As technology accelerates, some of the most amazing things are taken in stride as quite normal. Arthur C. Clarke's famous quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," is still true, but these days it's harder to advance far enough to induce those magical feelings. Design an object and print it out in 3D and no one blinks an eye, all you … [Read more...]
Metallic Glass – Injection Mold Metal Like Plastic
Metallic glass popped up in the comments following our article about rapid prototyping and I thought I'd look into it since it was new to me and sounded like something quite a few of you would like to know about, too. Things are advancing so fast now, it's hard to keep up, but this is another technology worth understanding because it might have some pretty interesting uses in … [Read more...]
Rapid Prototyping Almost Production Ready
We've talked about rapid prototyping before, 3D printing of intricate parts from various types of plastic or, in some cases, from metal where the durability of the finished product isn't an issue. If only they could print production ready parts for manufactured items the potential of the process would be unleashed. Looks like we're just about there as GE and EADS, a European … [Read more...]
Print 3D Engineering Models on Your Desktop – HP Designjet 3D Printer
We're bouncing back and forth between high tech and low tech, from 5 axis milling machines to hands on clay mockups for body kits, today it's back to high tech with this brand new 3D printer for the desktop from HP, the HP Designjet 3D Printer. It's now on sale in Europe starting around $17,500, still a bit high for the home do it yourself designer, but pretty amazing, … [Read more...]
5 Axis Milling Machine Demonstrates Capabilities
It's no secret, most of us here love to see high quality machine work and industrial robots are now capable of extreme precision at high speed. Guided by 3D software, (in the example here they're using hyperMILL) they go to work on metal and turn it into whatever design is loaded in the computer. The video below from Daishin Seiki Corporation, demonstrates the capabilities … [Read more...]
Friction Stir Welding
Reading the latest Popular Mechanics (May 2010), they mentioned something I have not heard of before called friction stir welding. It's a process used to join metal, usually aluminum, without an arc. Instead, it uses a spinning rod, rotating at 15,000 rpm to heat the metal and high pressure to join the heated pieces together. It can move at 8 inches per minute and weld 1 inch … [Read more...]