i hope you've been having a nice weekend
at the maker faire wrapping up today so
uh near the end of our day here we're
doing our getting started with 3d
printing talk i hope you've had a chance
to look at the 3d printer village but if
you haven't you've got a little bit of
time after this talk finishes to check
it out
um we're going to be talking about 3d
printing and what it's all about and
we'll do sort of a 15 to 20 minute
presentation and then i'll answer any
questions that you have
so first off
what is 3d printing
3d printing is sort of a colloquial term
for additive manufacturing and additive
manufacturing describes any process that
is essentially
controlled by a computer and built up in
layers and that can be done in lots of
different materials most of the
3d printers that you're going to see out
in 3d printer village are going to be
this type here
let's see if i can get that video to run
maybe not i'm on a different computer
than i was yesterday um so if you go
over to 3d printer village you'll see a
lot of these types of printers called
fused filament fabrication and they're
taking essentially a spool of plastic
which is a sort of a string of plastic
that goes through a nozzle is computer
controlled and lays down a design sort
of in layers like a very precise
computer controlled glue gun
and other processes like the form ones
and the b9s
um
cure resin in layers either through a
projector or
with a laser beam
but this is really only the start of the
types of additive processes that are out
there and we'll get to those in a little
bit
so what can you use 3d printing for
design art
any ideas that you've got out here these
are some examples of designs that are on
thingiverse
some fine arts some gaming miniatures
some playsets for kids
you can prototype your ideas whether you
have an idea for an invention or just
something that's going to solve a simple
problem in your life
maybe it's an enclosure for an
electronics project
one of the things there is i think a
model of an automatic transmission you
know it's a great tool to show people
how things work whether it's an engine
or there's also a model of a planetary
gear set there to get these concepts
sort of in reality and be able to show
your friends and your family and your
kids
what else can use it for we can invent
new things
share our dreams and also share our
dreams with other people
one of the interesting things about 3d
manufacturing is that it sort of ties
into this idea of distributed
manufacturing um
that i can make something i could share
it online and you can make that thing
and that's one of the i started when i
started got my first 3d printer i
started sharing my designs online and it
was really awesome to put something
online one evening and then wake up in
the morning and have someone that
printed it out and posted it that lived
in japan
and that's a crazy feeling that your
designs exist sort of all over the world
and you can use it to sort of explore
and capture your world you don't have to
be a pro modeler to use a 3d printer
there's some really great software out
there that allows you to scan
items out in the real world either with
a camera or with a connect sensor
um
or a high-end system but you don't need
to spend the money on those high-end
systems if you just want to get your
feet wet and get started
people are also doing some really
awesome things with 3d printers like
creating prosthetics for kids um
kids grow so fast that often they don't
get a real fully functional prosthetic
until they're at least in their teens
and they miss out on a lot of activities
and so there have been a couple of
different projects the folks who've been
prototyping
designs to give kids um you know who
don't have fingers uh be able to catch a
ball
and if you're using low cost materials
like the
ff the abs or the pla that the ff
printers do
you know you can make one a year and
it's not that big of a deal especially
when the design is open source and
anybody can contribute to it and it's
free
so we started talking a little bit about
what's available today these two
different models
the fused filament fabrication that's
the ones that are printing out plastic
that looks a lot like legos
or the stereolithography which is often
clear but can be lots of colors and has
a higher resolution these are the two
kinds of processes that you can buy and
have at home but in a few years there's
going to be
a few key patents that are expiring and
so we'll see some of the other
technologies that you can only access
through the high-end systems or service
bureau like shapeways available in the
home
selective laser sintering is one of them
and we're already seeing some of these
printers come out of
china
where these patents aren't uh protected
and when those patents expire in about a
next year year and a half
we're gonna see some of those new
technologies available to uh
regular people like you and me
but you don't have to have a 3d printer
to
have a 3d print there's also these
services like shapeways sculptio i
materialize where you can create a
design on your computer you can upload
an stl file and have them send it to you
after a couple weeks after they
manufacture it in their factory and so
it's a great way to get started with 3d
printing if you're not interested in
making that initial investment in a
machine
and these
service bureaus often use a lot of more
diverse materials they can print in
metal
uh there are some jewelry designers
doing some really interesting things
with silver and gold
um
there's a wide variety of materials that
you can access from these services
so what do you print if you have a 3d
printer at home or you want to design
something to send away
if you're designing it or if you're
printing at home there's a bunch of file
repositories the most popular one is
called thingiverse but there are also
models on places like google sketchup or
grab cad where you can download files
that people have created just for 3d
printers and print a copy of them for
yourself
but after a while that's not very
exciting usually people who have a 3d
printer wanted to use it to solve a
problem of their own or make something
of their own design and so that's when
you need to learn some sort of cad
software
and there's a ton of cad software out
there in almost any cad software on the
market whether it's made for animation
or
you know solidworks for making
assemblies and engineering all of these
programs can export stl files it's a
really common format and if they can't
export an stl file they can export an
obj so you want to pick something you're
comfortable with maybe it's something
you have access to through work or you
can use one of the free programs there's
some really excellent ones that have
popped up within the past few years
especially with 3d printing in mind
this is a screenshot of autodesk 123d
design their online version is getting
pretty spectacular and it's one of my
favorites to recommend to other folks
tinkercad is another one that's really
great for kids
and i believe tinkercad just added a
minecraft minecraft import function
two kids in the front row mouse get
really big how exciting is that
so you can design something in minecraft
and then bring it into tinkercad and do
some more work on it before you 3d print
it
all right so 3d modeling what's all that
about anyway um
you know there's a few ways to do this
you can either start with
two-dimensional line work that you were
importing or you could start with basic
shapes
primitives like cubes and spheres and
cones all these things you might have
learned about in geometry class
and essentially you just add them
together and manipulate them in
different ways you can subtract them
from one another combine them to create
complex shapes when you're starting out
a good recommendation is sometimes like
copy something from the real world
take some measurements think about how
it goes together how you would
create that object from simple shapes
and it takes some practice but it's not
really that hard especially if you start
with a project where you feel like you
can identify
the basic shapes that are in that object
and like i said before there's a lot of
free in-browsing tool or in-browser
tools for learning tinkercad 123d being
two of the most favorite ones
um and it doesn't stop with just the 3d
print there's some folks who are
experimenting with some really
interesting ways to take these projects
further either doing finishing work on
the print itself that horse head is a
scan of a piece and a museum and it was
printed full size
on a makerbot replicator so it was
printed and i think like 26 different
like chunks about this big and then put
all together and the artist had some
access to some like metal patinas and
did some really interesting work
um
doing some faux finishes on that and
then there's also some photos here
there's that lollipop in the lower hand
corner of a tardis and so somebody had
created a design
created a food safe silicone mold and
then used that to um cast the lollipops
and people are doing the same thing
casting with metals casting with um
various forms of clay it's really
interesting in the uh the met uh
museum's table inside somebody had done
some
um
negative it's actually a
three-dimensional accordion book by tom
burtonwood but how they're using it in
there is they're pushing plato into the
voids and making sort of uh prints of
plato um so there's some interesting
ways to try to like incorporate this
technology it doesn't have to end with
the plastic print
um
and you don't have to print in just
plastic we talked about how some of the
service bureaus out there already print
and lots of other things in metals in
different grades of plastic
but you want to remember that additive
manufacturing
means any computer controlled process
that is being built up layer by layer
and so the future is already here you
think about you hear about on the news
people like oh we're and we just heard
you know our guy from space talking
about the future
if we're gonna 3d print cells we're
going to be printing bio uh putting bio
gels
a little windy here
we're going to be putting bio gels
through
a nozzle and placing them very
accurately so we can make cellular
structures or blowing this way up in
scale and tying a big giant nozzle that
feeds cement from like three huge trees
and using uh computer controlling a
giant nozzle and so you know all these
things you hear about they're like oh
we're 3d printing
it really just means that we're building
up designs layer by layer with lots of
crazy materials and i'm really
interested to see sort of how this
technology goes forward into the future
so we've got some learning resources if
you're interested in purchasing a 3d
printer in the near future
make magazine is going to publish an
ultimate guide to 3d printing it's their
second issue and that comes out in early
november
i've got some reviews in there read them
they're great
and that's just good advice if you think
you want to jump in there's lots of
different printers out there and it can
be tough to parse out
how to get started what's the right
printer for you and that's what that
issue tries to do
there's also some great books on the
make
in the makershed getting started with
makerbot
and
some other great books as well
and then this is me my name is casey
holtgram i go by the
handle pretty small things online
and you can find me on twitter and
thingiverse and
send me an email and ask a question
that's all totally cool
and that is it for the standard
presentation and i would love to answer
any questions that you have
yes
how do we change the color of this
oh of the print
okay so if you're like if you're walking
through 3d printer village and those
kinds of printers
the color is actually inherent in the
plastic
and so there's a roll of plastic and it
looks a lot like
i don't know like think about it like
like yarn like a spool of string right
hmm
it's what would go in a weed whacker um
it's actually almost identical to what
we're going to weed whacker it's just a
little bit more
highly machined
and so the color is actually inherent in
the plastic
now there are a couple different systems
where
in addition to putting down the material
then it's also using an inkjet printer
which is like the
the printers that print on paper and
then adding color like that so you can
actually print an object that's full
color like a video game character
yeah
go ahead
right so if you want to have a print
that has lots of different colors
throughout your the best way to do that
is with like a commercial
process and it used to be owned by zcorp
and i believe it's owned by 3d systems
now
and to do that you need to go through a
service bureau like shapeways
although some of the desktop uh
fff useful mint fabrication machines you
can print it two colors at once um but
it's really two colors it's not doing
blending for the moment there's some
people doing some crazy experimental
work trying to like blend colors
together but that's not there in the
desktop world yet
like people paint them all the time
um most of the plastics on these desktop
machines take
acrylics and spray paint and
you can faux finish them a lot of people
will either sand them down if you're
using abs
abs dissolves an acetone and so there's
a i think it's a very scary process but
uh where you sort of
heat up acetone and use it to like vapor
finish
and the prints look beautiful it's not
something i'm going to try in my studio
apartment in queens but if you've got a
garage maybe
it's worth tackling the question over
here
3d printing moving parts um
yes
you can do that uh
it depends a lot on the technology so
the desktop
filament machines
you have to really plan out what you're
going to do carefully the main thing
that separates the desktop machines that
use this technology we call it fff from
the high-end machines which the
copyrighted term is our trademark term
is fdm
the fdm high-end machines would start in
the five to six thousand range and go up
to like the 50 to 60 to 100 000 range
they print in two materials they print
in a dissolvable support material and in
the plastic that you're going to be left
with and so you have a lot more options
to
print in place moving parts because
you're going to dunk it and the chemical
at the end and that second material is
going to dissolve away so you can
do a complicated gear set
now if you want to tackle that sort of
work on a desktop printer it's totally
possible but you have to be
you have to embrace the machine a little
bit more
you've got to keep in mind
some of the more complex rules of how
those machines work you've got to get to
know you know all of these machines are
different manufacturing processes it's
it is rapid prototyping and you want to
feel like oh i can just print anything
and you can print anything but if you
want to like
be on the bleeding edge and
push that threshold you got to get to
know the technology i sort of say it's
like
you wouldn't try to knit a sweater with
a welder like right off the bat
like you might be able to do that if
you're really good with welding but you
got to like understand your tool if you
want to push it and with desktop
printing
print in place movable parts is sort of
an advanced maneuver
if you're on a site like shapeways or
sculptio or eye materialized they'll
indicate very clearly
what materials you can print um
movable parts interlocking parts in
that's the key word to look for
interlocking and they'll tell you like
what the tolerance between the parts
needs to be
so that they don't fuse together in the
printing process
he's asking are any of the materials
dishwashers safe
um i think abs is dishwasher safe
because it's
i don't know an official answer to that
um
abs is
can be pretty watertight
and it's gonna be pretty safe to high
temperatures pla which is the other
desktop material type is really only
stable to 60 degrees celsius or 100
degrees celsius which means like if you
left something in your car dashboard
it's not going to be in such good
condition when you come back
so that's sort of the limit as far as
the commercial
processes go a lot of them are porous
the nylon is porous
they do have a ceramics one and i think
that is dishwasher safe but not
necessarily oven safe
yeah
poi stands for poly lactic acid
and you might encounter that material in
compostable
plastic cups
it's it's often used it's like
that might be pla maybe not some
if you buy the high-end version of that
fork
it might be pla otherwise it's probably
styrane
but pla if it is done in a food safe
machine could be food safe
inherently whereas abs really isn't
the the desktop 3d printers that you can
buy
are not food-safe machines so once you
put the plastic through you know it went
through some oil and some grease and a
dirty nozzle and maybe you don't want to
eat off it anymore but the plastic
itself is
food safe
sure so how we measure resolution on a
3d printer is by layer height and that's
expressed one of two ways it's either
expressed in millimeters or microns and
so you'll see it dictated both ways so
0.1 millimeters is equal to 100 microns
and that's sort of important as you're
sort of parsing through these different
printers and different processes because
we use both
and so on a desktop
ff 3d printer you're going to be looking
at sort of a low resolution of 300
microns so it's going to be like
three layers in a millimeter you can
sort of visualize that
down to
100 millimeter or 100 microns
which would be like 10 layers per
millimeter that's about the size of a
sheet of paper
it's pretty standard as a high
resolution though there are definitely
printers that push that the ultimaker
that just released their uh second
generation machine advertises 20 microns
as a
as their high resolution
now you got to realize that
each of those layers takes like the same
amount of time
so if you're going from 300 microns to
down to 20 i don't know i'd have to do
the math but that's like a lot more
layers and it's going to take a lot more
time
and in the problem with some of these
machines is that you don't necessarily
especially on the desktop machines that
sometimes are kits
but it's hard to quantify is the
accuracy
like it's very
you can have a 300 micron print that
looks better
that you perceive as looking better than
100 micron print that has like poor
registration
so
that layer height value is only like one
part of the picture but it's what most
people use to describe it when you're
talking about um
the more high resolution processes like
the uh the form one and the b9 i think
they're
down to like 25 microns i mean that's
it's the sub 100 that gets to the point
where you really can't see the layers
anymore
so i mean there's two the the the the
resin printers it's out of a vat
it's sort of a vat and you're curing it
while it's like in the vat of liquid and
that's called sla
the the pro level machines um those ones
use more something that's a lot more
equivalent to a ink jet cartridge and
are laying down the plastic and then
curing it with a laser
um
but that is not technology that
has hit the maker scene yet that's still
only available on
the high end
yes they're putting it through a nozzle
it is almost literally a precise glue
gun
um
yes
there is and there was there was some
studies that came out um
earlier this year about off-gassing and
i i don't know enough to quote them
precisely so there's two
main plastics that are people are
printing in and then some other
experimental ones but abs which is what
legos are made of
i think they were saying it has sort of
the equivalent off-gassing of like
cooking on your stove
because some people were all up in arms
after these reports came out and people
were like oh it's really not that big a
deal it's sort of like the equivalent of
cooking on your stove with some pans
some people are bothered by the abs
smell if people are particularly um
especially if it's closed room without
good ventilation if you're working with
the pla that tends to be a little
friendlier
it has more of a sweet
more natural smell when it's printing
and tends to be a little less noxious
and it tends to be the recommendation if
you're going to be working in
environment with lots of people or if
you're in a school
anybody else
yeah
can you print in silicone
i don't think i know of anybody printing
in silicone
i know of a lot of people who make
silicone molds off of 3d printed masters
you know who will take
um and that there was
right
right um my friend matt griffin who has
a book coming out i believe in january
uh called something like
design and modeling for 3d printing it's
on the make it will be sold through make
he did some really awesome experiments
with some people who are like cake
designers and some other food people and
they did
documented that process all the way
through although i think you can find it
online too it's something that people
have been definitely experimenting with
i think i need to wrap up um i am happy
to answer answer any additional
questions off to the side otherwise
uh dawn undine from the met museum is
going to be giving a talk about some of
the making initiatives they're doing at
the metropolitan museum of art on the
live stage and this is where i'm going
to head
and listen to some of the cool things
he's talking about they're doing some
really awesome stuff
yeah thank you so much for being a great
audience
have a good rest of the day at maker
faire