| It wasn't very long after rapid prototyping first appeared that people began dreaming about the possibility of fabricating individualized consumer products with the technology. It will probably be many years yet before there is a wide-scale impact and the so-called "Santa Claus" machine comes to pass. After all, most consumer products actually have quite complex mechanical and material requirements, need good finishes and decoration, and on top of it all - must often be inexpensive. RP just isn't there yet.
However, that hasn't stopped a modest cadre of designers from experimenting. The possibility of consumers purchasing at least a few products directly made by RP is now imminent.
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(Photo courtesy of Freedom of Creation) |
One of the companies in the forefront of this movement is Freedom of Creation (FOC) of the Netherlands. Founders Jiri Evenhuis and Janne Kyttanen have worked on a wide range of items, including RP-generated fabric and customized lampshades. It's expected that the company's custom lighting abilities will be the first product area to be exploited. Materialise, a Belgian RP software producer and service bureau, recently made an investment in FOC, which should be helpful in getting the message out to the marketplace.
| FOC continues to test the limitations of materials. In the recent "Spin Off" Forum of the Imm Cologne International Furniture Fair, they introduced concepts for lightweight, strong and translucent furniture. Their stool, "Honey Bunns," shown, above, features a honeycomb-like architecture and was fabricated by stereolithography using material technology from DSM Somos®. WaterShedT resin from DSM was strong and rigid enough to permit direct fabrication of a usable item, the designers say. There were also challenges in the size of the data files and in building the product without any support structure, an important aspect of economical rapid manufacturing. The stool is 40 in high and weighs just 1 Kg.
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A chainmail pattern designed by FOC and made by EOS GmbH DMLS technology, with an enlarged detail.
The piece is about 7 x 7 cm.
(Photo courtesy of EOS GmbH) |
FOC is not the only company working on seating furniture. Vogt + Weizenegger, GmbH of Germany has developed the Sinterchair. As the name implies, this product is fabricated in polyamide resin on a selective laser sintering machine (SLS) and assembled from six individually fabricated parts. It also uses a honeycomb structure and the designers point out that it is very easy to scale up or down in size. Doll house models and children's chairs can be fabricated simply by scaling the data.
A new technology must fill a need better than an old one. It's through these experiments we'll learn where RP can shoehorn its way into existing markets to provide a starting point for future growth.
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