Tag: 3d printing

Microscale 3D printer

German start-up Nanoscribe is commercialized a 3D “micro printer” that uses a near-infrared laser to print tiny structures with features as small as 30 nanometers. (A human hair is roughly 50,000 – 100,000 nanometers wide.) The device uses an infra-red laser beam moving in three dimensions to solidify a light-sensitive material into the desired shape. The additive manufacturing system, much faster than existing technology, could be used to “print” the components of medical devices, electromechanical systems, and, er, robot models that would fit on the head of a pin. ” Micro 3-D Printer Creates Tiny Structures in Seconds ” (Technology Review, thanks Anthony Townsend !)        

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Microscale 3D printer

A 3D printed cybernetic ear that even a transhumanist would love

Generating organs and tissue with 3D printers is nothing new. But this bioengineered ear is unique in that it utilizes embedded electronics that allow it to pick up radio frequencies outside the range of normal human hearing. Read more…        

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A 3D printed cybernetic ear that even a transhumanist would love

ATM skimming comes to non-ATM payment terminals in train stations, etc

ATM skimming isn’t limited to ATMs! There are lots of terminals that ask you to swipe your card and/or enter a PIN, and many of them are less well-armored and -policed than actual cashpoints. Skimmers have been found on train-ticket machines, parking meters and other payment terminals. Once a crook has got your card number and sign-on data, they can use that to raid a your account at an ATM. Brian Krebs has a look at some of these devices, including a full-on fascia for a cheapie ATM discovered in latinamerica. The organization also is tracking a skimming trend reported by three countries (mainly in Latin America) in which thieves are fabricating fake ATM fascias and placing them over genuine ATMs, like the one pictured below. After entering their PIN, cardholders see an ‘out-of-order’ message. EAST said the fake fascias include working screens so that this type of message can be displayed. The card details are compromised by a skimming device hidden inside the fake fascia, and the PINs are captured via the built-in keypad, which overlays the real keypad underneath. This reminds me a little of the evolution of payphones — the armadillos of the device world! — and the look-alike COCOTS (customer-owned coin-operated telephones) that presented very soft targets if you could scry through their camouflage. Cash Claws, Fake Fascias & Tampered Tickets

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ATM skimming comes to non-ATM payment terminals in train stations, etc

DIY cellphone

David Mellis at the High-Low Tech group at the MIT Media Lab built a DIY Cellphone, making a custom circuit-board and laser-cutting his own wooden case. The files are hosted on GitHub in case you’d like to try your hand at it. An exploration into the possibilities for individual construction and customization of the most ubiquitous of electronic devices, the cellphone. By creating and sharing open-source designs for the phone’s circuit board and case, we hope to encourage a proliferation of personalized and diverse mobile phones. Freed from the constraints of mass production, we plan to explore diverse materials, shapes, and functions. We hope that the project will help us explore and expand the limits of do-it-yourself (DIY) practice. How close can a homemade project come to the design of a cutting edge device? What are the economics of building a high-tech device in small quantities? Which parts are even available to individual consumers? What’s required for people to customize and build their own devices? The initial prototype combines a custom electronic circuit board with a laser-cut plywood and veneer enclosure. The phone accepts a standard SIM card and works with any GSM provider. Cellular connectivity is provided by the SM5100B GSM Module, available from SparkFun Electronics. The display is a color 1.8″, 160×128 pixel, TFT screen on a breakout board from Adafruit Industries. Flexures in the veneer allow pressing of the buttons beneath. Currently, the software supports voice calls, although SMS and other functionality could be added with the same hardware. The prototype contains about $150 in parts. Mellis’s Master’s thesis is “Case studies in the digital fabrication of open-source consumer electronic products” and includes a 3D printed mouse, fabbed speakers and a fabbed FM radio. High-Low Tech – DIY Cellphone ( via Hacker News ) ( Images: Laser-cut plywood and veneer case , a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from mellis’s photostream; Making a call , a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from mellis’s photostream )

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DIY cellphone

“Download this gun”: 3D-printed semi-automatic fires over 600 rounds

The white portion of this AR-15, known as the “lower,” was manufactured using 3D printing. Defense Distributed Cody Wilson, like many of his Texan forebears, is fast-talkin’ and fast-shootin’—but unlike his predecessors in the Lone Star State, he’s got 3D printing technology to further his agenda. Wilson’s non-profit organization, Defense Distributed , released a video this week showing a gun firing off over 600 rounds—illustrating what is likely to be the first wave of semi-automatic and automatic weapons produced by the additive manufacturing process. Last year, his group famously demonstrated that they could use a 3D-printed “lower” for an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle—but the gun failed after six rounds. Now, after some re-tooling, Defense Distributed has shown that it has fixed the design flaws and can seemingly fire for quite awhile. (The AR-15 is the civilian version of the military M16 rifle.) Read 34 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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“Download this gun”: 3D-printed semi-automatic fires over 600 rounds

3D? Feh. MIT has already moved on to 4D printing (video)

The bad news: just as much of the world is starting to get excited about the prospects of 3D printing , science is moving on to the world of 4D. The good news: in the future, you might not have to assemble that Ikea chair yourself. “4D printing” is the term cientists are using to refer to a technology that MIT’s Skylar Tibbits talked up during a recent TED appearance. The fourth “d” here is time, referring to an object that, once printed, is capable of changing shape (over time, naturally). “Essentially the printing is nothing new,” Tibbits told the BBC. “It is about what happens after.” So far the concept has been demonstrated with thin strands of plastic, which, once added to water, form into a predetermined shape, using energy from the absorption. Suggested future applications involve furniture, pipes, bikes and buildings. First, however, scientists will have to demonstrate the technology on a larger structure, of course, and they’ll explore the possibility of other energy sources, like heat, sound and vibration. Filed under: Science , Alt Comments Source: BBC

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3D? Feh. MIT has already moved on to 4D printing (video)

A 3D Printer That Generates Human Embryonic Stem Cells

3-D printers can produce gun parts, aircraft wings, food and a lot more, but this new 3-D printed product may be the craziest thing yet: human embryonic stem cells. Using stem cells as the “ink” in a 3-D printer, researchers in Scotland hope to eventually build 3-D printed organs and tissues. A team at Heriot-Watt University used a specially designed valve-based technique to deposit whole, live cells onto a surface in a specific pattern. More »

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A 3D Printer That Generates Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Watch This Brilliant Video Explaining How 3D Printing Is About To Revolutionize The Entire World

If you want to know what the future looks like you need look no further than the video below.   The Creators Project and VICE put together this terrific report on how 3D printing technology is on the verge of pulling the design world and the objects that surround us in our everyday lives into the realm of infinite possibilities.  Peter Weijmarshausen is the CEO of  Shapeways™  and in the report he explains to the viewer the history and future of 3D printing technology.  We also get a chance to meet some other experts in the field who each explain how their respective industries — from medicine to fashion to industrial design — are about to be transformed in the most remarkable ways imaginable.  Included in the video is some mind-bending footage of 3D printers at work.  Watching these amazing objects being pulled out of the laser dust is nothing short of astonishing. Source: The Creators Project

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Watch This Brilliant Video Explaining How 3D Printing Is About To Revolutionize The Entire World

HOWTO convert an MP3 to a playable, 3D printed record

Instructables user Aandaghassaei has posted a HOWTO for making a 3D printed record that plays on a regular turntable. Her method converts any digital audio file to grooves ready to print. It’s a bit fuzzy, but still rather exciting! I’m waiting for the way when taking a snapshot of a vinyl disc can be the first step toward deriving its audio content, converting that back to a shapefile, and printing out a high-fidelity duplicate. In this Instructable, I’ll demonstrate how I developed a workflow that can convert any audio file, of virtually any format, into a 3D model of a record. This is far too complex a task to perform with traditional drafting-style CAD techniques, so I wrote an program to do this conversion automatically. It works by importing raw audio data, performing some calculations to generate the geometry of a record, and eventually exporting this geometry straight to the STL file format (used by all 3D printers). Most of the heavy lifting is done by Processing, an open source environment that’s often used for coding interactive graphics applications. To get Processing to export to STL, I used the ModelBuilder Library written by Marius Watz (if you are into Arduino/Processing and 3D printing I highly recommend checking this out, it works great). I’ve uploaded some of my complete record models to the 123D gallery as well as the Pirate Bay. Check Step 6 for a complete listing of what’s there and what I plan on posting. Alternatively, you can go to Step 7 to download my code and learn how to make your own printable records from any audio file you like. 3D Printed Record

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HOWTO convert an MP3 to a playable, 3D printed record