3D-printed cars.

[Mo0n3r]

There's also EBM (Electron Beam Melting)
As the name suggests, this technology uses an electron beam instead of a laser for supplying the required energy.

At this moment, SLM produces better quality parts over EBM
EBM is faster due to the fact that they don't have the delays caused by the inertia of the deflecting mirrors.

[wumpus]

[quote name='Nibb31']How exactly do you print bearings, copper coils and rare earth magnets?[/QUOTE]

[N.B. I never suggested printing electric motors, nor expect any printer being designed now to use such a method.]

The coils would presumably be constructed the way any other printed circuit board (or flexstrip*, which would make much more sense).
Presumably, at some point we will need pick and place machines on (super high end) 3d printers. Printing some of the bearing track, polishing some of the bearing track, adding the bearings, and then closing the bearing track might make sense [note: I am an EE. I have absolutely no idea how much a problem the unpolished part of the track would be. I fully understand it could kill the whole point of having a bearing. On a similar note, the idea of building a robotic arm capable of picking up a rare-earth magnet just boggles the mind (extra fields in your motors/servos. Noise as all your lines move through its B-field. How hard could it be?).

Can you "3d print" ceramics? After seeing a story about fusion reactors using high temperature super conductors** (values of high meaning liquid nitrogen), I was wondering if you could whip up a motor based on "doping" a chemically appropriate ceramic cylinder with lines of superconductors (much like a silicon chip is "doped"). My guess is that this can only be considered "printing" in the same way an Intel i7 is "printed" by Intel, but it would still be infinitely cool (or at least LN2 cool).

* Engineer has a problem connecting two boards/components. Engineer uses flexstrip. Engineer has two problems.
** [URL]http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/three-alternative-fusion-projects-that-are-making-progress[/URL]

[Guest]

[quote name='wumpus'][N.B. I never suggested printing electric motors, nor expect any printer being designed now to use such a method.]

The coils would presumably be constructed the way any other printed circuit board (or flexstrip*, which would make much more sense).
Presumably, at some point we will need pick and place machines on (super high end) 3d printers. Printing some of the bearing track, polishing some of the bearing track, adding the bearings, and then closing the bearing track might make sense [note: I am an EE. I have absolutely no idea how much a problem the unpolished part of the track would be. I fully understand it could kill the whole point of having a bearing. On a similar note, the idea of building a robotic arm capable of picking up a rare-earth magnet just boggles the mind (extra fields in your motors/servos. Noise as all your lines move through its B-field. How hard could it be?).

Can you "3d print" ceramics? After seeing a story about fusion reactors using high temperature super conductors** (values of high meaning liquid nitrogen), I was wondering if you could whip up a motor based on "doping" a chemically appropriate ceramic cylinder with lines of superconductors (much like a silicon chip is "doped"). My guess is that this can only be considered "printing" in the same way an Intel i7 is "printed" by Intel, but it would still be infinitely cool (or at least LN2 cool).

* Engineer has a problem connecting two boards/components. Engineer uses flexstrip. Engineer has two problems.
** [URL]http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/nuclear/three-alternative-fusion-projects-that-are-making-progress[/URL][/QUOTE]
It would likely be some sort of composite material.

[Aghanim]

[quote name='Red Iron Crown']You might find this interesting, building-scale 3d printing in concrete: [url]http://www.contourcrafting.org/[/url]

That said, I think that 3d printing is overrated and people assume it can do more than it can (I'd love to see the 3d-printed electric motor the OP refers to, afaik rare earth magnet printing is not a thing, nor can it wind wire). It has some interesting applications in rapid prototyping and low volume, customized production; but for the vast majority of goods more traditional methods are cheaper, faster, and of more consistent quality. Maybe someday when they are further developed we'll start seeing them in common consumer use (another appliance in every house?), but that is decades off IMO.[/QUOTE]

Induction motor armature is considerably simpler if you want to 3D print it, no pesky rare earth magnets necessary

[img]http://i.imgur.com/mz8ba3t.gif[/img]

But good luck have fun printing the wires and the power IGBTs necessary to drive it

[wumpus]

[quote name='Aghanim']I
But good luck have fun printing the wires and the power IGBTs necessary to drive it[/QUOTE]

But you would still needs IGBTs and wires for a brushless. And induction is typically preferred for cars anyway (I still think a large brushless in the rear and an induction up front makes more sense).

[Nuke]

since i got my 3d printer ive come to the conclusion that it is both better and easier (and sometimes in my case neccisary, with a 4x8x5 build area on my upgraded printrbot play) to break the design into modular parts for a large number of reasons. as seductive as a 'one solid piece' print sounds, i do not even remotely see it as practical. many machines and devices fail because of one tiny part failure. for example where a 2 cent capacitor going bad disables your $1000 screen (ive fixed so many of those). so its nice when you can swap out a broken part with a working one. obviously if your entire vehicle is going to be one solid piece for the most part, then when a small part of that whole goes bad there is no way (other than a lot of ugly dremel work and friction stir welding) to do a swap.

besides in a car many of the moving parts will need to be their own prints. you are going to need low friction joints, fortunately it is very easy to get some bearings and print tight friction fits for them. screw holes are also very easy to add to a print. i have certainly made good use out of my boxes of salvage screws from broken devices. adding things like captive nuts and tapped brass inserts for machine screws is fairly straightforward (one simple technique involves pushing them in with a temp controlled soldering iron regulated to the melt temp of the plastic). i think another awesome technique is to integrate simple stock materials to your prints or use the print as a skeleton for fiber-resin reinforcement (i want to use this technique for r/c aircraft wings). you can also in some cases use prints as positive molds for metal parts, some have even adapted their printers for paraffin wax for simple investment casting. lots of cool things you can do to complement the 3d printing technology in a way that goes far beyond what it alone is capable of. Edited November 25, 2015 by Nuke

[Camacha]

[quote name='wumpus']Can you "3d print" ceramics?[/QUOTE]

Yes, you can,though probably it is not what you mean.

[IMG]http://oliviervanherpt.com/img/3d-print-ceramic-knitted.jpg[/IMG]

[quote name='Nuke']many machines and devices fail because of one tiny part failure. for example where a 2 cent capacitor going bad disables your $1000 screen (ive fixed so many of those). so its nice when you can swap out a broken part with a working one. obviously if your entire vehicle is going to be one solid piece for the most part, then when a small part of that whole goes bad there is no way (other than a lot of ugly dremel work and friction stir welding) to do a swap. [/QUOTE]

Printing in one go does not mean necessarily you give up the ability to swap parts. You can print many things in one go, that are still detachable afterwards. Case in point: you can print this entire mechanism in one go (except for the 'tires'). Jiggle the powder from between the joints and even full on bearings and everything works as expected. Of course, designing something that just works is a lot easier than designing something that is easy to maintain, so expect people to take shortcuts and leave the maintainability in a less than ideal state.

[IMG]http://woordup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/toy-car-by-wouter-scheublin-3.jpg[/IMG]