User talk:Ank5133

3D Printing Blog Space

About Me

My name is Adnan Khan and I will be entering my 7th semester at Penn State as a senior in the fall. I'm majoring in Industrial Engineering with a minor in Six Sigma Methodology. I signed up for a summer work-study position as a student research assistant for Dr. Richard Devon and am working under David Saint John.

The position involves working with open source 3D printers, specifically RepRaps. One of my responsibilities includes the maintenance of and contribution to the RepRap wiki. Currently, I am writing a blog about certain articles and various literature that I encounter during my summer job experience. I will also strive to add to this page (which will be used for the blogging) once the summer has ended.

Since Wikipedia, or any wiki database, does not have a comments section enabled, please feel free to email me ([email protected]) about your thoughts and/or suggestions you may have to improve the look of this page, add some insight, further my knowledge. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

A 3D Printer for Every Household: The Choc Creator Version 1 - Tuesday, June 19, 2012

This will be a rather more interesting entry compared to the last two since I'll actually be discussing a certain type of printer. And I know for a fact that any reader would enjoy what is to follow.

3D printing has been making rapid advancements in the technology world. Combining creative, innovative thoughts with a technically oriented mindset results in a recipe for success.

Chocolate is a delicacy loved by a majority of the world's population. Imagine the popularity of a printer that could, in fact, print chocolate from your very own home.

This has now been made possible with the advent of chocolate 3D printers. The idea of such a printer originated in England. The prototype was created by Professor Richard Everson and Dr. Liang Hao, both scientists at the University of Exeter. While the technology isn't as advanced and complex enough to produce all types of food items, chocolate is a perfect start since it only requires a single ingredient, molten chocolate, to be extruded from the nozzle.

The process is similar to that of any 3D printer. As mentioned before, molten chocolate flows through the nozzle onto the heated bed. It can be deposited anywhere, and once a layer is complete, the next layer is built upon the previous one while it solidifies from cooling.

Chocolate must also have been chosen as an ideal starting point due to its safety level. Failure with printing molten chocolate simply results in a gooey mess and possibly damaged clothing. Unfortunately, this would never be the situation given that the intended object going in for printing is an automobile or airplane part. Even a highly minor issue in a single mechanical part can have catastrophic consequences, such as a car accident or a plane crash. This view is shared by Dr. Everson. Therefore, the low risk involved with chocolate makes it an easy item to experiment with.

Everson also voices another very powerful concept. A major outcome that can stem from the "food printing revolution" is co-creation, a marketing idea which allows the consumer to have a role in the production process. Instead of going to a grocery store and picking out generic forms of chocolate, an individual could watch their personalized chocolate creation being made right before their eyes. This can massively benefit manufacturing and business in numerous industries.

I foresee a very positive and profitable future not only for the chocolate 3D printing business, but for all forms of food as well.

Here is a Youtube videoshowing the chocolate 3D printer in action.

The Legal Ins and Outs of 3D Printing - Thursday, June 14, 2012

I came across a pretty interesting and eye opening (at least for myself) article [1] on the legal issues surrounding 3D printing. I never really thought anyone could get sued over printing exact replicas of action figures and other toys. The idea of doing something along these lines hadn't even crossed my mind.

For those who didn't read Clive Thompson's article, for which the link is provided for in the previous paragraph, here is the story:

Thomas Valenty, a Makerbot owner decides to design a couple of Warhammer toy models and uploaded the files on Thingiverse. However, a lawsuit was brought forth by Games Workshop, a Warhammer toy manufacturer. It claimed that Valenty had violated the conditions listed in the DMCA and could be subject to penalties. As a result, Thingiverse removed the files from the site.

However, digital rights attorney Michael Weinberg states that Valenty is not guilty of any crime. Since intellectual property in this case is subject to patent law instead of copyright law because the Warhammer toys are physical models, Valenty may not even need to have been held responsible for any copyright infringement.

Regardless of the consequences, I'm sure that many people will be infringing upon patent law just as much (or even more so) as they do with copyright law. Everyone has illegally downloaded music, games, and other software at some point in time.

I believe that creating such stringent laws for the 3D printing industry will decrease the level of creativity and talent for users. This is why I'm highly supportive of open source 3D printing since it fosters a wealth of new ideas without being impeded by the law.

Hopefully Weinberg and others can convince legislators to relax the current and future laws that govern 3D printing.

None of us want our creative, imaginative thoughts squashed.

Review of the "RepRap Family Tree" Wiki page - Wednesday, June 13, 2012

As anyone can see, the RepRap Family Tree is quite expansive and well organized.

One of the important items that I noticed in the family tree included the types of RepRap (e.g.: polar, cartesian). Prior to visiting this page, I had not read about the RepRap's movement features, but after doing some research on these types, I feel better acquainted. A cartesian RepRap can move along the X, Y, and Z axes (hence, a typical cartesian coordinate plane) while a polar RepRap can move its tool-head by turning it in a circular direction.

I also realized that a majority of the working RepRaps ended up being commercialized. If such a trend continues, there is a huge market for profiting in the 3D printing business, and this can prove to be valuable for a number of people and corporations. However, the obvious disadvantage with this situation would be the gradual decline of open source 3D printing which has been the core of the RepRap community. New ideas and innovations have spurred from the open source movement, since users can change and improve printing methods. There should be limits to commercialization in order to continue the users' growth in creativity that results from open source software and hardware.

Simplifying the tree might be an issue since most of the information presented on the tree is fairly important and relevant to the history of the RepRap. One suggestion I could make would be to be remove the "less common" RepRaps from the tree. Instead, they could all be listed by their date of inception, as well as their predecessor RepRaps. Here is a rough example in which the Ponoko lasercut Darwin is the "less common" RepRap and it directly originated from the Darwin.

Darwin --------> Ponoko lasercut Darwin

I feel that this initiative would clear up some space on the tree and make it look more presentable while maintaining most of the critical information.