Is 3-D printing the right choice for your business?

By Elise Hacking Carr

Adventures in 3-D Printing

3-D printing has accomplished some pretty cool things. Because this technique allows products to be custom-matched to an exact body shape, 3-D printing has been used to make titanium bone implants, prosthetic limbs and orthodontic devices—and that’s not all. Here are five exciting ways people are using the technology:

1. Lawn Mowers. Hans Fouche of South Africa developed a garage-sized 3-D printer capable of printing large objects at record-breaking speeds. Fouche used his printer (Cheetah) to produce a working lawn mower in nine hours. (3DPrint.com’s “South African Man 3-D Prints a Working Lawn Mower with His Super Fast 3-D Printer in Just 9 Hours”)

2. Space Wrenches. Last November, NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore put together the International Space Station’s (ISS) first-ever 3-D printer. Almost a month later, Wilmore needed a socket wrench while he was stationed on the ISS. Made In Space mocked up a quick model using computer-aided design (CAD) software and emailed the design to Wilmore, who then printed the design and assembled the 20 required parts into the exact socket wrench he requested. (iO9’s “NASA Just Emailed a Wrench in Outer Space”)

3. Molecules. Arthur Olsson, a molecular biologist at the Molecular Graphics Laboratory at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., is using 3-D-printed models of biological molecules to understand how HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, functions. (Yahoo! News’ “3-D Printing Molecules Can Reveal New Insights”)

4. Skulls. Surgeons replaced 75 percent of a man’s skull with a plastic one made by 3-D printing. (LiveScience’s “The 10 Weirdest Things Created by 3-D Printing”)

5. Ice Cream. As part of a graduate project, three MIT students designed a 3-D printer that can produce edible “Mr. Whippy-style ice cream” in any shape. The machine was a modified version of an existing 3-D printer connected to a “soft-serve” ice-cream machine. (The Economic Times’ “Five Awesome Things that were 3-D Printed in 2014”)

3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, is no longer some far-fetched idea dreamed up by science fiction enthusiasts. The technology has already gained a lot of ground, and according to Wohlers Report 2014, the market is expected to grow by more than 31 percent per year between 2013 and 2020, eventually producing more than $21 billion in worldwide revenue.

So, how exactly does this technology work? In a nutshell, 3-D printing is a form of rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing. To print a 3-D object, the manufacturer uses a 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) program to create a digital model that gets sliced into thin cross-sections called layers. During the printing process, the 3-D printer builds up successive layers of material until the entire object is completed.

3-D printing has gotten a big push from President Obama over the past few years. In his February 2013 State of the Union address, Obama asked Congress to back a $1 billion plan to support research into 3-D printing as a way to create U.S. manufacturing jobs. And just last December, he became the first president to be immortalized in a 3-D-printed bust, currently on display at the Smithsonian.

There's also something to be said about a technology that attracts industry giants Amazon and Apple. Last summer, Amazon launched its own 3-D printing store boasting the tagline "Shop the Future." Apple, on the other hand, has been quietly filing patents pertaining to 3-D printing.

While this is all fascinating stuff, is there a place for 3-D printing in the print and promotional products industry? Jim Corliss, owner of Braintree Printing, Braintree, Mass., seems to think so. "To some extent, we service the creative world, so 3-D is just another aspect of servicing creative people," he said.

Braintree Printing has the unofficial distinction of being the first printer to purchase a 3-D printer for the purpose of doing jobs. Approximately 16 months ago, the company installed a Stratasys Dimension 1200es unit, an entry-level model costing under $40,000. The machine, Corliss explained, has largely been used to create prototypes for design engineers in the manufacturing world.

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Elise Hacking Carr Author's page

Elise Hacking Carr is editor-in-chief/content director for Print+Promo magazine.

Prototyping for Profits