The Michigan chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) will feature a spectacular emerging technology: 3D Printing. One of the gadget makers that we have been following some time (and following us back) is Objet Geometries, Ltd.. Their gadgets will be featured at the 2nd Annual NDIA Michigan Defense Industrial Base Expo. This will give an opportunity to most Michigan military and NDIA members an opportunity to see the 3D printing gadget for real.
3D printing is becoming a robust technology, and those interested should check out the many videos on the subject on YouTube. One of particular current interest is the Objet Geometries: "Objet Tests Advanced 3D Printing Materials". The Objet printer appears to be capable of 'printing' anything from skateboards to figurines. This gives it an advantage of doing rapid prototyping - which should be a big cost savings for industry, small business, the military and many other institutions. The FBI has already begun studying it for use as a crime scene analytical tool.
The Objet people hold some 50 patents on the devices and technologies. The first of them appearing under the title of: "Method and apparatus for curing waste containing photopolymeric components". The USPTO Patent number is 7,919,152. It seems that these folks came up with a means to dispose this significant environmental waste - and developed this great new technology and other apparatuses. This is serendipity in action.
These almost magical devices can translate some design of a 3-dimensional object and produce or reproduce it. The main idea here is the elimination of some specially formed cavity (such as a mold) to produce the object. The machine jets the base polymers layer by layer while photopolymerizing them into the desired solid object. Of course, a little software is needed to do that - this is mainly supplied by SolidWorks. To see this breakthrough technology, please contact and register with the Michigan NDIA chapter. The Expo will be held May 18-19 at the Macomb Community College Sports and Expo Center (14500 E. 12 Mile Road, Warren, MI).
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