imagine a machine that is capable of turningyour ideas into reality. a technology capable of intricate details; details that would requirean array of tools, and heavy machinery if done via conventional methods. what if youcan access or even own such a technology today?
cool ideas for 3d printing, printing once bound in the 2d plane, breaks throughthe 3rd dimension adding depth to the future of manufacturing as we know it. it soundslike something that came out of a science fiction story, but the technology is veryreal, and it's already available here in the philippines.
this is tangible ideas. the invention of 3d printing was patented20 years ago, and it was really expensive, and is really more catered towards industrialapplications like prototyping for manufacturing. the machines cost anywhere from 100,000.00us dollars, up. but now when the patent expired, open-source became public domain and theneveryone --the hobbyist-- created their own versions using the idea that was patentedbefore and then now you have makerbot, you have up 3d printers, you have all these other,you know, all these printers that are plastic fused based type, because the patent expired.so now the bots they used to cost tens of thousands of dollars now it's going down tolike two hundred, three hundred dollars, do
it yourself, up to somewhere between one thousandto two thousand for the consumer type, so actually anyone within the year can just buya machine like an inkjet printer. so the simplest way to introduce 3d printingis imagining a hot glue gun extruding glue. but this technology extrudes on a horizontalplane, and then layer-by-layer, it prints out an image you drew in your computer. nowinstead of the glue coming out, what comes out is hot molten plastic. when it solidifies,is solid siya na plastic. right now what i'm using is abs (acrylonitrilebutadiene styrene) plastic and the closest thing that i can tell you is, lego bricksare abs plastic. so when i print them, they're actually quite sturdy. so i've done it onusing materials for gopro equipment. so nalalaglag
to, nababasa, naiinitan, they're actuallyquite robust, yung material ng abs. they come in a reel like this. it's almostlike a wire or a fishing line. so there are different materials, the most popular areagain abs and pla (polylactic acid) and there are exotic materials such as wood, they injectwood filaments in here, rubberized, nylon, poly carbonates, pet (polyethylene terephthalate)which is the stuff you find in drinking water bottles, they're experimenting with so manyfilaments these days, but 90% of the general public use abs and pla. the advantages of 3d printing actually isin prototyping. so you don't need to create the tooling, like let's say you're makinga cellphone case which is plastic. now to
make that plastic case is you need a steelor alluminium mold that you need to cnc (computer numerical control). now instead of going thatroute, you can make the part right away, and then using 3d printing, and then check forclearances, yung mga issues with the design, the prototyping phase is napapabilis ng 3dprinting. so before to make the tooling and then making the part would take about probablytwo weeks, now you can do it in one to two days. so that's the biggest advantage of 3dprinting in manufacturing. creative industries are already affected.over ten years. it was started in hollywood because they have the budget in terms of movies. they've been printing props, cellphones, and everything you can think of in terms of creative.
all these stuff that you see here, it's all 3d printed. everything you see they just...it's part of the process now. car manufacturing they don't sculpt clay anymore; they print, they print their own parts. so sa philippines actually there's a handfulof people that make their own 3d printers and there are also those who distribute. sowe have distributors distributing printers from china, from the states, from taiwan,from singapore, wherever, to make their own printers and it's not very mainstream yet, and it's unlike other countries kasi na mainstream
na siya ngayon, sa atin hindi pa, and hopefullyin the coming years, mag pick-up naman yung users ng 3d printers dito sa pilipinas. don't be afraid to get into the craft. ifyou're really into it, because you will learn. and then when the new technology comes, you'realready skilled, especially for guys in school. right? you learn these stuff because everysingle company, i guarantee you: medical, aeronautics, arts and craft, will have a 3dprinter, and you will have a job and if you are good, you know, i offer you a job i haveseven printers and i want people to run my bots
towards perfection. for people like me that really like to makethings, and design, and create things, the 3d printer is a major tool that will helpan engineer, a designer, an architect, create the things that he wants. and the good thingabout it is konti-konti na siyang nagiging consumer based, so anyone sooner or later,will be able to use a 3d printer and it's quite fun to follow this technology becauseit's really going to change how we get things how we create things and how we order things actually. so right now maybe for the kids, for the high school, grade school now, i think you should start learning how to draw
in your computer. actually there are a few softwarethat you can use that is free. so google has one, autodesk has one, solidworks has one, that you can download for free. you can learn how to draw and they have tutorials as well so it's really open source and they want people to jump in and start drawing. so i think you know, the state of 3d printing is as big as the internet or even bigger than the internet because um... it's like a microwaveoven: every house should have one.
just about every industry will move towardsthe future with 3d printing as the pivotal
stepping stone and knowing this, the questionremains: will the philippines be left out or will they ride the 3d printed bandwagon.
