3D Printing News, September 23, 2023 – Research Awards, Dental Veneers & More! – 3DPrint.com

In 3D Printing News Briefs, technologies developed by ORNL researchers won six R&D research awards, Rolls-Royce delivered its first of four Coach-built Droptail models with 3D printed elements, and Boston Micro Fabrication will market the thinnest cosmetic dental veneer. An electronics engineer built a Rube-Goldberg-inspired marble run using 200 3D-printed parts and an old gin glass. Finally, there’s a new handheld gaming PC that you can 3D print and build at home, and a model kit artist on YouTube 3D printed the ‘hover bike’ design from “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” video game.

Technologies by ORNL Researchers Receive Six R&D 100 Awards

Researchers pictured here at the DOE Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL developed the R&D 100 Award-winning hybrid additive manufacturing-compression molding, or AM-CM, technology. Credit: ORNL and US Dept. Energy

Technologies developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) researchers have won six 2023 R&D 100 Awards from R&D World magazine. These awards have been given for 60 years to recognize science and technology development that results in new products, technologies, and commercial products that are available for purchase or licensing. The DOE Office of Science provided funding for three of the projects: “Additively Manufactured Thermally Conductive Collimators for Neutron Instrumentation,” developed by ORNL and PolarOnyx; “Physics-Informed, Active Learning–Driven Autonomous Microscopy for Science Discovery,” developed by ORNL and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and “SuperNeuro: An Accelerated Neuromorphic Computing Simulator,” developed by ORNL. Another winner was “Precise, Continuous, & High-Speed Manufacturing of Thermoplastic Composites Using Additive Manufacturing-Compression Molding, AM-CM,” developed by ORNL with funding from DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO). “OpeN-AM: A Platform for Operando Neutron Diffraction Measurements of Additive Manufacturing,” developed by ORNL, also won, and received funding from DOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development, Digital Metallurgy Initiative. ORNL also supported the development CANDLE (CANcer Distributed Learning Environment), a collaboration between various DOE laboratories and Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research.

“ORNL strives to deliver technological solutions for the nation’s toughest problems. This year’s R&D 100 Awards are a reminder of how hard our scientists and engineers work to accomplish that feat,” said Jeff Smith, Interim Director of ORNL.

The first Rolls-Royce Coach-built Droptail Model with 3D-printed Features

Rolls-Royce La Rose Noire Droptail. Credit: Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce presented its first Droptail custom coach-built at an automotive event in Pebble Beach. Only three of the two-seater convertibles will be produced, and each one is priced at over $33 million Canadian dollars. Each of the Droptails will also be unique, as owners pay for a high level of customization; for instance, this first one is named La Rose Noire, in honor of the Black Baccara, which is the commissioning family’s favorite flower. The flower is also the basis of the car’s design, with “petals” represented by red veneer triangles embedded within the black woodwork extending from the instrument panel to the rear deck. La Rose Noire’s body is painted a special shade called True Love of metallic red. Accents such as the hood, wheels and removable roof have been painted a darker color called Mystery.

Once again, Rolls-Royce turned to 3D printing to create some of the Droptail’s customized features. The car’s lower intake manifold was 3D-printed out of composite material. It was then augmented by over 200 stainless steel ingots painted in True Love. The twin-turbocharged 6,75-liter V-12 engine is behind the intake, and there’s also a champagne chest in the car made specifically for the owner’s own vintage of Champagne de Lossy. Finally, an exclusive watch, commissioned by the owner’s family from Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet, adorns the dashboard, secured by a motorized holder. It can be worn by the owner and, once removed, can be replaced with a titanium blank engraved with the Black Baccara.

Boston Micro Fabrication Enters Dental Market With UltraThineer

Microscale 3D printing solutions provider Boston Micro Fabrication (BMF) develops applications where its highly-precise projection micro stereolithography (PµSL) technology can reduce cost and production time, and is launching UltraThineer, which it calls the world’s thinnest cosmetic dental veneer. Veneers require a lot more preparation of the existing teeth. This is invasive, uncomfortable and irreversible. Developed in collaboration with Peking University, these new durable veneers are only 100 µm thick, which is three times thinner than traditional ones, and dental professionals need much less preparation with them, which allows for preservation of the patient’s enamel. The ability of 3D printing to provide custom solutions on-demand is used in many dental applications. UltraThineer’s veneers are the latest. They feature a production process, advanced zirconia materials, and the finishing processes necessary to create more comforting, less invasive, veneers.

“The ability to print ceramics at minimal thickness will be revolutionary. Our current processes can be labor intensive when compared with milled, zirconia full coverage crowns. Conservative reduction of the patient’s enamel should be practiced whenever possible,” said Jessica Love from Capture Dental Arts, a leading U.S. provider of cosmetic dental service. “I’m looking forward to the start of this new technology, allowing intricate, ultra-thin veneers to be printed. BMF’s advancements and innovation will continue to push the boundaries of dentistry and inspire innovation worldwide.”

UltraThineer Veneers should be available to the U.S. market by spring 2024, following a review by FDA.

Rube Goldberg Inspired 3D Printed Marble Run kinetic sculpture

This kinetic sculpture is almost entirely 3D printed, and serves as a homage to the creator’s favorite gin.

David McDaid, an electronics engineer, was inspired by Rube Goldberg’s machines when he created a 3D-printed marble run kinetic statue. It also pays tribute to his favorite gin from the Isle of Harris Distillery. He designed the 2D Marble Run in Fusion 360 with the idea of creating an item of kinetic artwork that could be mounted in a box frame on the wall. It features around 200 individual 3D printed parts, including the lightweight links of a roller chain that brings the marble back to the top after it completes a run, which he called “an absolute pain.” The marble run uses about 250 screws, nuts, and washers, and the empty gin bottle forms part of the structure’s driving mechanism. There’s also a Trinamic TMC2208 stepper motor driver connected to a NEMA17 stepper motor for reducing the noise, and several LEDs, and the whole thing is driven by an Elegoo Nano V3.0 Arduino-compatible microcontroller board and some custom PCBs. McDaid took about three months to complete the project.

“There’s only so much testing you can do within a CAD environment, which meant there was a lot of “print, test, repeat” required for each individual component for this build. Revisions ranged from a version one working first try, right up to a version 15 for some non-cooperative parts,” he wrote. “The total amount of filament used during development was around ~2.5kg [around 5.5lbs]. The total amount required for the build is only 0.66kg [around 1.5lbs].”

3D Printable NucDeck Handheld Gaming PC

Dan McKenzie, a maker from the UK, created the NucDeck – a handheld gaming computer that you can build yourself at home using 3D printing. It features a 7″ touchscreen display, gyroscopic aiming, analog triggers, RGB joystick surrounds, a battery/controller information screen, and a 4s 3,000mAh Li-ion battery. Combine all of that with a 7th Generation Intel Core-i5-7260U, 16GB DDR4-2133RAM, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 custom PCBs and a 3D Printed Housing, and you’ll be able to make your own NucDeck. McKenzie designed two versions of the housing. The standard version has RGB joystick surrounds while the NoRGB version does not. This is to make 3D printing easier. He also notes in GitHub that the PCBs and software are incomplete, so you should take this project on “at your own risk!”

“There are two different versions of the buttons, membrane and clicky. The Membrane buttons are shorter and are designed to be used with silicone membranes,” McKenzie wrote on GitHub. “I’ve included files for molds to make the membranes. I would encourage anyone with a resin printer to try this as it dramatically improves the feel of buttons. FDM printers struggle to achieve the accuracy necessary to make these parts. The clicky version is slightly taller and can be used without the membranes.”

3D Printed Zelda Hover Bike

A few months ago, “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” video game, also known as “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2,” was released for Nintendo Switch, and it’s just as popular as you’d expect. Fans are either playing it or paying tribute to it. In one example, a model kit artist from Hong Kong known as ‘qshyj‘ on YouTube turned to 3D printing and an airbrush to recreate the popular hover bike design from the game. It’s one of the top transportation modes in the game because it’s easy to put together: you only need two fans and a stick to switch from riding a horse in the game to riding a hover bike.

From the video, it appears that qshyj used a Creality HALOT-MAGE PRO resin 3D printer to print all the parts for the hover bike, which she designed so they’d all fit in one build. The supports were easy to remove. After that, the parts were UV-cured and sanded. Finally, she used an airbrush to paint the hover bike. All the smaller details were painted with paintbrushes or nozzles. Everything was then glued together, or snapped in place. It was a lot of work and took a long time, but the result was worth it. While it’s definitely not a full-sized vehicle, the handheld replica itself is stunning and lifelike—even featuring the Ultrahand’s “sticky substance” that’s used to connect the devices of the Zonai in the land of Hyrule.