A new dimension recasts 3-D printing
the consumer models that have attracted hype in the last few years as they’ve become available at stores like Office Depot for as little at $1,250. The process has been used in manufacturing since at least the 1980s.
Cosine co-founders McCalip, 25, and Jason Miller, 30, want to change the way manufacturers can use the technology. They want to offer it more cheaply and make it more customizable with open
architecture coding.
Like many computer interfaces, many 3-D printers don’t allow the user to get inside and manipulate the technology, they explained. With Cosine Additive’s printers, buyers can add on their own technology, edit the original and use a broader range of materials. Other printers, they said, accept only materials made by the same manufacturer, much like the ink cartridges required for regular two-dimensional printers.
This will allow them to work with customers to find better materials, too, and incorporate metals or carbon fiber into plastic to make it both strong and lightweight. In industries like aerospace, the quest for lightweight strength is pinnacle.
“That’s why a lot of customers are interested in our machine, because they can customize the materials in-house,” McCalip said.
David Bourell, a University of Texas engineering professor, said most of the industrial-level machines he knows of process only one type of material.
“I think it’s a very important niche area,” he said.
The industry, he said, has taken off in the last several years. President Barack Obama has mentioned the technology in State of the Union addresses and made it a focus of manufacturing initiatives. High-end industrial models can go for several million dollars, but patents of early models are running out, making way for cheaper printers accessible to consumers.
“It’s been picked up by do-ityourselfers and hobbyists and expanding in the general public,” Bourell said. He suspects they may be common in homes, or as available as photo printers at drugstores, in 20 years or so.
Wolhers Associates, which publishes reports on the industry, estimated the market for additive manufacturing grew 35 percent in 2014, to $4.1 billion worldwide. Now public companies like Stratasys bring in more than $750 million in annual revenue selling printers and materials. Stratasys doubled its revenue last year. Military and medical
The technology is already widely used by the military and in aerospace and medical companies. Invisalign braces are formed using a 3-D-printed mold, and many dentists now produce crowns in their office using such machines. Bourell said the technology is most commonly used for prototyping, creating molds or making small complicated parts for a car or oil and gas equipment, for example. At 100 hours per print job, not all kayaks will be made in a printer, but the mold might.
For things like manufacturing cup holders and other automobile accessories, the technology can transform the process, McCalip said. Both he and Miller had side businesses making car parts to pay their way through college. Print and go
“There’s this whole huge amount of infrastructure that supports that one thing that you see,” he said, “and those things are changing all the time.”
With a 3-D printer, it’s just print a new model and go.
Eventually, Cosine Additive aims to have different models specialized for medical, aerospace and oil and gas businesses.
Boeing uses additive-manufactured parts on 10 military and commercial airplane models, a spokesman said. Contracted companies do the printing, which now is used only for parts that aren’t critical to staying in flight. Boeing also uses it for rapid prototyping.
The spokesman said the company is doing extensive research in metal and plastic printing and how to use 3-D printing more in lieu of traditional manufacturing.
This shift toward broadening the materials that can be used will soon make it more widespread, Texas A&Mengineering professor Alaa Elwany said.
“This has transitioned the technology from just being used on prototyping, to being used to produce the end product,” he