Scientists make working speaker in a 3D printer
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| Scientists have managed to 3D print a working loudspeaker, seamlessly integrating plastic, conductive and magnetic parts. The achievement is huge when it comes to the future of 3D printing as a whole. Graduate student Apoorva Kiran holds a 3-D printed, fully functional loudspeaker. |
It�s an achievement that 3D printing evangelists feel will soon be the norm; rather than assembling consumer products from parts and components, complete functioning products could be fabricated at once, on demand.
The loudspeaker is a project led by Apoorva Kiran and Robert Mac- Curdy, graduate students in mechanical engineering, who work with Hod Lipson, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and a leading 3D printing innovator.
�Everything is 3D printed,� said Kiran, as he launched a demo by connecting the newly printed mini speaker to amplifier wires.
Aloudspeaker is a relatively simple object, Kiran said: It consists of plastic for the housing, a conductive coil and a magnet. The challenge is coming up with a design and the exact materials that can be co-fabricated into a functional shape.
Lipson said he hopes this simple demonstration is just the �tip of the iceberg.� 3D printing technology could be moving from printing passive parts toward printing active, integrated systems, he said.
But it will be a while before consumers are printing electronics at home, Lipson continued. Most printers cannot efficiently handle multiple materials. It�s also difficult to find mutually compatible materials � for example, conductive copper and plastic coming out of the same printer require different temperatures and curing times. For the conductor, Kiran used a silver ink.
For the magnet, he employed the help of Samanvaya Srivastava, graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering, to come up with a viscous blend of strontium ferrite. It�s not the first time a consumer electronic device was printed in Lipson�s lab.
Back in 2009, Malone and former lab member Matthew Alonso printed a working replica of the Vail Register, the famous antique telegraph receiver and recorder that Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail used to send the first Morse code telegraph in 1844.
Creating a market for printed electronic devices, Lipson said, could be like introducing color printers after only black and white had existed. �It opens up a whole new space that makes the old look primitive,�
Printing electronics isnt just an idea for the future. Scientists have managed to 3D print a working loudspeaker, seamlessly integrating plastic, conductive and magnetic parts. The achievement is huge when it comes to the future of 3D printing as a whole.
That said, a loudspeaker is a relatively simple object. It consists of plastic for the housing, a conductive coil and a magnet. The true challenge, though, is come up with a design and the exact materials that can be printed into a functional state. In this case, the researchers used a Fab@Homes printer, a customizable research printer that allows scientists to tinker with different cartridges, control software and other parameters. They used silver ink for the conductor and used a viscous blend of strontium ferrite for the magnet. In the end, they created a speaker that they could connect to amplifier wires and which worked perfectly.
Thats not to say that this is the very first time that a consumer electronic device has been printed. In 2009, the researchers managed to print a working replica of the Vail Register, the famous antique telegraph receiver and recorder that was used to send the first Morse code telegraph. This particular project was printed on a research fabber, a predecessor to the Fab@Home.
Of course, it will be quite some time before theres a market for printed electronic devices. Yet this latest effort shows that it is indeed possible--at least with a simple object like a speaker. In fact, a market for printed electronic devices could be like introducing color printers after only black and white have existed.
"It opens up a whole new space that makes the old look primitive," said Lipson, one of the researchers, in a news release.
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