Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech stuff from how stuff works dot coming. Hello there, everybody,
and welcome with tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
and I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot com.
Sitting next to me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
(00:23):
Hey there, alrighty then, yeah, so what do you wanna
talking about? Well, before we start talking, this is going
to be one of those special podcasts, you know, the
kind that always start with listener me. Dude, I was
hoping I was ice cream and cake. You got me
(00:43):
all excited. Yeah, No, punch and pie will be later.
So this listener mail comes from Amy, and Amy says, hey,
you guys love the show and I have learned a lot.
Here is a tech thing I have no clue about.
How does three D printing work? Thanks? Amy? Well, I
mean we thought we would tackle three D printing for you. Yeah,
it's um, it's a complex thing. It's it's super cool though. Yeah,
(01:08):
you can you know, you can do a very rudimentary
version of this by you know, printing something out on
a piece of paper. And folding it into oregamy. But
I don't think, oh, that's printing on two D and
then you make a three D dimensions that's it. Get
josh in here. So no, no, no, So three D printing, Well,
first of all, let's talk about why you would need
(01:28):
three D printing in the first place. And really, the
main purpose is to create prototypes for products. Yeah, we're
not we're not talking about printing out stuff that you
would read later. This is printing out things in relief
so that you could see how they're put together and
what they look like when they're done. The question is
how do you make that possible? Right, Because think about
(01:50):
it this way. If you are let's let's say that
you have come up with a product idea. You work
with this big company. You've come up with an idea
of our new product, and you want to make a
mock up of it. But because there it's it's the
first of its type, there's nothing in place for you
to be able to manufacture this easily. You can't just
go to the plant and say, hey, you know, produce
one of these for me, because no one's made one before.
(02:12):
So before three D printing, you pretty much had to
use other methods, like if you want to go way back,
we're talking about things like you take a block of
wood and you carve it into the shape that it's
supposed to be in, and then you're you take another
block of wood and carve that away until you get
all the different pieces together. Then you put all the
pieces together, and then you show it off to whomever
and say, this is what this is the way it's
(02:34):
supposed to go together. Please find a way to mass
produce this. It's rather time consuming. It's carve away all
the bits that don't look like whatever, right exactly, you
carve away all the bits that don't look like whatever
it is that you're trying to produce. Or another example
is uh, actually group of uses three D printing a
lot architects. Everybody's seen name one of those models of
(02:57):
your town or your school after renovation or whatever where
they have little blocks and you look at them and
you go, well, that's that's pretty neat to put all
the little trees in there, and that well, you can
use three D printing to create models like that, right,
So obviously there's a need for creating prototypes. There's need
for creating these models and there's a need for doing
(03:17):
it in a way that's not going to take you
so much time that by the time you're done with it,
the opportunity to create whatever was you're going to create
in its past. So that's where we get in with
this whole rapid prototype approach. And three D printing is
really just a way of creating the various bits and
pieces you need for some three D object three dimensional object.
(03:39):
Uh and uh you do it without having to you know,
get other materials and carve it out yourself. Uh. And
it's an additive process, which means that it's adding the
material as it goes to build the ultimate object or
series of objects. It's kind of ironic because really to
print in three D, you're printing in two D just
(04:00):
lots and lots and lots of layers. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
it's kind of weird because you think of it in
I guess in my head, I was thinking sort of
a sci fi thing where you know, you had this
big open door with the flaps on it, and you
tell it to print the thing and it just sort
of comes out in the conveyor belt. Well that's not
exactly how kind of like the gob stoppers and will
(04:20):
want Yeah, no, I was right there with you. Either
that or either that or you think of it almost
like a mold type thing, where you know, these two
halves come together. When they come apart, there's the object
just sitting there. It's not quite like that. In fact,
it's not like that at all. Really. One it really
resembles most is in jet printers. So you know, with
the name jet printer, you've got a printer that has
(04:42):
a tiny little nozzle that sprays incredibly tiny drops of
ink onto the paper. Yes, an incredibly small we're talking
like usually on the nano scale, really um something that
or it can be that small and uh it just
it the nozzle scans from one side of the paper
to the other and sprays, and as it sprays, that's
(05:04):
that's what's forming the text, you see. Well, it's the
same sort of principle with three D printing, except instead
of inc it's using some sort of material like a
resin or some sort of uh plastic kind of material
and a binding agent. It depends actually I've seen a
couple of different techniques, one that uses powder and another
(05:26):
that uses a liquid. Right, Yeah, it all depends on
there there are variations. In general, the way it works
is that you first create a three D model of
whatever it is you want to build in a program
like a like a CAD program on a computer. Um.
Then what most of these three D printers do is
they divide that picture that you've created, that model you've created,
(05:49):
into lots and lots and lots of layers, hundreds and
hundreds of them really, because the thickness of each layer
tends to be very very thin. It's it's really just
one layer of the of the ink jets printing. I
guess that's what you could call it. So interrupted ahead,
think of it as an egg slicer, if you, like,
you know, put the egg down and you slice it up.
It only very very fine slices. It's the computer is
(06:13):
doing that in order to print it on this three
D printer, right the cross sections exactly. Yeah. So it
does this layer by layer and it prints and until
it's finished with the object that you're creating. And because
there's the binding agent or the material itself is binding
in nature, um, it actually clings together and eventually creates
(06:35):
this three dimensional object. You might think, well, how long
does that take? Turns out not very long at all. Really, um,
Even back in the early days of three D printing,
it was much faster to use this method than other
comparable methods. Uh. And I've seen figures of depending on
the complexity of the objects you're creating in the size
of it tends to be between half an hour to
(06:56):
two hours, depending on the again the size and complexity.
M M. Do you want to talk about the different
types the powder and the liquid thing? Yeah, go ahead, okay, UM, Well,
the one that I first saw when I was starting
to do my research for the podcast was this stereolithographic technique,
which is basically it's the liquid that they pour into
(07:18):
a big I think of it as a big tub,
I guess, although I guess it wouldn't have to necessarily
be large, It just has to be big enough to
contain the liquid. The laser is shown onto the resin,
and every place that the laser touches hardens, so that's
how it forms the pattern. And then it that that
becomes a layer and one of the layers that eventually
(07:39):
makes up the three D So it starts as a
liquid resin which is hardened by a laser into one
of the layers that eventually becomes up at the model
right right, So what you do is you you scan
the laser across and it traces whatever the shape is
of the that layer. Then usually there is a process
where I think of it like a squeegee. Uh, something
(08:00):
comes across and wipes off the excess resin at that
point so that the next layer can be built up.
The laser goes across again, it binds with the first layer.
You've now got a second layer. You do this hundreds
and hundreds of times until you've finished the object that
you're trying to create. Now, I should also point out
that stereo lithography is not the same thing as the
(08:21):
ink jet method we were talking about earlier. It's a
totally different kind of three D printing. Um. In fact,
some people would argue that it shouldn't be called three
D printing at all. It's still a form of rapid prototype.
But but yes, it is a very popular way of
creating a simple three D objects UM. And it is
pretty neat. I mean, it's just it's a laser that
(08:42):
once it comes into contact with the stuff, the stuff
goes from liquid to solids. That's just cool. But yeah,
so so yes, that's the liquid one you were talking about, right,
and then the the other uses a self adhesive powder
and you know it's um. Actually I had less on
(09:03):
So the powder, the powder. What happens is it gets
it gets put into the same sort of pattern and
it adheres to itself. It binds to itself. There's some
methods here where you will actually have to have a
base of some sort before you can start printing the shape.
So in other words, you can't just turn the printer
on and tell it to go. You have to have
some sort of foundation for the dust or liquid to
(09:27):
adhere to um. So you might have a very basic cylinder,
for example, and the object itself is as much more
complex than that, with lots of curves or edges or whatever,
but it still has to have that that foundation to
cling onto before you can get started. That's some of
the printers require that. And uh, from what I understand
(09:49):
that that term is selective laser centering or s l S,
which is the name for that powder method. And then
something else it's kind of interesting, at least to me,
is that the three D models, when they have a
continuous surface like this, they're called watertight. That's sort of
I guess industry slang for you know the fact that
(10:10):
it's seamless how the model is made, rather than being
made into pieces. So yeah, you're not gonna find you're
not going to find that little line where two different
pieces come together and are glued that way what you
might have found with with old handmade versions where you
had to put together a lot of different sections by yourself.
(10:30):
And we're starting to see this more and more in
applications beyond just the prototype production. Um it's not just
something that's being used by gigantic companies like you. You
would see this normally in things like let's say you're
at a car manufacturer and you've come up with a
really cool design for a car, and you might want
a model of that of your design when you're showing
(10:53):
that to executives. So you would use this method in
order to create a model of the car design you
had created, so they're not just looking at a you know,
a three D image on a computer that can actually
see an object and and look at it from all
angles that way. Um. Well, now these three D printers
have gone into the realm of affordability for a lot
(11:14):
of smaller businesses. Now, when I say affordable. This is
a relative term, right, It's not something that is affordable
to the general consumer. Uh. You know, Joe Schmo with
his MacBook is not going to go out and get
a three D printer to sit next to his computer
at home. Uh, because Joe Schmo probably can't shell out
(11:35):
grand for a three D printer, and that's for a
cheap one. Yeah. The the average now is about somewhere
between fifteen thousand and two d and fifty dollars for
a three D printer range. Although there are some desktop
ish printers that are starting to come down below five
thousand dollars, it's still not the kind of money that
you're gonna, you know, fork over for your kids science
(11:58):
fair projects so that you can the three cool three
D printed thing. It's still a little You might be
a you might be a model train enthusiast, but I
doubt that you are an enthusiast at the point where
you're gonna drop grand on a printer that can print
a tree that you want. Although I don't know, maybe
you're Michael Jackson quality. He had a lot of model trains.
(12:20):
That's true anyway. Yeah, you know they used these in
a lot of different processes UM, some of which made
complete sense to me, like manufacturing and aerospace and motive UM.
One that I was a little surprised to see was footwear,
but I guess people like to see what the shoe
is gonna look like before the consumers get hold of it.
(12:41):
And uh in the arts uh. In fact, some of
them models for Cora line were built uh for him.
Nike founder Phil Knights company has uh. He had a
company called Laka and uh. Apparently that company was involved
with making some of the models for Coraline printed on
you know, three D printing technology, and the medical industry
(13:02):
is using them to print prosthetics, which is pretty cool.
And I remember reading at some point. I didn't find
it for this podcast, but I do remember reading an
article at one point about a former UM Microsoft executive,
someone who worked on Microsoft's video game division actually who
(13:23):
left the company and formed his own company UM that
was the partnered with World of Warcraft so that players
of World War Warcraft could send in pictures of their
character the essentially their character model, and have a figuring
created through three D printing of their their character. So
(13:45):
and it was using this method. It was using three
D printing to create models that were very specific to
the look of each individual World Warcraft character. So if you,
you know, had one of those busty elf chicks, you
could get a three D figuring of your bust yelf check.
All right, Yeah, not life size. Sorry to disappoint you, fellas.
(14:05):
Um it was actually like maybe three inches tall. But yeah,
you know, you can't have everything. If there were two
apples taller than they'd be smurf size Smurf size two
or three, And no, I think you're right at there's
three three apples tall. So anyway, yes, that was a
childhood well spent. So you know, uh, somebody there there
is the three D printing, the rapid prototyping technology has fans.
(14:28):
But you know, I was a little surprised to see
somebody who who's very popular in the world of design
right now, who isn't necessarily a fan. Yeah, Jonathan, I've
of apples saying that it's distancing designers from you know,
the idea of their physical artwork of you know, actually
doing it by hand. And so he, uh, he's apparently
(14:51):
not such a big fan. I can sort of see that,
I guess, I mean, I see that in the same
way that I see some animators who specialize in hand
drawn animation how they look down on computer generated animation. Uh,
not all of them do. I don't mean to say that,
And it's a very small number who who have voiced
any sort of negative opinion about the thing. But my
(15:13):
view is that it's really it's not so much the technique,
it's you know, how you how you put to use.
So as far as I'm concerned, it's just another tool,
and if someone is able to use that tool in
a creative way, then I see no real problem with it.
But then I'm not a designer, so I am not
an artiste. So perhaps that's uh, that's maybe it's because
(15:37):
I'm more of a you know, practical kind of guy
as opposed to a artistic kind of guy. I understand.
But I was also going to talk a little bit
about vic Oliver. I don't know, did you come across
vic Oliver when you were researching three D printing? I
did not. Okay, So vic Oliver he's heading this this
open source self copying three D printer project self Copying. Yes.
(16:01):
So the idea here is that to create a three
D printer that is capable of printing all of the
components that go into that three D printer, so that
in theory, you could create a machine that can replicate itself. Now,
granted it's going to replicate itself in various bits and pieces.
It'll still have to be assembled and wired and all that.
(16:21):
But in theory, with the methods that he's working on,
you would be able to create another printer, and that
would remove this barrier of price. Think about it, like,
you know, you, let's say like for the purchase price
of one printer and whatever materials you needed to feed
it through, like the plastic in the metal that you
(16:43):
would need to create more, you could then create another
printer and give that to your friend, and then the
two of you could each create a printer and give
that to two other friends, and they could give it
to two friends, and they two friends and so on
and so on. I'm really figured you were going to
go to that. Uh you That's the problem with that
is that there's no three D metal printing technology. Well,
(17:06):
that's what that's what they're working on. They're working on
this methodology that would allow you to use low metals
that have a low melting point, so you would have
a metal that could melt at a temperature that is
lower than the temperature required for the plastic to stay hard.
So you could actually line the plastic with metal and
(17:27):
it would all work fine. It wouldn't intermix, you wouldn't
have this hot metal melting the plastic you just generated.
And and granted now they're still working on it. They've
developed the nozzle metal system, but it's still a little
ways away from a full self replicable model. But I mean,
(17:49):
that's that is a pretty neat thing, because you think
about then, all right, well, how far away are we
to the point where we get to the Star Trek
world where you've got the replicators. I could use a
hot earl gray this afternoon. Yeah, I could have used
a an alternator for my wife's car. So you know,
(18:10):
we all have our our needs. But on the day
that we recorded this, the waterman busted outside and there's
a boil water order. And I really wanted a cup
of tea, I think because I couldn't. Yeah, I had
a cup of coffee before I found out about the
boil water order. So I'm expecting to either die or
develop superpowers before the end of this podcast. Sad thing
is he won't let me vote. No, No, it's pretty
(18:31):
much a coin flip situation here. It's not a democracy.
All right. Well, I'm pretty much done with a three
D printing. What about you? I am too, and thanks
to me for right now, because that's that was a
lot of fun to research. It was a really cool
topic and it was something I've been wondering about for ages.
In fact, as I a call that might have been
one of the first articles I pitched at how Stuff
(18:53):
Works when I started working here, although I never did
get the chance to actually write that one. So it
was cool to finally do the research so very much.
So y'all continue to write in about stuff that we
want to write about and read about. Right But this does, however,
bring me to something else we need to talk about.
But that would be listener me sabotage. Yeah yeah, listen
(19:21):
all y'all. So this listener mail comes from Jacob from Cleveland,
and it's actually a dual listener mail because it's not
just us, it's to our our bigger sister podcast stuff.
You should know it as well. So I thought it
was going to involve Aaron Burrn, No, not this time.
You Now you may recall several episodes ago, I laid
(19:43):
out a challenge to our listeners to create a spins
arian sonnet in our honor, and more than a few responded,
but Jacob's was the first. So here is Jacob's spins
Arian sonnet. Dear text stuff and stuff you should know
of request for sonnets. Not everyone forgets to Chris, John,
Josh or Chuck. These words should flow or anyone whom
(20:05):
this poem gets. I love the podcast for their humor
and wits, from bit Torrent to Einstein's brain, from listener
mail and corrections someone admits to make me laugh. You
all never refrain. In fact, you keep me from going insane.
All fans of stuff podcasts, you guys should impress from
all your episodes. There is knowledge to gain. How much
(20:26):
one can only guess a year of tech stuff, which
I adore, and from stuff you should know just a
little bit of time more ps tech stuff. I recommend
a Linux podcast. Well, Jacob, we've got all the next
podcast in the works for you. Uh, it's one of
those many others. Yes, there's actually quite a quite a
long list of topics that that is accumulating. You guys
(20:47):
are sending in requests faster than we can do podcasts,
which is awesome because we don't have to think about them.
But we've had a lot of requests for Linux, so
that will be coming in the near future. So keep
your ears peeled, I suppose or open yes, because you
would keep your eyes peeled. I don't even want to
think about that. What peeling your eyes or your ears either? Okay,
So if you have any requests or corrections or any
(21:09):
other comments, you can send those to our email address,
which is text stuff at how stuff works dot com.
And remember you can read all about printers and computers
and everything in between at how stuff works dot com
and we will talk to you again unless Chris has
something bad new pretty soon for moralness and thousands of
(21:31):
other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com and
be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog
now on the how Stuff Works homepage. Brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
you