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3D Printer - Any potential impact on the audio business?


Boxx

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They can take the plans for a plastic gun off the web but leave up plans on how to build a pressure cooker bomb?

When they figure out how to print with graphene, and they will, we should worry about the printing of real guns. Graphene is substantially stronger than steel and much lighter.

A hypothetical one-square-meter hammock made of graphene would be strong enough to support a four-kilogram cat (8.82 lbs.), according to Swedish physicist Per Delsing. The hammock itself, just one atom thick, would weigh roughly one milligramabout the same as one of the cats whiskers. The Warsaw Voice Online, November 2, 2010

Once they figure out how to make 3D bonding take place, you will have a material that is stronger than diamonds.

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They can take the plans for a plastic gun off the web but leave up plans on how to build a pressure cooker bomb?

When they figure out how to print with graphene, and they will, we should worry about the printing of real guns. Graphene is substantially stronger than steel and much lighter.

A hypothetical one-square-meter hammock made of graphene would be strong enough to support a four-kilogram cat (8.82 lbs.), according to Swedish physicist Per Delsing. The hammock itself, just one atom thick, would weigh roughly one milligram—about the same as one of the cat’s whiskers. The Warsaw Voice Online, November 2, 2010

Once they figure out how to make 3D bonding take place, you will have a material that is stronger than diamonds.

Seems like a lot of work to get a cat in a hammock.

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Months ago, I read/heard story of the medical field printing a substructure piece of bone, which then had bone cells placed on it to grow. Once it covered the piece, it was used to fill in a missing piece from a fracture. Perfect fit and healed well.

Bruce

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

I thought I'd resurrect this old thread as it is something I've been thinking alot about. Since it was started a few years ago, I know of two new hi end audio products that are 3D printed. First, the Mr.Speakers Alpha Dog headphones, based on the venerable Fostex T50RP drivers. They've received great reviews and I'm pretty certain cannot be made anyother way than 3D printing. The other is a VPI 3D printed tonearm, printed with some sort of epoxy. It still is really pricey for now, but one day this might be common in households. Can you imagine printing custom horns at home? With all the know how and experience on this forum, some sort of open sourced 3D printed horn could be an amazing project!

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Can you imagine printing custom horns at home? With all the know how and experience on this forum, some sort of open sourced 3D printed horn could be an amazing project!

 

Yes, I can.  However, the technology isn't yet there for horns of any size with polar control lower than about 2 kHz--especially when you consider cost.  When that size gets to be sufficient to control polars down to 500 Hz (and in non-waxy printed material that can be effectively bonded to stiffening material--like fiberglass--to minimize horn hall flexing), then 3D printing will be useful and perhaps revolutionary for horn-loaded loudspeakers.

 

Chris

Edited by Chris A
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In case you guys are wondering, we use stereo lithography (SLA) to 3D print horns, phase plugs, ports & flares, headphone housings, various fixtures, and even complete speaker assemblies. As an example, there is a full size 3D printed sound bar sitting right behind me at the moment, and a SLA'd bluetooth speaker (a prototype GiG) on my desk. The technology is invaluable for us, and we've been using it for many, many years now. :)

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We used SLA in defense (missile inlets/exhausts, missile structures, and UAV turbine engine inlets and exit nozzles, full body prototypes) since the mid-80s -70s but it's never been more than a prototyping tool, as the costs, lack of mechanical stiffness and strength, and size limitations of thicker sections are prohibitive. 

 

The newer 3-D printing technologies (going back perhaps 10-15 years or so) were brought into the marketplace because of cost and the promise of higher speeds.  Those limitations (cost, size) are still there.  If you are designing horns that are for headphones or are otherwise severely undersized for home hi-fi (like soundbars) to control their polars down to some more useful frequency than 1-2 kHz then I guess that 3-D printing can be useful for horn prototyping.

 

Personally, I'd make a mold from an assembly of 3-D printed parts and hand lay-up in fiberglass - not thermoplastics, since thermoplastics really aren't very rigid unless in very thick sections. 

 

You can also hog out horns from aluminum using a CNC mil/machining center, but that's also a bit more expensive than hand lay-up.

 

YMMV.

 

Chris

Edited by Chris A
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Whoever said you had to build the whole horn out of one piece? Why not break large items up into small parts, UV bond them together, and then sand, bondo and paint until smooth? ;)

 

We long ago figured out how to exploit the limitations of our machines (yes, there are 2) to grow pretty much whatever we want or need. :)

Edited by DaveWJr
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Our college computer club got this recently. You can only do a 6x6x6 piece at one time, but it's pretty cool. The home schooled son of on of the CS profs has been working with it and it's pretty amazing. I think he printed some pieces from a Blender file and from SketchUp.

 

http://cubify.com/en/cube

 

Bruce

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