3D printers - our Star Trek replicators? (photos)

by silicon.com | October 4, 2011 8:43am PDT | Image 1 of 15

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In Star Trek, humans could fill almost any need with machines called replicators that could produce almost any object (or food and drink) asked of them.

Today, the nearest technology we have to that sci-fi vision are 3D printers, computer-controlled machines capable of building almost anything - blood vessels, a small plane, even other 3D printers.

Nick Heath of silicon.com takes a look at the most outlandish objects that are emerging from 3D printers. Plus, SmartPlanet has chipped in with some cool ideas that could become mainstream in just a few years,

Blood vessels

The idea of printing out body parts may sound far-fetched but researchers are already attempting to use 3D printers to produce artificial blood vessels.

Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany want to print artificial blood vessels so they can be used to supply nutrients to human organs created in the lab.

They intend to make the capillaries in two parts. First, the artificial tubes will be printed out layer by layer inside a 3D inkjet printer. Next, brief pulses of a high-energy laser will be fired at the tubes to alter the structure at an atomic level, in order to give them the elastic properties of natural capillaries. Researchers have carried out these two tasks separately and are working on developing a system that can combine the two tasks to make the blood vessels.

The printed tubes have natural molecules integrated into their walls so that living cells can be attached to the inside of the vessels to form a lining. The lining will allow the vessels to transport the nutrients from the blood to their destination, most likely a lab-grown organ. In the picture, researchers are washing a polymer artificial blood vessel with a solution containing living cells.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute say that in future these vessels could be used to treat heart bypass patients.

Photo: Fraunhofer IGB

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ModelMaker

bcarl1 6th Oct

A 3D printer option out of the market that I recently came across is a machine called the ModelMaker. The machine has two target markets, education and geo. I haven't done much research of the company, 2BOT, but this is the basic information on the ModelMaker: www.2bot.com/product-info

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No yet there!

kd5auq 5th Oct

These printers can contruct 3D objects but cannot duplicate material properties. They have been common in engineering departments for years. They ARE neat (but expensive) toys!

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3d printers (laser sintering) can make stainless steel parts

stevey_d 5th Oct

we use them in our business. definitely not toys.

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use solidworks or pro/engineer (now called creo) to design your part

stevey_d 5th Oct

you can also get a 3d scanner to capture a part - these are quite cheap. You could capture - edit, print of course. (repair that old worn part). can't make everything - you probably wouldn't want to make a bearing surface that needs to last a long time for example. But some of the shapes you can make you can't make any other way. (eg: parts completely contained by other parts).
And you get color plastic 3d printers.

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the food printer - very interesting (coke freestyle)

stevey_d 5th Oct

I guess you could flavour different parts of say chocolate using something like the coke freestyle flavour engine:
http://www.springwise.com/food_beverage/cokefreestyle/