"New 3D printing creates solid objects in seconds" Topic

Chinese scientists have developed a groundbreaking technique that can turn liquid into solid 3D objects in less than a second.

The innovative method, unveiled by a team from Tsinghua University, is said to be the world's fastest 3D printing technology.

Unlike traditional methods that rely on mechanical scanning and layer-by-layer construction over long periods, this new approach uses holographic projection for rapid solidification.

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Wolfhag

If true, this would be a quantum leap forward. Thanks for sharing. Cheers!

The news item is a bit light on details, but this sounds a lot like stereolithography, which has been known for several decades:

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Not exactly a method that I would recommend for small-scale printing at home.

Not new, this has been done already, saw a demo at UC Berkeley three years ago. Particularly suited for incredibly small or delicate items, they were showing micro medical devices as examples. I wonder if it took the Chinese "researchers" all of the last three years to steal and reverse engineer it?

After some digging, I found the actual article from the Tsinghua University researchers, providing actual details about their work:

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I didn't go through it in detail, so cannot really comment on what exactly they claim as the novelty of their work compared to prior studies.

I saw a demo of a similar technology at the Maker Faire in Vallejo, CA a couple years ago. It may have been the folks from Berkeley, setting up their gear for the weekend in an abandoned warehouse so kids can watch science.

It's far, far from practical for the foreseeable future. Obviously it's portable! But the materials used are not useful once they are objects.

People make money writing articles, so they tend to overstate things to get clicks.

Thanks for the follow up, not an area of my expertise but I have been tracking it.

People make money writing articles, so they tend to overstate things to get clicks.

Unfortunately, that goes without saying when pulling articles off the internet.

Wolfhag

People make money writing articles

I think it's more that people make money when people click their articles, which is the incentive to create clickbait.

Regarding this sort of simple articles, they are unfortunately often based on the author just going through the press release or abstract, rather than reading the whole article (which in this case is open access). And ideally the article should not be read on its own, but in proper context (i.e. studying also prior works) which tends to take a whole lot of time.

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As for personal memories, I do actually recall seeing an early stereolithography set-up 30 years ago, though back then I was too young to really comprehend the science and technology behind it. Back then, that set-up probably did not have particularly fine resolution – as I recall, they were slowly building a life-sized skull replica within a rather large liquid container.

It's far, far from practical for the foreseeable future. Obviously it's portable! But the materials used are not useful once they are objects.

Maybe -- the Berkeley team felt it was perfect for small scale object with complex geometries, like a miniature 3D-printed vascular stent that incorporates Tesla valve geometry to regulate blood.

Get back to me when it can do the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers in the 1768 Warrant Uniform, with bearskin. 28mm, of course.
I'll take 24 please, with flags, drummers and command.
Oh heck. IF THE PRICE IS RIGHT, I'll take 36.

Well, that's coming soonish! 3D COLOR printers are now "home shop" cost friendly and getting better. FDM filament printers have finer and finer resolutions, and color resin is matching. Specialized services like HeroForge charge a bunch now for custom 3d color minis for RPGs, but that's gonna change. So if you know anyone in 3D design -- they can be well positioned if they can figure out the best algorithms for 3D color printing minis that can interpret specific uniforms.

Of course, we can hear the grognards now -- "Why, in MY DAY you had to RESEARCH your uniforms, and then you had to paint them BY HAND with meticulous care, that meant it was YOUR army on the table -- none of this "click 1768 Warrant Uniform" and hit print nonsense!"

SBminisguy, you missed the bit that they neede3d unrealistic featuers because hand painting requirements put in a need for unrealistic oversize detail. Those guys will never by realistic figures anyway.

What I would like to see is not only faster but scalable printing. There are great stl files geared for 28mm but when they get scaled down to 15/18mm – it can be a mess!

Still, I can't wait to see how the tech improves over the next few months/years.