3D Printing News Unpeeled: Open Source Bambu Labs, Quadrupoles, Carbon Fiber

Researchers at MIT have developed 3D printed quadrupoles. These devices are usually complex and expensive to manufacture out of stainless steel. The team 3D printed them on a Bison 1000 DLP printer by Tethon3D and used Universal Vitrolite resin. Optimized design and the electroplated parts made for a working mass spectrometer quadruple that could democratize mass spectrometry. The paper is open access, and was made by Colin C. Eckhoff,  Nicholas K. Lubinsky, Luke J. Metzler and others.

A 1.1 million Euro European research project is to look at the automating depowdering and sorting of powder bed fusion parts. The bin sorting software firm Scape Technologies, Danish Technological Institute and AMT will work on the project. 

Berlin-based Endless Industries has developed a print head that can let existing 3D printers print continuous fiber. It’s also launching a software solution that lets you define and place fiber. The company hopes to work with OEMs to have them equip their 3D printers with their head, software and material. This is the wrong path to market and will lead to delays as we have seen many times in 3D printing. Adding them as an aftermarket accessory or making their own system would work much quicker. But, this could be a nice way to democratize 3D printing carbon fiber. 

Velo3D has sold a Sapphire system to Kratos SRE, which works on extreme environmental engineering for rockets, space, hypersonics and the like. The firm is a large innovation house and systems integrator that wants to make more parts quicker in house. 

Bambu Labs has shaken up the desktop 3D printing scene by making a super fast and reliable 3D printer. There have been issues with the 3D printer phoning home and sharing STLs with their software solution. Therefore, groups such as X1Plus have been trying to jailbreak the Bambu Labs 3D printers. Rather than play an endless game of whack a mole which the likes of Sony and Apple have lost, the company is letting users install other firmware on the systems. This seems sensible and could let more people use the systems for manufacturing, but they will permanently lose their warranty and support.