Pogue's Posts: In the Universe of Printers, One Worth Talking About

Bits Blog: Researchers Develop Flexible Metal for 3-D Printers

A group of researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a liquid metal material that could be used in 3-D printers and lead to flexible gadgets.

The technology is outlined in a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials, which describes the flexible metal as “stretchable” and explains that many tiny dots of this material could be placed together to create larger, bendable sheets of metal.

screenshot via North Carolina State University Small drops of metal could be connected together to create flexible electronics.

The metal, an alloy of gallium and indium, is liquid at room temperature. But when it is exposed to air the alloy can create a thin skin around its outer layer. Think of the way air bubbles look when floating on top of water.

Although flexible metal might sound futuristic enough, the paper also says that this metal can be “self-healing,” similar to animals that can regenerate limbs when they are sliced off.

“These stretchable wires can be completely severed with scissors and rapidly self-heal both mechanically and electrically,” the paper notes.

A video demonstrating how the technology works uses a syringe to produce tiny dots of the metal that connect with each other and collectively join together.

“The fact that they are liquid means you could surround them with another material like rubber to make metallic structures that you can stretch and deform,” Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of engineering at North Carolina State University, told New Scientist in an interview.

Mr. Dickey said that if the syringe was switched with a 3-D printing head, that would produce a 3-D printer that could print metal. There is at least one caveat though. The material’s cost, he said, is roughly 100 times that of 3-D printing plastic.

Tool Kit: Home 3-D Printers to Make Things You Need or Just Like

Why, then, do even the most ardent 3-D printing evangelists show off this brave new world with dull-as-nails examples? Dishwasher knobs. Dimmer switches. Replacement parts for laundry carts. Is that all there is?

“That’s the million-dollar question,” said Alyssa Reichental, who works at 3D Systems and showed off the company’s Cube printer at a recent trade show in New York. Right now, it seems, 3-D printing is more about the technology’s potential than anything practical. After some thought, she added, “We see it as more of a lifestyle.”

The technology behind 3-D printing has been used in commercial manufacturing for decades, but home machines from companies like 3D Systems, MakerBot and Afinia have opened up the technology to more users in the last few years.

Hobbyists and tinkerers have embraced the technology first, buying consumer models for anywhere from $300 for a kit you can assemble at home to $4,000 for a printer of almost professional quality.

Most 3-D printers work by threading spools of plastic filament onto a heated nozzle that drops liquid plastic onto a surface one layer at a time until an object, typically no bigger than a grapefruit, is formed. Filament can typically run from $30 to $50 a spool.

If you want to dip your tip into the world of printables, it may be wise to begin your experiments alongside an enthusiastic hobbyist or professional who can guide you. Many hackerspaces make 3-D printers available as part of their memberships. Some libraries around the country have begun offering 3-D printers and coaching help. Soon, Staples will offer a 3-D printing service in its stores, using a full-color process from the Irish company MCor Technologies that makes items out of paper instead of plastic. It has already introduced the technology in Europe.

This month, Amazon began selling 3-D printers and accessories.

As 3-D printing begins to show its promise, here are five categories where it makes good sense to get started.

CUSTOMIZE CHEAPLY In the land of 3-D printing, you do not have to settle for a bland, boring “World’s No. 1 Mom” mug anymore, not when you can produce a sculptural model, in plastic, of your mother’s head for pennies. And why stop there? You can make personalized wedding cake toppers, even Star Trek figurines in your likeness.

Many “cloud printing” services, like Shapeways, Kraftwurx, iMaterialise or Cubify, offer templates that let you design or customize objects online. Those designs are then printed on industrial machines offering more colors and materials than you could afford at home, and are mailed to your door. Many of these personalized products have all the subtlety and class of a license plate screaming, “ILUV3D,” but they clearly show the advantages of 3-D printing.

While there are many clunkers in this category (customizable Santa-in-the-bathroom figurine, anyone?), there are a few charmers. Crayon Creatures offers to turn any child’s drawing into a three-dimensional toy (for a not-so-child-friendly price of $130). And for urban cowboys, personal branding irons that cleverly attach to a standard Bic lighter are available for $23.60.

WIN THE PLASTIC PART BATTLE There are few greater frustrations than when a tiny plastic part breaks and your blender — or whatever — no longer works. The part may be cheap, but if you cannot find it, the world suddenly feels as if there’s a conspiracy by Big Plastic to keep you buying blenders.

Online, you can find a wide array of designs for little parts, from nuts to bolts to washers, available in design libraries like Thingiverse, whose repository is growing every day. Need a coat hook for your Volvo C30? How about a part for that Bugaboo stroller? The designs are already available for download, along with more than 175 replacement or repair parts for Ikea products. Someone has even created a design for lost Scrabble tiles.

Beyond the satisfaction of repairing your own things, there is also the cost savings. Vintage car buffs are a niche group that has found real advantages to 3-D printing. Ryan McMaster, a mechanical engineer in Reno, Nev., said he used 3-D printing to help his mother restore her 1966 Mustang Coupe.

“All those little parts on those cars, they charge an arm and a leg for them,” he said. Now, he simply makes his own.

MAKE YOUR OWN ADAPTERS Both Duplo and Brio make charming wooden train sets for children. Their track sets, however, are not compatible. You can be a Brio family or a Duplo family, but not both.

One of the most ingenious applications of 3-D printing is the ability to make your own adapters for these kinds of products, as one man in Brooklyn has done. Online design libraries are full of connectors and adapters that merge products that were never meant to be used together. Nearly 400 online 3-D printer designs exist for Lego-compatible products alone.

A man in Moscow had a Canon camera and an old Soviet-era Helios lens. He printed a custom adapter that allowed him to connect the two. Other photographers have found that expensive hardware can be replaced with cheaper homemade versions. Brackets, mounts, gimbals and housings can be printed at Shapeways.com for $5 to $20. Comparable products in stores can easily cost three times more.

Mr. McMaster, the mechanical engineer helping his mother restore her car, also moonlights as a professional photographer. Out of the 1,000 objects he has printed in the last few years, he said, he has saved the most money printing these kinds of photo accessories.

SPREAD 3-D KNOWLEDGE Beyond the recently released designs for “The Liberator,” a 3-D printed gun made almost entirely out of plastic, there are a number of ways to test the limits of intellectual property — if that’s your thing.

The sale of lawn darts, for instance, was banned in the United States in 1988, but you can find 3-D printer designs for them online. (The designer cautions common sense. “Don’t make this if you’re a moron,” he writes. “They were banned for a reason.”) Other designers have uploaded mock copies of Google Glass and imitation Livestrong bracelets, for either parody or entertainment purposes.

But sharing physical “information” doesn’t always have to mean infringing on someone’s design. Mary-Margaret Murphy, a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Montana, is investigating how to use 3-D printing to replicate grizzly bear skulls (and eventually human ones, too), so scientists can share models of otherwise fragile and rare artifacts anyplace in the world.

PROTOTYPE, INVENT AND LEARN For people who like to tinker, build prototypes and invent things, 3-D printing provides a fast track to making stuff. Early adopters include professionals like jewelry designers, architects and scientists. But right now, the best possible application for 3-D printing may be in the brains of the people who are using it.

A recent 3-D printing conference in New York was as flooded by teachers as it was by engineers. And most enthusiasts agree that the technology is about much more than objects.

“It’s not about printing. It’s about how you start to look at the world,” said Justin Levinson, a technology consultant in New York, who has been using 3-D printing for several years. “You start to think, ‘I can solve my own problems.'?”

If you are ready to do that, an simple, dependable machine is the best place to start. Two standouts are the Afinia H-Series ($1,599) or the Cube printer from 3-D systems ($1,299). Both were judged as among the most reliable and easy to use in a comprehensive test of printers last year compiled by Make Magazine.

Whatever you make is up to you. Perhaps in enough time someone will figure out the million dollar idea that will makes 3-D printers so vital and necessary that it will be hard to imagine a time when we only made quirky plastic paperweights and iPhone cases, it will be hard to imagine a time when we asked, “what else is 3-D printing good for?”

Kodak to Stop Selling Inkjet Printers

As part of its bankruptcy reorganization, Eastman Kodak is planning to wind down sales of consumer inkjet printers next year, products that were once called a crucial part of its turnaround effort.

The company’s announcement, which was made on Friday, said Kodak would focus instead on selling packaging, printing and other services to businesses. Kodak will continue to sell ink for consumer printers and said it expected to “significantly improve cash flow” in the United States in the first half of 2013.

“Kodak is making good progress toward emergence from Chapter 11, taking significant actions to reorganize our core ongoing businesses, reduce costs, sell assets and streamline our organizational structure,” Antonio M. Perez, the company’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

A former Hewlett-Packard executive who joined Kodak in 2003, Mr. Perez had focused on consumer inkjet printers as a cornerstone for Kodak’s turnaround, despite significant skepticism from Wall Street analysts. But the Jan. 19 bankruptcy filing forced major changes at Kodak.

In February, for instance, Kodak announced that it was getting out of the digital camera business, and in May it closed the sale of its online photo-sharing business, Kodak Gallery. In August, Kodak announced that it was also selling its consumer film business, featuring the familiar yellow boxes that made the company a household name.

The company, which is based in Rochester, N.Y., expects to reduce its work force by 3,900 jobs this year, a 23 percent reduction.