Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and this is kind of unusual with me. Is Ben Boldin?
Speaker 1: Say Hi everybody, Ben, Hey, everybody, Um, Ben you are
Speaker 1: here because well we have some pretty big news. Um well,
Speaker 1: because we can't really say exactly why, but um, Chuck
Speaker 1: was called away and it's not going to be with
Speaker 1: us any longer. Unfortunately. It's a very very sad day
Speaker 1: for all of us here. Um. You know, Chuck was
Speaker 1: part of this almost from the beginning. Bend. Yeah, Chuck
Speaker 1: started in July two. Yes, nice homework, Yeah he did.
Speaker 1: And um, you know I always said like that's when
Speaker 1: the fireworks happened, like everything, just like that first Chuck
Speaker 1: episode of at Least the Amazing. So um, not to
Speaker 1: set you up for anything, obviously, but you know, there's
Speaker 1: some big shoes to fill and Chuckle be missed. And
Speaker 1: I know you love him and everybody out there loves him,
Speaker 1: but we've got to keep going on. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Chuck is doing what he has to do, and uh,
Speaker 1: it falls if alls us. I um, I want to
Speaker 1: be respectful. Well, yeah, a long time fan first Time
Speaker 1: co host. Well that hopefully that that you know, that
Speaker 1: will translate to this that you know that you have
Speaker 1: an enthusiasm for not just the topics, but for stuff
Speaker 1: you should know in general. You know, like that'll I'm
Speaker 1: sure people will appreciate that. I know this is a
Speaker 1: little odd. This is it was quick, it was sudden.
Speaker 1: He is out of the blue. But hats off to
Speaker 1: you man for stepping in like you you're a braver
Speaker 1: soul than I am. Ah. Yeah, I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: I'm a little scared. You're doing good. What Aaron Cooper
Speaker 1: is gonna think everybody else is is gonna do. But
Speaker 1: I think Aaron Cooper is the least of your worries
Speaker 1: probably the show. So well with that, let's go on
Speaker 1: with the show. We're talking today about three D printers.
Speaker 1: Are you pretty familiar with three D printers? So I
Speaker 1: I am as well kind of you know, mostly just
Speaker 1: from keeping up with like the big news stories, um,
Speaker 1: but the ins and out the details of a three
Speaker 1: D printer, um, the machine itself, how it operates. I
Speaker 1: didn't really know a lot about until I read this article, Like,
Speaker 1: were you familiar with the intricacies of it? Yes, yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: didn't you guys have one in the video department. I
Speaker 1: don't know if everybody knows this or not, but you
Speaker 1: originally started out you're a video guy, and then you
Speaker 1: made the leap over to editorial and now here you are,
Speaker 1: um and stuff you should know too. Um, but wasn't
Speaker 1: there a three D printer in the video department for what? Ye?
Speaker 1: And you guys made some pretty good use of that, right, Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The three D printer that we had is one of
Speaker 1: the early models, so it has some advantages. It can
Speaker 1: prints really cool stuff, but as pretty small, uh pretty
Speaker 1: small production capacity, it takes a while to get to it.
Speaker 1: It's cool. We only have one kind of plastic, so
Speaker 1: everything is really bright green. Yes, I remember seeing that.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of gives you a headache. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that is that is probably um the bulk of
Speaker 1: the cons when it gets to that. But I think
Speaker 1: that three D printing is a fantastic and exciting thing.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people don't know this, but not
Speaker 1: all three D printing is created equally. There are a
Speaker 1: couple of different types. So what we were hoping to
Speaker 1: talk about in today's episode, right, is that h three
Speaker 1: D printing isn't just for you know, cute little chess
Speaker 1: pieces or car parts, right, you could do um, you
Speaker 1: could do all sorts of things. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: mentioning news stories we we recently were talking off air.
Speaker 1: In my head, I was imagining that we were talking
Speaker 1: off air rather about printing human tissue with a with
Speaker 1: a three D printers. Some guys at harbor, which is
Speaker 1: a gosh, what wake up? Wake up dude? What do
Speaker 1: you do? Oh? Man, he got eyeboggers? Yeah, sorry about it.
Speaker 1: That's so weird. Like I came in here, Jerry's all
Speaker 1: set up in your asleep in your chair. I think
Speaker 1: she put something in my coffee, you knockout pills or something. Well,
Speaker 1: you looked like, I don't know, you were restless. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was weird. It has had the worst dream, like
Speaker 1: you'd gone somewhere, some vague place no one knew where.
Speaker 1: We weren't saying and Ben from stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. Yeah, Ben was like in your place
Speaker 1: and he was doing like a really good job. You
Speaker 1: mean Ben, I left work and Ben took my job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he was he was giving your job. He
Speaker 1: was stepping up. Try to fill your shoes kind of thing.
Speaker 1: He was doing good. So was it like it didn't
Speaker 1: look like a nightmare? I gotta say, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was nightmarish and that um I didn't like what
Speaker 1: I was wearing. But Ben was doing great. So it
Speaker 1: was a dream. It was a dream. It was a
Speaker 1: pretty pedestrian, mundane dream. But I guess it was like
Speaker 1: April Fool's dream of some sort. Uh you know, is
Speaker 1: that what this is? I guess because there was a
Speaker 1: dream today, today's April Fool's day, it all makes sense,
Speaker 1: which would make it an April Fool's dream. Wow. Man,
Speaker 1: All right, well you got a little drool on your
Speaker 1: lips still, But otherwise I'm ready to go with I
Speaker 1: have to say it was nightmarish. I'll just fess up.
Speaker 1: The idea of doing stuff you should know without you
Speaker 1: is you could have lead with that, you know, and
Speaker 1: keep you in suspense. All right, Well, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go have been killed very quickly, and then we probablyshod
Speaker 1: because I mean, ask anybody who was hearing my dream
Speaker 1: like it was. He was good. I seed his warm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did do that a few times. All right. So
Speaker 1: well here's the weird thing in my dream we were
Speaker 1: about to talk about three D printing. What topic are
Speaker 1: we about to cover? Now? Three D printing? What? This
Speaker 1: is the craziest dream I've ever had in my life?
Speaker 1: All right, my dreaming? Now, now this is for real,
Speaker 1: like in fact, I have somewhere to be, so I'd
Speaker 1: like to get on with it. Okay, well let's do that.
Speaker 1: Then let's put you back to that afterward, and you
Speaker 1: can dream about me being dead all you want, because
Speaker 1: I still I'm kind of grog. All right, uh so chuck, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're ready to wrap about three D printing. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: bugs me already that they call it printing why because
Speaker 1: it's not printing. It's uh okay, I see where they
Speaker 1: get the name, but it's it's to me, it's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a confusing thing. So you're an additive
Speaker 1: manufacturing guy, Is that what you're into? Yeah, because that's
Speaker 1: the other term for I mean, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: other terms summer kind of old timey, like stereo lithography.
Speaker 1: It sounds a time um, but additive manufacturing is the
Speaker 1: umbrella term for what three D printing is or three
Speaker 1: D layering. I like that, Yeah, which is a little
Speaker 1: more accurate than printing. Um. Although the reason that they
Speaker 1: call it printing, as we will see, is because it
Speaker 1: dovetails well with traditional two dimensional ancient printers. It uses
Speaker 1: a lot of the same form and function. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: get what they said. Yeah, but you mentioned additive manufacturing though.
Speaker 1: That's the key is that it's it's not a computer
Speaker 1: numerical controlled machining, which is when you start with a
Speaker 1: block of something in the carpet down. This is actually
Speaker 1: starting from nothing and adding to it, which is really neat.
Speaker 1: It's the reverse of that. Yeah. Yeah, And with with
Speaker 1: three D printing, I'm just gonna call it that, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna okay, or three D p I
Speaker 1: call it three D p o um. And he'd say
Speaker 1: it with like a smile and his teeth weak thing.
Speaker 1: He's got great breath. Um he does. It's pretty pleasant.
Speaker 1: Uh we we let's just get past the spent thing.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry about my print okay, okay, um. So anyway,
Speaker 1: with with three D printing, the whole basis of it
Speaker 1: is is you you print a three dimensional object or
Speaker 1: you manufacture a three dimensional object layer by layer by
Speaker 1: layer by layer, layers can be a micron up to
Speaker 1: a millimeter or so thick, and um as each layer
Speaker 1: is deposited on top of the next, you have a
Speaker 1: three D object that's built. That's I mean, that's there's
Speaker 1: some total of it, like everything from I think Ben
Speaker 1: even mentioned chess pieces to like you know whatever, I mean,
Speaker 1: whatever you can think of. You can three D print virtually,
Speaker 1: including guns in potentially one day, bodily organs and things
Speaker 1: like that. Ye I can see like an artificial heart
Speaker 1: being three D printed. They're working on it. Yeah, yep,
Speaker 1: there's I mean, like you say, anything you can come
Speaker 1: up with somebody who's trying to three D print or
Speaker 1: already has. It's the latest and greatest. It is, and
Speaker 1: in fact, Chuck, a lot of people think it's going
Speaker 1: to be the next industrial revolution, honestly, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of reason to put some money behind that because
Speaker 1: if it, if it does take off, and it's becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly possible that it does, is costs come down for
Speaker 1: materials and the actual printers themselves, um, the the the
Speaker 1: more and more barriers are coming down. And if if
Speaker 1: it becomes widespread, man, so long manufacturing and transportation sectors
Speaker 1: as we know them. Yeah, and say hello too custom everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: broke your spatula in your kitchen and it's like one
Speaker 1: in the morning and you're one of those weirdos eats
Speaker 1: dinner at one in the morning. You get a broken
Speaker 1: spatula and you can't go to bed, bath and beyond
Speaker 1: or else you'd have to break in and know. All
Speaker 1: you do is go to your your office computer at
Speaker 1: home say hey, Amazon, I need a new spatulate. It
Speaker 1: sends the designs to your three D printer, print, you
Speaker 1: out a new spatula, wait till cools down, and then
Speaker 1: you go finished cooking spaghetti. Yeah. I think the trick is,
Speaker 1: uh is cost, Like with any kind of early technology
Speaker 1: like this, like costs and size, that's got to come down,
Speaker 1: and it already is. And you can buy these things
Speaker 1: for like eight hundred bucks. Now you can get them
Speaker 1: for I think there's you can get unassembled ones for
Speaker 1: like two hundred. Really you can get assembled for like
Speaker 1: three or four or five. Yeah. So alright, so should
Speaker 1: totally have one in the office we do? Was that
Speaker 1: was that real? What was what real? Were you controlling
Speaker 1: my dream? I knew it? I knew you were controlling
Speaker 1: my dream. Really, that's why I was wearing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: dressing up. It's a little bope. Yeah, I didn't like it.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, there is one somewhere and it really works
Speaker 1: like we have used it. Yeah, I remember the did
Speaker 1: you you have you not seen the little green like
Speaker 1: chest pieces that he was talking about, And no, unless
Speaker 1: I saw them and didn't realize that they're awful, some
Speaker 1: awful neon green. But yeah, there there's a as far
Speaker 1: as I know, it's still here. Cool. But well, you're
Speaker 1: saying like this is kind of early on in in
Speaker 1: the UM. It's nascent. It's a nascent technology but going fast. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it's nascent really as far as entering people's homes
Speaker 1: are concerned. As far as industry is concerned, it's been
Speaker 1: around for decades now. As a matter of fact, the
Speaker 1: mid eighties was when UM additive manufacturing, the the prototypical
Speaker 1: three D manufacturing UM or three D printing was really
Speaker 1: introduced to the industry sector and saying, hey, guys, you
Speaker 1: know you're prototyping process, Well, prepare to cut it by
Speaker 1: like seven eights. Yeah, and speed wise, speed wise, materials wise,
Speaker 1: c O two output wise. In every way it's called
Speaker 1: rapid prototyping, and that, like you said, in the eighties
Speaker 1: and early nineties is when they said, you you have
Speaker 1: some ideas for maybe a car part or something, how
Speaker 1: would you like to And you know what prototyping is
Speaker 1: is when you build something to test out. Basically, yes,
Speaker 1: as a manufacturer your prototype, but um, they said, how
Speaker 1: would you like to work with that prototype tomorrow instead
Speaker 1: of you know, a month from now, manufactured and then
Speaker 1: like coming up with the design sending him overseas, having
Speaker 1: the the prototype built, shipped back to you, finding out
Speaker 1: that it didn't quite fit, recalculating, singing it back like
Speaker 1: this was the prototyping process until like the rapid rapid
Speaker 1: prototyping was introduced. Yeah, and I think, like in many
Speaker 1: cases with technology, we have m I T to Bank,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They were definitely one of them,
Speaker 1: but it seems like there was a several different people
Speaker 1: or companies or institutions that were coming up with this
Speaker 1: at about the same time. I think car companies had
Speaker 1: a lot of the early They definitely bought a lot
Speaker 1: of the early ones for sure. So like in in
Speaker 1: the in the mid eighties, a guy named Charles Hole
Speaker 1: came up with this technique that's still in use today,
Speaker 1: where you use a laser two turn some sort of
Speaker 1: um plastic e dust a polymer dust into something solid.
Speaker 1: It's called alchemy, but pretty much photo polymerization. And it
Speaker 1: was one of the earliest types of three D printing.
Speaker 1: And like I said, it's still in use today. Um
Speaker 1: and Hole went on to create a company called three
Speaker 1: D Systems that's still around today, one of the leaders
Speaker 1: in three D printing. So he's loaded. Yeah, he's still
Speaker 1: the CTO of the company. Uh. Well, I guess we
Speaker 1: should talk about the two main processes on direct and
Speaker 1: binder printing. Uh. Direct printing is uh, that's the one
Speaker 1: that looks and behaves most like your regular like ink
Speaker 1: jet printer when you see it moving along. It's the
Speaker 1: little metal bars. It looks, you know, a lot like that.
Speaker 1: It's got a little nozzle and it's gonna instead of
Speaker 1: dispensing inc though, it dispenses either a plastic polymer or
Speaker 1: a waxy substance, something that's heated up and melted sprayed, Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a pattern that it's supposed to be onto the surface,
Speaker 1: and then it cools and harden. Yeah, And that's the
Speaker 1: key is it has to come out really hot, and
Speaker 1: it has the cool really fast. And if you've seen
Speaker 1: these nozzles, it's like you can think of it kind
Speaker 1: of like a hot glue gun. Um. That's sort of
Speaker 1: what the tip looks like, except much finer obviously, And
Speaker 1: it'll even leave like if you're printing like uh, like
Speaker 1: a Yoda head which people love to print, and you
Speaker 1: have to come from the head to the ear that
Speaker 1: sticks out, there's a gap there. There will be even
Speaker 1: like little hot glue strings left behind the stuff you
Speaker 1: gotta go and like clean up later, right, which is
Speaker 1: part of the process. Um. So that's uh, that's direct
Speaker 1: three D printing. There's another type that's similar called um
Speaker 1: binder three D printing, and it's called binder because you
Speaker 1: use a like your base substance is a powder, yeah,
Speaker 1: polymer something it's but it's in powdered form and that's
Speaker 1: sprayed or laid down in the arrangement that it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be for that layer, and then a binder of
Speaker 1: like glue or some sort of um liquid that holds
Speaker 1: it in place and steals it together um is sprayed
Speaker 1: over it. Yeah, So it's two passes, powder pass and
Speaker 1: then the liquid paths right, and even though it's there's
Speaker 1: two passes, it's actually faster because you don't have all
Speaker 1: these different nozzles having to add all this different stuff.
Speaker 1: It's just like there's your powder, there's your binder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can use that's where you can like use
Speaker 1: metals in ceramics and things like that. It really opens
Speaker 1: up your world material wise. And then there's multi jet modeling,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. That's when you have, well you
Speaker 1: have many of those jets and if you've seen these
Speaker 1: things at work, it's like really cool, just all operating
Speaker 1: at the same time, building something right in front of
Speaker 1: your eyes, moving like little robots, spraying plastic all over
Speaker 1: the place pretty much, um, but in very precise places. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, microns at times. And then there's another
Speaker 1: one we wanted to give a shout out to called
Speaker 1: fueled fuse deposition. I think yes, fuel fuse. Wow, I'm
Speaker 1: really having trouble with this one. Fused deposition modeling, which
Speaker 1: is basically you're using like even smaller nozzles that are
Speaker 1: actually they're not spraying their injecting things, which gives you
Speaker 1: an incredibly intricate amount of detail. Or amount of intricate detail,
Speaker 1: so you get direct and binder and those are kind
Speaker 1: of common, right, they are, yes, very common, and then
Speaker 1: there's kind of subsets of those. There's basically, if we
Speaker 1: did this episode five years from now, we'd be like,
Speaker 1: here's how three D printing works. Going to be one
Speaker 1: of these. That's what I had a feeling that as
Speaker 1: time goes on, then some of these will fall away,
Speaker 1: Like definitely, they're all right now, they're competing to be
Speaker 1: basically the three D printing technology that becomes the standard
Speaker 1: for all like inkjet. Inkjet printers were invented in the sixties,
Speaker 1: but there was dot matrix, all these others, and then
Speaker 1: it just became clear that inkjet printing was the way
Speaker 1: to go. I think that's what's going on with three
Speaker 1: D printing right now. Whichever one is most viable for
Speaker 1: the consumer is the one that will usually went out
Speaker 1: exactly because that's the one that companies will put all
Speaker 1: their money into, and then that's that's where all the
Speaker 1: breakthroughs will come from. And maybe on on the manufacturing side,
Speaker 1: they might still have their own, like super expensive ways
Speaker 1: of doing things, but if you want one at your house,
Speaker 1: they're going to have to like scale it down, you
Speaker 1: know exactly. So one of the you've got binder printing,
Speaker 1: you've got direct three D printing, and then you have
Speaker 1: different ways that these can be used. So um, for example,
Speaker 1: remember I mentioned Charles Hole in his photo polymerization. Um,
Speaker 1: that's you can use that for binding, right. So that's
Speaker 1: the laser one. Yeah, so you would use some sort
Speaker 1: of powder, right, and then you would use a UV
Speaker 1: laser too that expose that powder and turned it into
Speaker 1: a solid, right. Just I think it makes that sound.
Speaker 1: That's why people love that three D printer. Um. So
Speaker 1: you were using like a technically a three D bind
Speaker 1: or printing method, but you're using photo polymerization as the
Speaker 1: technique to actually buying this stuff together. Right. And then
Speaker 1: depending on your material, you might want to use a
Speaker 1: different kind of technique like um, selective laser centering is
Speaker 1: really good for metals. Yeah, and that that's a laser
Speaker 1: as well, and it melts actually melts this plastic powder
Speaker 1: and then solidifies it after that, or it can melt
Speaker 1: metal powder. So if you're creating like something that normally
Speaker 1: would have to be like die cast or machined or
Speaker 1: something like that, you're creating a structure that's just a
Speaker 1: sturdy But here's the big This is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why three D printing could lead to a revolution
Speaker 1: and manufacturing. Um. When you are creating something using a
Speaker 1: three D printer, you are able to you're creating a
Speaker 1: cross section of it layer by layer. But it's just
Speaker 1: a dirty is something solid? Yeah, like the insides of these,
Speaker 1: it's neither hollow nor solid. It's got like a lattice
Speaker 1: support systems if that's what it calls for. Right, So
Speaker 1: you can do honeycomb, you could do lattice. You can
Speaker 1: you can subtract a lot of what has to be
Speaker 1: in something that's die cast, just because the human hander,
Speaker 1: the machines we have aren't capable of making something so intricate.
Speaker 1: So you have a lot of waste in manufacturing. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of um extra metal in a widget that
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be there. With three D printing, you
Speaker 1: use just the amount of material you need, and you
Speaker 1: can make the thing as lightweight as it's structural soundness
Speaker 1: can call for. So like if you want to make
Speaker 1: a die cast Civil War soldier, right that's six inches tall,
Speaker 1: it can be hollow and use less material. Right, If
Speaker 1: you want detail in his laces, you use a three
Speaker 1: D printer for that. If you want this clumpy Homer
Speaker 1: Simpsons shoes, you can make it die cast. But but but
Speaker 1: to to use an even more to the point real
Speaker 1: world example, if you're making airplane parts and you are
Speaker 1: making a hinge and the hinge made using die cast
Speaker 1: techniques is blocky and clunky, and the one with three
Speaker 1: D printing is like lattice. Like you said, the lattice
Speaker 1: one is going to be more lightweight. If you have
Speaker 1: a thousand hinges on a plane, all that extra weight
Speaker 1: adds up in the die cast one. It's not there
Speaker 1: with the three D printed one, which means the plane
Speaker 1: weighs less, which means it uses less fuel, which means
Speaker 1: it puts out less c O two or could carry
Speaker 1: more even right exactly, and it's possibly even more sound
Speaker 1: structurally because this thing has been so intricately created, why
Speaker 1: it's really almost endless. The applications for this in the future.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you spatula is to airplane hinges, Simpson civil
Speaker 1: war figures. Well, I guess we should talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the process because this is where it and
Speaker 1: you should look at a video if you haven't yet
Speaker 1: of a three D printer in action. It's pretty neat
Speaker 1: it is, but also it's very tough to describe UM,
Speaker 1: and it's just so much easier to just see it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a good TED talk from I think two eleven UM.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the woman's name, but she does a
Speaker 1: good job of just step by step, here is the
Speaker 1: basis of of UM three D printing. And here's some
Speaker 1: you know, video footage that you're just like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: totally get it now. So here's us clumsily. It's something
Speaker 1: to explain it well. They all use a similar approach. UM.
Speaker 1: Step one is uh C, a D computer aid to design.
Speaker 1: This is what you have to start with. It's a
Speaker 1: software that you know. It's the same as when you
Speaker 1: do like a three D graphics for a motion picture.
Speaker 1: What you're doing is just creating a three dimensional structure
Speaker 1: on your computer screen. That's basically your blueprint. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: what you're gonna end making. It's CAD software. It's like
Speaker 1: the same stuff that architects or engineers use because not
Speaker 1: only can you design it in three dimensions, you can
Speaker 1: also test its soundness. You can model it. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: a big warning light goes on the breachieve model that
Speaker 1: isn't gonna hold cars. Uh number two. And this is
Speaker 1: some you know, kind of technical, geeky stuff, but it's
Speaker 1: all part of the process. You have to convert that
Speaker 1: to something called the st L format Standard Tesselation Language,
Speaker 1: and that's basically just a file format developed in the eighties.
Speaker 1: UM that allows the two the machine to read the
Speaker 1: CAD software. Right, it translates it from the CAD yeah
Speaker 1: language to the printers language. Is just a very geeky
Speaker 1: step in the process. And that STL format that was
Speaker 1: a Charles Whole invention to see. I wonder if if
Speaker 1: eliminating some of these steps at some point is going
Speaker 1: to be the deal to where you can like draw
Speaker 1: something on your computer and plug it into your three
Speaker 1: D printer. Yeah, I think that's kind of already there,
Speaker 1: but you just have to have CAD and then you
Speaker 1: can probably in CAD, I would imagine just export to
Speaker 1: um STL format, like changing a word documentaryf or something
Speaker 1: like that. I think it's that simple, so it's not
Speaker 1: the big of a deal. Uh. And then you're gonna
Speaker 1: you're gonna transfer all that to your machine, and there
Speaker 1: is a computer that is attached to your three D
Speaker 1: printer obviously, and so now it has the the the blueprint,
Speaker 1: it is converted to the proper language, and it's ready
Speaker 1: to go. Yeah, and you press the green button and
Speaker 1: you sit back and put yourself a scotch and you
Speaker 1: watch the magic happen. Yeah, or you go to bed
Speaker 1: and you wake up the next day and you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: that didn't turn out how I was supposed to. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It does take a while, it can, at least. So
Speaker 1: there's a there's a tumbler called Epic three D Printing Fail.
Speaker 1: Of course there is. You should check it out. It's
Speaker 1: um like these things go wrong, like when they go wrong,
Speaker 1: they really go wrong. Yeah, And it's fun to go
Speaker 1: to YouTube and see some of the people that are
Speaker 1: doing this at home, and it's it's a process, you know,
Speaker 1: to learn how to do it right. You know, you're
Speaker 1: probably not going to get a great result right right
Speaker 1: out of the gate. Yeah, and if you if you could,
Speaker 1: it's just pure luck. Like you're gonna waste a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of consumables and start easy and work
Speaker 1: your way up, as would be my advice. But you
Speaker 1: do have to set up your machine, which means, just
Speaker 1: like you would with your printer, you're gonna make sure
Speaker 1: it's full of whatever polymer binder you're gonna use. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's generally generally the the ink jets, aren't They move
Speaker 1: left and right, and you're gonna have a base underneath
Speaker 1: it moves it up and down. Right. They they exist,
Speaker 1: the ink jet, the printer jets or whatever. They move
Speaker 1: left and right, like you say, up forward and backwards,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, the platform goes up and down to
Speaker 1: add that third dimension. Right. So apparently with the platforms
Speaker 1: they nickel and dime you because they're not reusable, or
Speaker 1: if they are reusable there I think because they're heated,
Speaker 1: they're supposed to stay heated, so I think it they Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you look at like a package for a three
Speaker 1: D printer you buy like replacement trade, how much are
Speaker 1: they They're not that much, but still it's like a
Speaker 1: it's like another expense, uh, just to print your special. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you end up paying like hundred dollars for your stupid special. Um. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, you're gonna let the machine do its
Speaker 1: thing and then afterward you're gonna take it out. You
Speaker 1: might want to check on occasionally to make sure your
Speaker 1: goda is an all cock eye. Didn't you think that
Speaker 1: was hilarious? Those step six removal, remove your three D
Speaker 1: printed object from the machine, try to put the potto
Speaker 1: spaghetti on your machine and use the spechuler like that,
Speaker 1: actually take the special out of the machine. That does
Speaker 1: like an unnecessary step And that's even apparently from a book.
Speaker 1: What additive manufacturing technology is colin rapid prototyping to direct
Speaker 1: digital manufacturing Steps six removal. Well, I think maybe they
Speaker 1: include a removal because they do indicate that just to
Speaker 1: be careful and you might need to wear gloves and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Yeah, because apparently don't forget what you're
Speaker 1: doing is you're spraying or your machine is spraying hot
Speaker 1: melted plastic in an enclosed location, in an enclosed room.
Speaker 1: Probably so yeah, there's a lot of toxic chemicals involved.
Speaker 1: You may want to wear gloves. You may want to
Speaker 1: wear like um, a respirator, uh whatever, a Yoda mask
Speaker 1: made with your ear. And then afterwards, like I said,
Speaker 1: you may need to clean it up. There may be
Speaker 1: little hairs, there may need to the things, you need
Speaker 1: to brush off some powder and uh then dude, you're ready. Well,
Speaker 1: some of them use supports that are water soluble too,
Speaker 1: So like these things like that keep Yoda's ears up. Um,
Speaker 1: they you can just drop the whole thing in water
Speaker 1: after it cures, and then those supports go away and
Speaker 1: because they dissolve in water, like they never happened. All right,
Speaker 1: So we need to talk about some of the applications
Speaker 1: now and in the future right after this message. Alright,
Speaker 1: so the future, the future, the present, and the future
Speaker 1: of three D printing. It's applications are really really piling up,
Speaker 1: like daily. It seems like, yeah, Yoda figuring, that's right.
Speaker 1: One reason is, um, the article points out, is because uh,
Speaker 1: well there's there's a couple of fronts going on. You
Speaker 1: have industrial manufacturing, and you have like artists. I guess
Speaker 1: there's three, and then you have just your regular dope
Speaker 1: at home that just has like eight bucks laying around. Uh,
Speaker 1: and industrial manufacturing is obviously gonna speed things up like
Speaker 1: plain wings and artificial limbs. And I saw really cool.
Speaker 1: Did you see the three D printed cast? It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't solid, It was like a like
Speaker 1: a honeycomb. So bye bye to the days of like ants, yeah,
Speaker 1: and not be able to itch your it's your arm
Speaker 1: or whatever. I can't sign sign those though. That's a
Speaker 1: good point. You can't really sign the fiberglass ones anyway though. Well,
Speaker 1: the back in the old days and it was just
Speaker 1: plaster like those were the that was the heyday of
Speaker 1: cats signing. And then when they went to not fiberglass,
Speaker 1: what is it they used the I don't even know.
Speaker 1: I haven't broken a limb. Now. It's not titanium. It's
Speaker 1: more like the fabric bandage that ends up hardenings. You
Speaker 1: can't write on it. I can't do anything with it.
Speaker 1: No one asked me to sign their cast anyway, so
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't keep up with the cast. Does
Speaker 1: anyone even do that anymore? Or is that a totally
Speaker 1: antiquated thing. I'm sure they do. Um No, I didn't
Speaker 1: see the cast to answer your question. Okay, but that's
Speaker 1: that's industrial manufacturing. They're tackling like the big things like
Speaker 1: organs and car parts and playing parts. And that's actually
Speaker 1: the second sea change that additive manufacturing has created for
Speaker 1: the industrial sector. Because first of all, they revolutionized prototyping,
Speaker 1: and then these three D printers got so good that
Speaker 1: they're like, well, we can actually produce the actual thing,
Speaker 1: like not just the prototype of the model anymore. We
Speaker 1: can produce the actual end result. So that's the second revolution,
Speaker 1: and it's it's very much here now, Like, hey, you're
Speaker 1: a surgeon and Josh was in a horrible accident and
Speaker 1: his face was disfigured and you want to put them
Speaker 1: back together. We can print out your old lovely face
Speaker 1: and show that surgeon shove it under the skin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can't do that obviously, but it just serves as
Speaker 1: the model for the surgeon out instead of looking at
Speaker 1: it on a computer screen. Right. Um, and there's a
Speaker 1: there's apparently m R I S or f m R
Speaker 1: I s are going to be pretty much delivering the
Speaker 1: CAD file to a three D printer pretty soon to
Speaker 1: create oh yeah, yeah, to create stuff that you need.
Speaker 1: All you do is just get an m R I
Speaker 1: skin and then bam, here's your implant. Apparently it's all
Speaker 1: the rage and dental implants. Yeah, you know, I got
Speaker 1: my fake tooth, which took a long time to manufacture
Speaker 1: because they weren't using three D printers now, but they
Speaker 1: could whip out a tooth for me tomorrow. Ten seconds. Um.
Speaker 1: Artists are way into it. UM. If you've been to
Speaker 1: a an art show in the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: you've probably seen some sort of three D printed um
Speaker 1: object UM. Which I feel like at this point, a
Speaker 1: lot of the art that's being three D printed, it's
Speaker 1: more like it's made by three D printers. It's the
Speaker 1: big thing. Yeah, yeah, it's not. Wow, it's really amazing
Speaker 1: and it was made by three D It's more like
Speaker 1: this is made by a three D printer. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: for me, I'd still I guess it's impressive, but I'd
Speaker 1: still rather see a sculpture by hand that's something that
Speaker 1: was three D printed, you know, I mean that seems
Speaker 1: to be a lot more difficult the old school. Um.
Speaker 1: There's also like a lot of that's kind of doves
Speaker 1: dovetails and with art is um. You know, you can
Speaker 1: buy a piece of art now that's someone sculpted using
Speaker 1: CAD and print it out at your house and then
Speaker 1: you have a piece by that artist. It's kind of
Speaker 1: changing art as well. UM. There's also a that's also
Speaker 1: kind of being revolutionized in commerce as well. So like um,
Speaker 1: I guess going back to the medical thing, there's a
Speaker 1: company called the spoke prosthetics where they can kind of
Speaker 1: measure your stuff and create a model for it and
Speaker 1: then print out your prosthetic that's super tailored. Or you know,
Speaker 1: going back to that spatial example, you know, you can
Speaker 1: ultimately have some design sent to your three D printer
Speaker 1: and then you print out your special So you're paying
Speaker 1: for the design and that only has to be designed
Speaker 1: once and then it's on it's on the person who
Speaker 1: is buying it. It's up to you to manufacture it.
Speaker 1: So that kind of takes a lot of the costs
Speaker 1: away too. It's really just you don't even have to
Speaker 1: build that first one. You just come up with a
Speaker 1: good design and you can sell the design over and
Speaker 1: over again without ever actually manufacturing anything. Right, Or if
Speaker 1: you just think of some cool little thing you want built, um,
Speaker 1: maybe your own prototype of something you can you don't
Speaker 1: even have to buy all the stuff. There are companies
Speaker 1: now that will make your little prototype for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is I think far more prevalent these days. Like
Speaker 1: if you do order something off the internet, they'll, um,
Speaker 1: they'll they send the file to a company that actually
Speaker 1: prints it out for you. And there's a professional job.
Speaker 1: Unless you want it yourself, for like the home inventoring,
Speaker 1: you know, and they want to try out their new
Speaker 1: widget that they just made. Speaking of home inventors, we
Speaker 1: would be very remiss. Its not in this article. But
Speaker 1: there is another, yet another revolution. If you haven't gotten
Speaker 1: the idea that three D printing is revolutionary, just rewind
Speaker 1: this and start over. UM. The there's a three D
Speaker 1: printer called a rep wrap, which is a but it's
Speaker 1: a d I Y from scratch three D printer that
Speaker 1: you build. You build, you can get the parts that
Speaker 1: just just about anywhere UM for a couple of hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: and you put it together and you download the open
Speaker 1: source software. All this is free, all open source UM.
Speaker 1: And the first thing the printer does is it prints
Speaker 1: out the remaining parts that it needs. Shut up, swear
Speaker 1: to god. It's in its second incarnation now, second generation
Speaker 1: rep wrap is called the mendel Ter gregor mendel UM.
Speaker 1: And once you have this thing up and running, there's
Speaker 1: like a whole world of open source UM three D
Speaker 1: printing projects that you can download and print. You can
Speaker 1: upload your own stuff. And the great part about it,
Speaker 1: since it's open source, if somebody's like this would be
Speaker 1: so much better if we just replaced this lattice structure
Speaker 1: with a honeycomb structure here, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: now it's indestructible and then bam, that thing just got
Speaker 1: improved for everybody to come. Yeah, this sounds like something
Speaker 1: that's like early Internet stuff that at some point some
Speaker 1: government being will squatch. Well yeah, well, I mean all
Speaker 1: this free trading of great ideas and things. Exactly. One
Speaker 1: of the things is the people who are open source
Speaker 1: fanatics are like, dude, you want to solve poverty. You
Speaker 1: want to solve like, um, poor healthcare in these areas
Speaker 1: like give the give a town a three D printer two,
Speaker 1: or teach them how to how to set up a
Speaker 1: mental and then they can print out their lab parts,
Speaker 1: they can print out replacement parts, they can print out whatever,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden they can take care of
Speaker 1: themselves and give deliver good health care. And there's not
Speaker 1: they're not relying on you know, aid or donors or whatever.
Speaker 1: They're they're handling it themselves because now they're not off
Speaker 1: of the supply line. They're totally tapped in just because
Speaker 1: they have an Internet connection and a three D printer. Well,
Speaker 1: and you sent me an article about a gentleman who
Speaker 1: is working on three D printing food, and um, I
Speaker 1: don't think of it as like I'm gonna go print
Speaker 1: a hamburger. You have to kind of change your conception
Speaker 1: of what food is. But it's essentially gonna be a
Speaker 1: mix of you know, water and proteins and oils and
Speaker 1: whatever makes up the components of a food. And then
Speaker 1: he printed out as a little cube or a little
Speaker 1: four leaf clover and eat it. Yeah. I don't know
Speaker 1: about I mean, it's way early in the stages, but
Speaker 1: he's talking about solving world hunger with three D printing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he totally could because if you have the macro
Speaker 1: nutrients right, like you have a protein cartridge, a carbohydrate cartridge,
Speaker 1: and fast cartridge, and you're using binder printing, so you're
Speaker 1: just putting them together and adding water or something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: instant food, right. So his his first proof of concept
Speaker 1: I think was chocolate, but the one he's working on
Speaker 1: now is pizza, which is perfect because it's in the
Speaker 1: layers anyway. So, UM, remember the the the platform that
Speaker 1: goes up and down as he did often. The guy
Speaker 1: who created that, he he used, Um that characteristic to
Speaker 1: bake the dough as it's the pizzas being built like
Speaker 1: at the carb layer and then the tomato layer, and
Speaker 1: then a protein layer, and the proteins come from like
Speaker 1: insects or whatever, which if you're eating it, if it
Speaker 1: tastes right, you don't care where it comes from, of course,
Speaker 1: unless you pay attention to that kind of thing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he could very easily like that could totally revolutionized food.
Speaker 1: And as we get closer to things like being able
Speaker 1: to three D print living tissue, which apparently we're at
Speaker 1: right there, but the the problem that everybody keeps running
Speaker 1: up against his blood vessels, generating blood vessels just just
Speaker 1: beyond our technology right now. Once we start being able
Speaker 1: to do that, then you will be able to print
Speaker 1: a nice, juicy hamburger in your home, Manu. Some of
Speaker 1: the some of the downsides of three D printing is
Speaker 1: as of now, and and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: this stuff, like with anything and technology is going to
Speaker 1: get better. They're gonna refine it and make it more
Speaker 1: environmentally friendly. But right now, uh, they burn a lot
Speaker 1: of energy, about fifty to a hundred times more electrical
Speaker 1: energy than injection molding for something that's you know, similar
Speaker 1: in size, so that's no good. A hundred times more
Speaker 1: electricity is traditional casting or machining. So right now they're
Speaker 1: recommending it. It's it's not up to like large scale
Speaker 1: manufacturing or anything like that, right like assembly line stuff,
Speaker 1: just because it's just burning too much, is wasting too much.
Speaker 1: The emissions aren't very healthy. Um. Obviously, if you have
Speaker 1: one of these in your home, like you said, you're
Speaker 1: an enclosed space, you're burning plastic um, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: some emissions giving off given off from that in your house.
Speaker 1: So if you know, I don't know what kind of
Speaker 1: they probably have venting systems already, don't they. I don't know.
Speaker 1: If you in an industrial and I'm sure like they say,
Speaker 1: you should probably put this in a vented room. But no,
Speaker 1: if you're just a dude with a maker bought on
Speaker 1: your desktop, it's in your it's in your room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your rooms as vented as it normally, as I would guess. Uh,
Speaker 1: plastics is something we're trying to get away from UM
Speaker 1: as a planet, and plastic filament is kind of the
Speaker 1: main game right now. Yeah, for for now, I mean,
Speaker 1: like as as metals and ceramics, are more and more introduced.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, plastics will kind of fall away
Speaker 1: or they could, but yeah, for sure, like all three
Speaker 1: D printers use plastics right now. You know this one
Speaker 1: I would never consider. I thought it was pretty interesting,
Speaker 1: is that the piracy uh licensing deals of Like if
Speaker 1: you want to go make your own hobbit figuring instead
Speaker 1: of paying what's the dude's name, Pete Peter Jacks, Peter
Speaker 1: Jackson his cut, or George Lucas his cut, you can
Speaker 1: make your own Little Star Wars figures or or printed
Speaker 1: but to him and go sell him in the subway.
Speaker 1: Kids who don't know any different who ride the subway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're set up on your own, you know, your own
Speaker 1: online shopper or whatever. You know. Yeah, And I mean,
Speaker 1: like you can make the argument like, yeah, that's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a problem, and but that's something that would have
Speaker 1: to be dealt with, just like everyone lived with the
Speaker 1: piracy from music and movies and all that. Like those
Speaker 1: industries haven't collapsed. It's true. People are still making music,
Speaker 1: people are still making movies, people will still make figurines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. And then the whole gun thing
Speaker 1: is definitely a touchy issue. Yeah. This guy, Cody Wilson,
Speaker 1: twenty six years old, a couple of years ago, Yeah,
Speaker 1: was it last year? Was like within the last two
Speaker 1: years I think, made it his own three D printed
Speaker 1: gun that shot a bullet, and um, they have now
Speaker 1: even another company has manufactured a metal gun that shoots bullets.
Speaker 1: And that means if you can sell that software, then
Speaker 1: book could just skirt gun laws and print a gun
Speaker 1: at home. Yes, apparently they already are. Um. I guess
Speaker 1: Cody Wilson put it up in the Justice Department took
Speaker 1: it down, but not before it was already downloaded a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand times at least. And that's the that's a
Speaker 1: magic number. That means it's out there forever. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: apparently the Congress has already got laws regarding this. Um
Speaker 1: as far as having guns that are not made of
Speaker 1: metal or like i e. One that you could sneak
Speaker 1: onto a plane. But there's a small loophole in that
Speaker 1: some of these gun plans have like the tiniest little
Speaker 1: piece of metal that maybe not picked up by a
Speaker 1: metal detector, but it is untill technically metal, right, and
Speaker 1: it's deliberator does have that. It does have that piece
Speaker 1: a metal piece. But apparently if if you have the plans,
Speaker 1: you can very easily go in and ex that part
Speaker 1: out and you have an all plastic gun. Right. Apparently
Speaker 1: this Arai Israeli television group printed out their own version
Speaker 1: of it, and um I wanted to see how far
Speaker 1: they could get with one, and basically we're standing right
Speaker 1: next to Benjamin and Yahoo with this plastic gun on them.
Speaker 1: They were able to smuggle it all the way into
Speaker 1: Parliament um on on the news. So I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a plastic gun that you could take
Speaker 1: through a metal detector, which is a great thing to
Speaker 1: unleash on the world. And this guy's a what about
Speaker 1: the bullets? I don't know, Yeah, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: understand why it wouldn't be picked up or whatever. But
Speaker 1: or maybe they could make plastic bullets. Yeah, but you're
Speaker 1: just shooting somebody with plastic bullets. It's like, yeah, jerk, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they already make those and they sell them it TWI us. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I read this Guardian article and it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: this kid is a he's very much like um russ Olbrick.
Speaker 1: He was like a libertarian slash anarchists kinda, and um,
Speaker 1: he was like, well, it's not my responsibile that I
Speaker 1: just you know, I unleashed this on the world. Who cares, right,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't govern this kind of thing. The
Speaker 1: Internet is supposed to be free, and it's like, and
Speaker 1: that is a that is a can of worms that
Speaker 1: I don't think exists in black and white. Yeah, Or
Speaker 1: who's responsible legally for some of this stuff one day,
Speaker 1: like the manufacturer of the software or you know, but
Speaker 1: even beyond legally, who's responsible morally? Yeah? You know you
Speaker 1: are my friend, not me, not you, but the individual.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna print a gun, No, you'll just print
Speaker 1: out a little figures have been Man, that's dream. You
Speaker 1: got anything else? Right now? I got nothing else. I
Speaker 1: think it's a good overview. Yeah it is. We'll revisit
Speaker 1: in five years and talk about which one one out.
Speaker 1: This article is hilariously out of date. The lowest, the
Speaker 1: lowest price it quotes is it something? It doesn't even
Speaker 1: mention the rep rap, the rep rap, it's the big deal. Okay.
Speaker 1: Uh So if you want to learn more about three
Speaker 1: D printing, you should go read this hilariously out of
Speaker 1: date article. On house top works, which by the way,
Speaker 1: is being updated to put in an update requests, so
Speaker 1: it should be nice and fancy soon. Um. And since
Speaker 1: I said search bar, I think I did, It's time
Speaker 1: for listener mail. I'm gonna call this wild parrots. Remember
Speaker 1: when we talked about the wild parrots confirmed, Um, hey,
Speaker 1: guys really enjoyed hanging out with you during the Tattoo podcast.
Speaker 1: By the way, it is called a tattoo machine, not
Speaker 1: a tattoo gun. Apparently they don't like that. They don't
Speaker 1: like that, and we heard about it tattoo people. Are
Speaker 1: they tattoo people? Um? Burning man people and who who else?
Speaker 1: Seems like there's been one more subset of people that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think just be so like angry. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: can't think of anybody any other group that's responded on
Speaker 1: mat so angrily. Yeah, burning man and tattoos. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: when Josh heard um that parrots like to hang together
Speaker 1: when free, I wanted to burst into the podcast room
Speaker 1: and tell you about the wild parrots of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: my hometown. I'm not gonna get into it except to
Speaker 1: say that over the course of my life, the parents
Speaker 1: were sort of a living legend that one would occasionally
Speaker 1: get the privilege of spotting now and then. However, about
Speaker 1: three years ago I moved in with my aunt in
Speaker 1: the little San Francisco suburb of Brisbane, and apparently the
Speaker 1: famous flock of parrots were also making their home there,
Speaker 1: since it was warmer and less windy than most of
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Uh. They were often hanging out right outside
Speaker 1: my bedroom window, which is pretty amusing but also someone annoying,
Speaker 1: especially since my first son was just a little guy
Speaker 1: and they are loud. I can vouch for that they're
Speaker 1: super loud. Also, guys, I'm sending you the link to
Speaker 1: watch the documentary from two thousand three, The Wild Parrots
Speaker 1: of Telegraph Hill. So she's recommended that we watched that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: did we get that documentary? No? I think it's Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just a link. It's online, so keep it up. Seriously,
Speaker 1: if you stopped making podcasts, I'd be one that majorly bummed.
Speaker 1: Mama Child Bellow Amy, Thanks Amy and San Francisco via Italy.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was weird. Um that it was good. I
Speaker 1: didn't doubt you. I want to say, Oh no, I
Speaker 1: didn't think so, okay, I that would just be such
Speaker 1: a bizarre thing to make up. Um, but yeah, thanks
Speaker 1: Amy for supporting Chuck. Chuck loves to be supported and proven, right,
Speaker 1: don't we. All. Yeah, if you want to hang out
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Speaker 1: you can hang out with us, um Pinterest, look for
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Speaker 1: We've got a couple of new social platforms Instagram and Pinterest,
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Speaker 1: is that's on everything. It's like all, if you keep
Speaker 1: up with us on like Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a bunch of different awesome information. Yeah,
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