No Assembly Required: Multi-Material 3D printing

Posted By Jess Hedstrom on Jul 16, 2015 | 0 comments

As we move forward by integrating 3D printed electronics into 3D printed cases the question is raised: “Is there a printer that can do this task (and more) in one shot?”

Multi-material printing is a hot topic for the 3D printing industry in 2015, at CES this year there were companies showcasing electro-plastic filament for desktop 3D printers (scroll down to see the video). With this material you can print your own circuit board inside of your plastic casing; no assembly required.

In our previous article entitled: “Rapidprototypedshoe” you can see from a industrial 3d printing perspective there are ways to print with multi-materials in one go.

The Rapidprotopypedshoe article references the printer that was used for manufacturing the shoe and it was the Objet Connex500 3D Printer by Stratasyst, this is one of the most popular multi-material 3D printers because it has 140 material options ranging from rubber materials, transparent materials, rigid materials and mixtures of all of those plus more. Obviously a printer like this is not meant for the average consumer, you’re not going to walk into a friends garage and see one of these printers anytime soon. But it does answer the question, can it be done.

Applications in the medical industry…

In addition to the fashion industry, the medical industry also utilizes multi-material 3D printing for many purposes, to read more about it and to see a photo of the print check out this link. The print contains a transparent plastic, with multi-colored plastics inside. The multi-color and multi-material bio-models were created with Stratasys’ Objet500 Connex 3 multi-material 3D printer help surgeons uncover hidden tissues and blood vessels.

The applications of multi-material 3D printing are limitless, and we’d love to hear how you would use this technology. Please send us a comment and let us know by scrolling down to submit a comment. Thanks for reading!

Here is the video of the electro-plastic filament, enjoy: