Bowlangar Launches 3D Printing Service Parts for Household Appliances

Home appliance chain Boulanger opens the doors of its platform Happy 3D, a community site to look for models of spare parts for printing in 3D to repair household appliances.

On the site, you can download and just over 100 models of different rooms in license CC-BY-NC-SA. An open source license that allows users to edit and reshape downloaded models from the platform Happy 3D , but prevents them from making commercial use of the models.

For now, the catalog consists of one hundred pieces from the stove button below flat through the accessory for Selfie stick. But the idea makes sense to fight against planned obsolescence of many devices that must change because of a single piece.

The catalog is still relatively light but provides a good basis which could be enriched if Baker manages to convince the various manufacturers of electrical products sold in its store's share components on its platform.

Pending a more comprehensive offering, Baker offers a community space to promote exchanges between users and the opportunity to place its offers and its partners on the site. This offers and users to be contacted by a 3D printer owners, as well as training to offer the use of their printers via BDOM partner.

If Baker succeeds his bet and managed to bring together a large enough community service could get interesting. Following the end of patent weighing on 3D printing technologies, many services such as Sculpteo offer their services to print in 3D at relatively modest cost. L

'Business growth as Makerbot also enabled the development of personal 3D printer, designed to sit alongside a scanner / photocopier in the office, but they are now facing a niche audience and enthusiasts.

Ricoh launches the industrial 3D printing market

Ricoh turns on a segment that began to be occupied by incumbents in 2D printing, namely Canon and HP. This is the market of industrial 3D printing, Ricoh, and marketing its first AM S5500P model. Ricoh marketed 3D printing templates in white label since last year and the creation of its 3D printing division.

This new printer offers a 3D printing method called SLS Selective Laser Sintering (selective laser sintering), which uses a polymer powder and irradiated by laser carved. The printing can be performed with materials Polyamide / nylon and polypropylene. It allows, for example, to manufacture auto parts simultaneously for functional testing. The workspace is 550mm by 550mm and 500mm.

The SLS technology has existed since 1979, but only began to be used. "Maybe because of its cost, technical SLS has not taken off at the same speed as ALS techniques (curing) and DLP (Digital Light Processing) after patents have expired on" mentions the specialized site 3D Printing Industry .

Note that Ricoh is working with the company Aspect in this area and that the Japanese company also markets a few years under the brand MakerBot a range of desktop 3D printers.