#3D PRINTER IN THE LEARNING FACTORY LICENSE#

3D printed kidneys are now working perfectly and researchers are experimenting on accelerated growth to transplant organs very rapidly.Ģ004 was the year of the initiating of the RepRap Project which consists of a self-replicating 3D printer. In 2000, the millennium saw the first 3D printed kidney, but we would have to wait 13 more years to see it transplanted into a patient.

#3D PRINTER IN THE LEARNING FACTORY LICENSE#

ZCorp and binder jetting: Based on MIT’s inkjet printing technology, they created the Z402, which produced models using starch- and plaster‐based powder materials and a water‐based liquid binderĪrcam MCP technology and Selective Laser Melting.Īt the same time, we can see that more and more new CAD tools, allowing to create 3D models, are becoming available and developed, with, for example, the creation of Sanders Prototype (now known as Solidscape), one of the first actors to develop specific tools for additive manufacturing.Ĭharles Hull was awarded the European Inventor Award in the Non-European countries category, by the European Patent Office Price in 2014.ġ995: Z Corporation obtained an exclusive license from the MITġ999: Engineered organs bring new advances to medicine

From 1993 to 1999, the main actors of the 3D printing sector emerged with various techniques: In 1992, the Fused Deposition Modeling patent was issued to Stratasys, which developed many 3D printers for both professionals and individuals. Its industrial quality is today recognized worldwide in SLS technology (Selective Laser Sintering technology) for plastics and metals.

In Europe, EOS GmbH was founded and created the first EOS “Stereos” system for industrial prototyping and production applications of 3D printing. The main 3D printers manufacturers are emerging, new technologies are perfected, and 3D modeling tools start to be developed as well, bringing additive manufacturing to the next level. Now that the basics were established, the evolution of additive manufacturing is pretty fast. In less than ten years, the three main technologies of 3D printing were patented and 3D printing was born!ġ980: First patent by japanese Dr Kodama Rapid prototypingġ984: Stereolithography by French engineers then abandonedġ986: Stereolithography taken up by Charles Hullġ988: First SLS machine by DTM Inc then buy by 3D system filed a patent for Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM). In the meantime, Scott Crump, a co-founder of Stratasys Inc. In 1988, at the University of Texas, Carl Deckard brought a patent for the SLS technology, another 3D printing technique in which powder grains are fused together locally by a laser. If SLA was the first 3D printing technology developed, what about SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) and FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) back then?

He founded the 3D Systems Corporation and in 1988, released the SLA-1, their first commercial product. At the same time, Charles Hull was also interested in the technology and submitted a first patent for stereolithography (SLA) in 1986. If you want more information about these first experiences, check out our interview of Jean-Claude André. This 3D printing attempt was also using a stereolithography process. Unfortunately, he did not file the patent requirement before the deadline.Ī few years later, a French team of engineers, Alain Le Méhauté, Olivier de Witte and Jean-Claude André, was interested by the stereolithography but abandoned due to a lack of business perspective. He was the first to describe a layer by layer approach for manufacturing, creating an ancestor for SLA (or Stereolithography): a photosensitive resin was polymerized by an UV light. The first 3D printing attempts are granted to Dr Kodama for his development of a rapid prototyping technique. The concept of 3D printing has been imagined back in the 1970’s, but the first experiments are dated from 1981.

3d printer in the learning factory