Hi Jim,
> I found small pieces of jewelry being made in stainless and silver. But
> these were fairly simple shapes. I think it has a way to go yet, before
> servicable devices can be produced.
NASA have made a lot of parts from 3D printers, plastic, fabrics,
and metal. The quality printers are a lot more expense, and the
way they fuse the materials in a sand bed, or even using metal
powder beds and lasers's they can build very complex shapes.
This is also something they will be adding to any future manned
missions as well, as a means to produce parts that need replacing.
Complex shapes can still be done with plastics in the cheap 3D
printers, depends on how much extra work you want to do, the
expense of the materials, and the plastic's chosen for your
materials. There is no reason many items cant be produced
in sections which are then snapped together. Some of the more
exotic plastic CAD files also require the odd bit of filing, or
snapping off the plastic support structures that are used to
hold the end product together in the air as it's being made.
Car bumper's, knobs, all sorts of things are now being made
with 3D printing for replacement parts for older model
vehicles.
With the metal 3D printers, you can create heavy duty gears
that work once the none fused metal power is washed away.
The metal printers though are not something you can at
present simply hop on a website and buy for a couple of
grand !
Cheers
Ian Manners
Of nowhere in particular.
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|