[vaseline2008]

Giant 3D Printer Builds Homes in 20 Hours

Called Contour Crafting, the process involves utilizing a gigantic 3D printer that is placed overhead an empty lot where the home will be built. The machine builds walls with multiple layers of concrete, adding plumbing and electrical wiring as it goes and eventually leaves a complete home that only needs doors and windows to complete.

The YouTube video is pretty boring until about 6:45.

[SeaGypsy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS8vIMgU ... ure=fvwrel

Use one of these to lift one of those up a mountain somewhere; brings a whole new dimension to living opportunities.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Giant 3D Printer Builds Homes in 20 Hours

Called Contour Crafting, the process involves utilizing a gigantic 3D printer that is placed overhead an empty lot where the home will be built. The machine builds walls with multiple layers of concrete, adding plumbing and electrical wiring as it goes and eventually leaves a complete home that only needs doors and windows to complete.

The YouTube video is pretty boring until about 6:45.

Um, this looks like a "preview" of something that COULD happen quite a way in the future IF many problems are solved.

This is a "professor" who "has dared to dream" (as stated in the article), not a reality. 3D printing is impressive, but currently it only uses plastic, it is slow, it is expensive, and it is very limited. The picture shown in the article and in the outfit's website is clearly a tiny plastic MODEL.

Such posts are interesting, but it would certainly be nice if they were posted with a LITTLE care to clearly show the status of the project: i.e. long term idea vs. current or near term reality.

So the scale, the other materials, etc. are issues that have not even come close to being solved. If you go to their webpage it clearly says "it has great potential" -- not that it is currently capable of DOING anything.

...

There are companies that are working on things like using printing processes to build solid state lithium ion batteries for cars, for example. They have small working batteries, and are gradually trying to scale these up. These will be cheaper, lighter, tougher, and far more powerful per pound than current liquid filled lithium ion car batteries, but only:

1). If the process works at the required scale, building something durable enough to perform RELIABLY in the real automotive world.

2). In about five more years they HOPE to BEGIN production of car-sized batteries (article per link below, written about 15 months ago).

This implies you MIGHT see these batteries in ordinary passenger cars in perhaps 8 to 10 or so years, if we are lucky.

http://www.economist.com/node/18007516

(In my opinion, the scale, complexity, and versatility required to do this with various houses would push the timescale for printing such a DREAM out to more like 15 to 20 years in the future).

[kublikhan]

3D printing is impressive, but currently it only uses plastic, it is slow, it is expensive, and it is very limited.

That is incorrect. 3D printers can print plastic, metal, ceramic, semiconductors, etc. The technology is already being used today and is more than a billion dollar industry. Many are turning to this technology because of the costs savings it can offer. Although I agree with you that the article should have been tempered to indicate the house printing industry is still just a dream.

Though the technology originated in the U.S., European companies, such as EOS GmbH of Germany and Arcam AB of Sweden, are now leading producers of 3-D printers that make metal objects. Terry Wohlers, an industry consultant, says companies in Asia also are investing heavily in 3-D printing but so far aren't technological leaders.

Mr. Wohlers expects the world-wide market for additive-manufacturing products and services to reach $2.14 billion this year, up from $1.71 billion in 2011, but still only 0.02% of global manufacturing output.

For now, 3-D printing best suits products that are highly complex, need to be customized or are produced in small volumes, such as dental implants or parts for race cars.

United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney aircraft-engine unit is using the process to make blades and vanes in compressors inside jet engines. Honeywell's aerospace unit employs it to build heat exchangers and metal brackets but expects to find far more applications, says Bob Witwer, vice president of advanced technology at the company's aerospace unit. Boeing already makes about 300 different smaller aircraft parts using 3-D printing, including ducts that carry cool air to electronic equipment. Some of these ducts have complicated shapes and formerly had to be assembled from numerous pieces, boosting labor costs.

Next 3-D Frontier: Printed Plane Parts

The market for flexible, printed, and organic large-area electronics is rapidly growing. Currently estimated at over $1B, the global market is expected to increase to a $45B market by 2016.

Printed Electronics
PARC has developed jet-printing processes for organic semiconductors (including all-printed TFT arrays, pictured) and conductors – resulting in novel functionality and reduced manufacturing costs. These high-performance printed devices are achieved by materials understanding and device design that allows the formation of good dielectric-semiconductor and semiconductor-metal interfaces. [video example] The printed transistors have exceptional performance for polymers, and meet all requirements to address displays. Our a-Si, low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS), and organic semiconductor TFTs – which have the advantage of low-temperature deposition and low-elastic modulus – have also been applied to various radiation detectors, including x-ray, ultrasound, and neutron imaging.

Printed and Flexible Electronics - PARC, a Xerox company

3D printing is not the only additive-manufacturing process either. Another one is called Electron beam freeform fabrication(EBF3). It uses an electron beam to lay out metal parts. NASA hopes to one day use it to build structures in space. Today, it is already being used to build parts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Imagine a machine that can build a part or a tool as the need arises, whether on Earth, Mars or the International Space Station. Almost 10 years ago, engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center imagined just that. They developed the Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication, or EBF3, a process that uses an electron beam gun, a dual wire feed and computer controls to manufacture metallic structures for building parts or tools in hours, rather than days or weeks.

With the EBF3 acting as a sort of remote machine shop, the need for sending up tools and parts in a spacecraft could be eliminated. And the tight tolerances in fabrication become even more critical in zero gravity situations. Here and now, its capabilities are being used in a partnership between NASA and manufacturing.

The EBF3 is being used to manufacture titanium spars for vertical tails of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Less wasted titanium and reduced machining times result in a savings for partners, Lockheed Martin and Brisbane, Australia-based Ferra Engineering, which will open the world's first facility to manufacture the F-35 components. "But this first application doesn't mean we are finished," said Karen Taminger, a materials engineer at Langley. In fact, they are just beginning.

According to Taminger, most of the interest in the technology is coming from aerospace because of the EBF3's capability to tailor material and properties and improve the performance of aircraft.

As the technology is introduced, applications for new industries are evolving. Recently, while showcasing the EBF3 on Capitol Hill, a representative from GM showed interest in using it to build tools for automobile manufacturing.

NASA - Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication

[Outcast_Searcher]

Thank you for the correction, kublikhan. Unlike many on this site -- I will admit it when I err and I was clearly wrong on the state of the art. Thanks also to the links with the solid, more updated information showing some of what is now occurring.

I hadn't realized this technology was advancing at anything like this rate of speed. (It's [pretty amazing, IMO). It SHOULD have dawned on me about the plastics -- I saw something in (I think) the WSJ the other day about the dental application (in this case, the idea was the rapid creation of a crown based on a digital map of your mouth, vs. waiting on a lab to custom tailor and build the crown -- but I assumed this was planned, not a current reality (my bad on that)).

Based on this, I suppose I also should revise my estimate on the printed house idea. I still would estimate more like 8 - 12 years than "real soon now" though, given the scale issue and the cost implications of that.

[Cloud9]

This can't be controlled. http://3dprintergun.com/

[vaseline2008]

Um, this looks like a "preview" of something that COULD happen quite a way in the future IF many problems are solved.

This is a "professor" who "has dared to dream" (as stated in the article), not a reality. 3D printing is impressive, but currently it only uses plastic, it is slow, it is expensive, and it is very limited. The picture shown in the article and in the outfit's website is clearly a tiny plastic MODEL.

Such posts are interesting, but it would certainly be nice if they were posted with a LITTLE care to clearly show the status of the project: i.e. long term idea vs. current or near term reality.

So the scale, the other materials, etc. are issues that have not even come close to being solved. If you go to their webpage it clearly says "it has great potential" -- not that it is currently capable of DOING anything.

If you watched the YouTube video, you would have seen the concrete wall being made. Anyhow no worries, go ahead and Google 3D Bio Printer and see some awesomeness.

[kublikhan]

A company in China has used giant 3D printers to make 10 full-sized, detached single-storey houses in a day. A private firm, WinSun, used four 10m x 6.6m printers to spray a mixture of cement and construction waste to build the walls, layer by layer. The cheap materials used during the printing process and the lack of manual labour means that each house can be printed for under $5,000.

"We can print buildings to any digital design our customers bring us. It's fast and cheap," says WinSun chief executive Ma Yihe. He also hopes his printers can be used to build skyscrapers in the future. At the moment, however, Chinese construction regulations do not allow multi-storey 3D-printed houses.

Firm 3D prints 10 full-sized houses in a day

[dolanbaker]

"We can print buildings to any digital design our customers bring us. It's fast and cheap," says WinSun chief executive Ma Yihe. He also hopes his printers can be used to build skyscrapers in the future. At the moment, however, Chinese construction regulations do not allow multi-storey 3D-printed houses.

I wouldn't fancy being on the top floor of a building that hasn't any structural integrity, 3D printing can't do that unless they build the steel skeleton first.