3d printers... The endless possibilities :)

[blenny]

http://www.shapeways.com/model/790723/the-even-littler-mermaid.html?li=productBox-search

I'm just fascinated with how these things will change the world. And they are becoming cheep too, imagine the artistic creations that anyone can make all off their own PC at home.

Look at the 360 view, this guy scanned his daughter with an Xbox kinect then made a manipulation and then made this cool figurine.

I can't wait to get one of these. A decent one runs from $1500-4000.

I doubt the the materials are available yet, but imagine being able to scan yourself and make the perfect fitting tail and perfect creative design of a tail.

[Mizuko]

I work with engineers and they say you can get the materials to make a 3D printer for around $100 and make it yourself! :D Its incredible! And then from making the machine, you can actually print out parts to make ANOTHER 3D printer, and so on and so forth. haha!
They're already using them in medical science, by building tendons and organs using layers of cells. Imagine making a REAL tail? XD

[blenny]

So printed organs, printed new limbs. All made from maybe your own cloned cells or something. Imagine if the technology could make a real limb that was of your own DNA and the body wouldn't reject it.

If real limb replacement at some point became a proven fool proof technology. Imagine people could become mermaids/mermen for a vacation or short period of time then change back.

People could take a mermaid vacation for 2 weeks then get back to work. Professional mermaids could stay a mermaid for years...

[MerMarla]

It sure would make life easier to print a 3D design of your tails' scale pattern and have the mold printed for you! As far as I know, the printers don't use platinum cure silicone. But using it for hard gears, all kinds of tiny parts, molds, medical replacement limbs and joints, the ideas are endless! Maybe there is a polymer that could be used to make the fluke! It's awesome the things that can be made... and the criminals are right there too, already on YouTube are ways to make guns and knives, and all sorts of weapons. Sad to take such an ingenious invention and have it abused that way!

Hubby has been talking about these printers for a long time, and I'm sure as soon as the price comes down he will get one! What fun!

[Nate Walis]

There's the germ of a story in there somewhere...

[AptaMer]

Make your own custom monofin?

[spottedcatfish]

So printed organs, printed new limbs. All made from maybe your own cloned cells or something. Imagine if the technology could make a real limb that was of your own DNA and the body wouldn't reject it.

If real limb replacement at some point became a proven fool proof technology. Imagine people could become mermaids/mermen for a vacation or short period of time then change back.

People could take a mermaid vacation for 2 weeks then get back to work. Professional mermaids could stay a mermaid for years...

Sooo Cool!!!

[Nate Walis]

I now have a mental image of a woman being sliced neatly in half by an industrial laser and then fed into a printer to replace her lower portion with a tail!

[Alveric]

Hmm...You'd need some way of reconnecting the spinal cord.

[Nate Walis]

Hmm...You'd need some way of reconnecting the spinal cord.

Ah, that's small potatoes if you can actually print off limbs and organs!

[blenny]

That might be a big potato, nerves once severed rarely grow back. But I'm guessing with an MRI you could scan that exact structure, then reprint it. Humans have proved they can eventually solve any problem.

[Nate Walis]

That might be a big potato, nerves once severed rarely grow back. But I'm guessing with an MRI you could scan that exact structure, then reprint it. Humans have proved they can eventually solve any problem.

My thoughts exactly, if we've reached the stage of even considering the act of exchanging a person's lower half for a fishtail, then the necessity is there to reattach the spine anyway, so one could not really be contemplated if the other were not already at least possible.

[Echidna]

There was an article today about this.
Experts predict it will change the world as did PCs, and reading on about it, I well believe it.

So far, the printed material seems to be restricted to plastic.
Now, if it were possible to do silicone...all you needed were to download the design you liked for a tail, modify it with your measurements, print it, paint it- voilà, incredibly cheap custom made tail!! :D

This would be so AWESOME.

As for real limbs made from your own cells- eh, not so much.
Except maybe in specialized clinics and such, where the cell material could be grown.
Fascinating what the future might hold, though!

And guess what's the first thing that really got press regarding this?

A weapon-crazy dude who worked night and day to print a gun that could "successfully" kill someone.
He named that thing "liberator" and is proud as heck of it...
if I hadn't despaired on humanity a long time ago, this would have been a suitable moment to :rolleyes:

[Mermaid Varshana]

A surprising number of advances in technology have developed out of humanity's baffling yet still preponderant desire to kill one another.

[Mermaid Dottie]

That is so silly. Why would anyone want to make something destructive, when there are so many cooler uses for something like that? If you watch Star Trek at all, you've seen their replicators. They use them to make medicines, food, clothing, replacement parts for their ships.... Why on earth would you want to make a gun, when you could do so many more awesome things with it?! Imagine being able to make enough enough shoes to cover the feet of every child on the planet. Blankets. Learning tools. SEEDS FOR CROPS. Seriously.
A gun?

[Nate Walis]

That is so silly. Why would anyone want to make something destructive, when there are so many cooler uses for something like that? If you watch Star Trek at all, you've seen their replicators. They use them to make medicines, food, clothing, replacement parts for their ships.... Why on earth would you want to make a gun, when you could do so many more awesome things with it?! Imagine being able to make enough enough shoes to cover the feet of every child on the planet. Blankets. Learning tools. SEEDS FOR CROPS. Seriously.
A gun?

Some people in the US seem to think that the only thing that matters is their own easy access to a gun, rather than the number of starving and endangered people the world over.

[Mermaidmechanic]

But then there are also the extreme "tree hugger" type out here in the U.S that would rather spend all our resources helping other countries before fixing the problems that lie in our own. The U.S is a balance between gun slingers and tree huggers with many people in between. It's only that the media enjoys covering the crazies because normal people are not news.

[Ponytales]

The gun control fight isn't really about guns though. Its that the government is attacking a real problem in a totally wrong way, while simultaneously doing all kinds of shady business that makes their real goal suspect. Making more types of guns/ammo illegal isn't going to stop people who already buy guns illegally. It won't stop crazy people from doing harm en masse either, because they can easily make something even more destructive from household goods (the Boston tragedy proves that). All it accomplishes is make it look like the government is doing something productive (example: a lot of the 'new' gun control laws have been on the books for years). And removing something that was included in the Constitution to ensure we can overthrow an unjust government is not making them look great either. What they should be doing is focusing more on actual public safety and mental health reform. America is just way too preoccupied with public image. Like a teenage girl starving herself to look pretty, ruining our insides to make the other countries think we're great.


Er, to bring this back on topic, my bf is looking into working through Shapeways (or possibly buying a home printer) for some custom kit parts. He's got a decent amount of experience working on 3d modeling and wants to make a few metal accessories for the dolls we collect. I might try to talk him into some mermaid themed accessories. Might take advantage of Shapeways and their metal printing to do some nice gold seashells or something. There was a pretty neat ship-in-a-bottle necklace on there when I last looked.

[Echidna]

Thought I'd resurrect this, as there was another article on a dog without forelegs, its owner printed legs and now it can run :)

Any tailmaker out there willing to give this a try?
If anything but plastics can be used, of course.

A tail that's a hardened shell won't be much use :p
but maybe a monofin?
*nudge nudge*

[Miyu]

Ooh, that's actually a great idea - we've all seen a lot of designs for experimental monofins, but I haven't seen many of them produced - likely because of an issue of being a pain to manufacture traditionally. I wonder if 3-D printers are set up to handle monofin plastics like PP? Or anything stronger for ocean swimming?

[AptaMer]

Just thought I'd mention that there are 3D printers that print in metal.

They're very expensive, though. Only the ones that print in plastic are affordable enough to buy for personal use.

There's a cool place here in Toronto now that has 3D printers set up that you can come in and use, kind of organized like a cooperative. http://site3.ca/classes

Also- this is very cool IMO, they have a laser cutter, and you can make all kinds of intricate cuts and etchings on materials like plastic, rubber and metal!

Some of the more creative mer manufacturers might be able to use laser cutters to make some very beautiful mer accessories?

[Mermaid Wesley]

Now don't forget that you could 3d print the MOLD for the stuff, or instead of sculpting, 3d print your original.


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[SweeteSiren]

Someone's already beat us to the punch: http://3dprint.com/22221/elle-swimming-prosthetic/
26087

[Echidna]

That's pretty cool!

I wonder what the adamant fin-naysayers at pools will do if someone with such a prosthetic shows up for a swim :p

[Raayvhen]

I think I saw a kickstarter for an attachment for silicone printing.

[selkie13]

The LARP community must love the 3D printer.
And think about artefacts and other fragile old stuff, they could be replicated so we don't loose them to time and decay! Imagine the sphinx with a nose ;P

[HamptonsMermaid]

I think I saw a kickstarter for an attachment for silicone printing.

I noticed it's been over a year since someone mentioned this kickstarted, but I was looking into 3D printing and it seems that this product, the Discov3ry Extruder (http://www.structur3d.io/discov3ry/) is now on the market and you can order it for $399 (website says lead time of shipment is currently 8-12 weeks)

"The Discov3ry is an affordable paste extruder that can easily be added to almost any existing 3D printer. It will expand the range of materials beyond molten plastic, to include a wide range of pastes. The Discov3ry will work with almost any desktop 3D printer system that uses fused deposition modelling (FDM). That is, if your printer uses plastic filament, it is almost certainly compatible with the Discov3ry."

It can print silicone (likely will work with dragonskin) and even prints edibles (one of the kickstarter rewards was a photo of you in nutella!)

Silicone Shoe Insole:
35603

Silicone iPhone Case:
35604

Here's a review I found on Amazon:
"I love my Discov3ry and have for a long time. I was one of the beta backers for the Kickstarter campaign that launched the product. From the very first units this product has delivered on its promises. I work with kids in a mobile science and technology lab teaching STEM based projects and demoing this is always a huge hit. Printing in edible pastes and experimenting with new materials (like Glitter Glue!) gets the kids excited about the future even when 3D printing is becoming passe. Working with materials like silicone gets me excited about my maker projects (both personal and professional) and shopping for "filament" at the hardware store is great for my budget."

Soooooo... I think the ideal use of this technology as applied to mermaiding would be to 3D print individual scales. Printing a whole tail would probably be possible as well, but I'm guessing the size of a tail would be an additional obstacle to overcome. To easily print hundreds of individual scales would greatly minimize the time investment in making the most realistic of tails. Flukes and fins might be a size that can be printed as well. Main thing I see that would need to be worked out would be printing in a way that doesn't leave an undesirable crosshatched pattern on the surface. The shoe orthotic pictured above seems like it's printed using curved lines, which looks more realistic for scales and flukes. But I'm not sure how you could get a completely smooth surface texture?

This company (http://www.3ders.org/articles/20131108-the-future-of-prosthetics-3d-printed-nose-ear-and-eye.html) (using their own printers) is already 3D printing prosthetics eyes, noses and faces for trauma victims with amazing quality! I don't think you can buy his technology for home use, but it shows that it can be done!
35605

What are your thoughts? I don't have a 3D printer myself but my brother is in an engineering program in college and I'm wondering if I he could use the school's printers to help me with a little mermaid project ;)

[Mermaid Jaffa]

You can use a 3D printer to cut a thick solid sheet of rubber to create you own monofin???

That would be so cool. Imagine having an arsenal of monofins that you can use based on your moods...:lol:

Scary fin today or classical fish fluke?

[merstorm]

wow to create a tail with this nice idea :D

[Mermaid Jaffa]

When 3D printers start using rubber as the source material, I'll be the first one in the queue!

[MermanOliver]

Well, technically it shouldn't be a problem. Actually there are rubber-like materials already printable. They are most of the time a kind of thermoplastic elastomer (ok, that's Nerd for "rubber that melts when heated instead of burning up" ;) ), and that's probably too stiff for tails, but flexible enough for accessories.
Another possible solution would be actually printing silicone. As that is a two-component material and more or less paste-like it should be printable by paste extruders already existing. Maybe something like two big syringes with a mixing tube, mounted instead of the heated filament extruder on ordinary printers. :thinks:
Then you only need to make sure the silicone cures fast enough and that it doesn't sag under it's own weight. Dragonskin 10 Fast cure, maybe with a small heated fan, could work maybe. And with a dual head (i.e. two extruders on one print head, like the colors in an inkjet printer) one could even print support structures to counter the sagging.
Well, I guess I lost most of you up until now, but that was my inner Nerd speaking. Couldn't help it ;)
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[HamptonsMermaid]

If you look at my post a couple posts up I described what I found out about the 3D printer attachment that is now on the market and prints silicone. I'm wondering about printing individual scales to make a tail... Should be totally doable. There's even 3D printers at the public library that anyone can use. You would just have to buy the attachment for $300.

[MermanOliver]

Sorry, missed that post completely. :blush:
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