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Andrea Goodell/Sentinel Staff
3-D printers can take digital models and create their real counterparts by layering plastic or another material. Jeff Mass, with Diverse Dimensions, demonstrated a small 3-D printer at a West Coast Chamber lunch Friday.
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What it is
3-D printers can take digital models and create their real counterparts by layering plastic or another material. Jeff Mass, with Diverse Dimensions, demonstrated a small 3-D printer at a West Coast Chamber lunch Friday.
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As Mass spoke, the small machine slid back and forth over a platform, leaving behind layers of pink plastic that eventually formed a bracelet with a slot for an iPod Nano.
The machine can handle only small projects — about 5 inches square.
“For testing something out, it works out pretty sweet,” Mass said. “Back in the day, somebody would have to hand-carve a prototype.”
Companies can print a small prototype for hundreds or thousands of dollars cheaper than a full-size model.
As an example, Mass used a laser to scan an exhaust pipe and create a 3-D CAD image.
Diverse Dimensions specializes in on-site analysis and reverse engineering and generates computer-assisted design from existing products and prototypes.
The Technology Education Design — or TED — lunch also included a video highlighting “makers,” i.e. innovators, those who make new products and technology.
Mass originally bought the device as a tool for his teenage daughters to understand the role of technology in business, he told the Friday afternoon crowd at Herrick District Library.
“It’s more of a hobby for me,” Mass said.
“It’s great for prototypes and great for low volumes,” said Rick Arnold with Broadview Product Development, a Zeeland company that uses 3-D printing on a much larger scale.
The next generation 3-D printers will be able to use multiple materials at once to create a product and will be even more accurate, Arnold said.
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