3D Printing In The 20th Century

They called it selective laser melting and it does have it's own kind of look and feel.

Fran Blanche

LOL! Stuck it out to the livin' end!

Fran Blanche

It's fairly course, overall I'd say the resolution is probably no more than .1mm in the x/y and maybe .5mm in the z. I think the fact that it is so smoothly melted gives the surfaces a kind of bar-of-soap feel.

Fran Blanche

Wow... how did that work with multiple colors???

Fran Blanche

Ahh yes.. the promise of tech utopia. It is true the idea has been around for a long time but just like computers it is not until they are cheap enough for the general public does it really take off as a technology. We look back and wonder how it could ever not have been but history is littered with good ideas which came too soon only to be picked up a generation or so later. It is cool that the SLS laser could print a planet gear like that though.

veritanuda

The incandescence is awesome!

BobC

I remember those laser 3D printers. Back then, I'd just come out of GM's R&D dept. and that was what everyone was talking about. Looking at your gizmo, would you say that the laser print was a higher resolution? It seems like it might be considering how smooth the gears turn.

In the mid-1990's a color version of the powder swipe and laser was printing an aerial view of a proposed golf course hole - trees, clubhouse and grass. Stood there mesmerized, knowing the cost was prohibitive - and never seeing this future where Fran shows me its OK to gently bake all these partial rolls of unusable filament. That planetary gearbox is a nifty save.

Inventor Pardue

Vintage 3D cool

God 420

you can print these with a single extruder providing you get your settings right. they're really neat fidget spinner type things :) - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:53451

Blair Harrison

Thanks Fran. I did not know 3D printing was around 20 years ago. I learned something new today.

Nuts 'n' Proud