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[Phys-l] 3D printing



Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2011 04:19:59 -0400
From: Marty Weiss <martweiss@COMCAST.NET>
<snip>
Hi all,
       The latest "wow!" video making the rounds on the internet recently is the 3-d printer clip on YouTube and other internet vid sources.  In case someone hasn't seen it... a narrator takes us into a lab where the "inventor" shows the process whereby he takes a wrench, scans it in a new type of scanner, puts the printout into some sort of 3-d printer (after coloring the adjusting mechanism red) which contains some sort of "resin"material and after a few minutes the narrator reaches into the pool of "resin" and out pops a copy of a real working wrench with a red adjustment gear.  The copy does the same job as the real wrench.

The narrator is a "real person"... a PhD and astronaut (at least according to several articles I Googled), but the whole thing has to be an elaborate hoax.  Either that or it's the biggest invention since the light bulb.  If it is a hoax, I have yet to see anyone write about it on any discussion group, on YouTube, or other news source.  Likewise, a real invention such as this would have been heralded throughout the scientific world by now.   Anyone have any explanation or comments?

The technology is very real, although mostly used for producing
plastic parts and prototypes. I know there are people working on a
sort of laser-sintered metal 3D printing machine that might be able to
make some fairly impressive things.

A basic 3D printer can be built by a hobbyist, and kits are offered.
Google the MakerBot and RepRap, two current kits that I think run
about $10^3. Still a little expensive for me as a hobby, but I am
VERY interested in it as a way to make special lab equipment for my
classes. Need a clamp to attach a lens and mirror assembly to a
kinematics cart? Measure, design in CAD, and print it up.