, human brain tissue, animal brains, and many other spectacular models.
Given that the Prusa i3 is an inexpensive 3D printer capable of high-quality 3D prints this development could potentially democratize bioprinting. If the NOSE nozzle works well then this could make the i3 an affordable bioprinting platform, for some bioprinting applications, for use in the lab and classroom. The Prusa i3 is the predominant FDM system architecture and hundreds of thousands of Prusa and Prusa clones are scattered across the earth. Hundreds of vendors sell and manufacture them. With the NOSE nozzle and the i3 bioprinting could now become affordable for many people worldwide. Sometimes a moment changes everything, sometimes that moment is this one.
A selection of the most commonly used bioprinting techniques: a) Inkjet bioprinting describes the deposition of biomaterials (and cells) in a low viscosity range by production and depositioning of drops in the 1-100 pL range. b) Extrusion Bioprinting: a continuous thread of biomaterial containing cells is extruded through a needle and deposited on a print surface. A broad range of viscosities is possible. c) Laser-induced forward transfer: the biomaterial is deposited on a gel ribbon. Laser impulses then initialize the release of small drops onto a receiver plate. The choice of the printing technique depends on the desired resolution, the type of biomaterials and the cell-type and -density.
[Source / Images: ‘Nydus One Syringe Extruder (NOSE): A Prusa i3 3D printer conversion for bioprinting applications’]
French researchers have just outlined a means for creating relatively hollow FDM parts with the aid of an algorithm. This mode of printing relies on internal support structures rather than external ones. The process isn’t just for show either, as it allows for the reduction of material usage and weight while printing. This ribbed support […]
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