China looks to 3D printing for manufacturing edge

[cir]

By Kevin Kwang

December 18, 2012 -- 03:39 GMT (19:39 PST)

China will turn to domestically-developed three-dimensional (3D) printing technologies to change how companies view manufacturing, and ease the pressure on energy and resources needed for the production process.

China Daily reported Tuesday that Su Bo, the country's vice minister of industry and information technology, said it should establish plans and use tax incentives to speed up the research and development (R&D) and application of 3D printing technologies.

With the technology, cutting, bending, pressing, moulding and assembling will no longer be necessary in manufacturing as the 3D printer will automatically produce a solid product based on pre-set 3D data. Considering China is the world's biggest manufacturer, 3D printing would help improve the country's productivity, Su pointed out.

He added: "It is a revolutionary manufacturing technique. Once put to large-scale production, it will ease China's pressure on energy and resources."

Li Peigen, president of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said in the report that China was almost on par with developed markets in R&D and application of 3D printing. The university's Fast Manufacturing Center has invented a 3D printer that can produce the world's biggest product, the report noted.

Huazhong University of Science and Technology, together with Tsinghua University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, and Beijing Long Yuan-Automated Fabrication System, are the country's leading research institutes in 3D printing, it added.

3D-printed central flange for the C919 jetliner

3D-printed titanium alloy hollow sphere

 

[venkat]

so no need to steal drawings anymore.just point the camera at SU-33 and produce a ching chong-33 clone!!! wav what a wonder!!!!

 

[cir]

The stupidity of some Indians here knows no bounds。

 

[cir]

Hatred makes one blind。

 

[satish007]

3D printing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

6.1.1 Rapid prototyping
6.1.2 Rapid manufacturing
6.1.3 Mass customization
6.1.4 Mass production

so Rapid and Mass to make things cheap, may be quality is ok. but how it can be used for jetliner? how many c919 need a year?

 

[trackwhack]

However not rapid cheap.

China is putting money in the right places. unlike us.

 

[badguy2000]

so no need to steal drawings anymore.just point the camera at SU-33 and produce a ching chong-33 clone!!! wav what a wonder!!!!

the airframe of J20 and J31 is also manufactured with the last 3D print tech.....

or In another word, without the last 3D print tech, you can not work out a a real 5G bird.

 

[asianobserve]

Excellent! China's billion workforce will be robbed out of work...!

 

[sayareakd]

3D printing is future, China has done some breakthrough work on this.

 

[cir]

China is now able to 3D-print titanium pieces with 5mX5m cross sections。:thumb:

A fine application of this world beating technology is found in the making of the J-31001。:cool2:

 

[cir]

Stocks surge in 3D printing sector

Updated: 2012-12-19 16:08

By Gao Yuan ( chinadaily.com.cn)

China is likely to draw a long-term route map for 3D printing technology to boost development for the emerging sector, a government official said on Wednesday.

The government encourages research and development investment in additive manufacturing technology, better known as 3D printing, according to Su Bo, vice-minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The ministry will also push to set up a national standard for the sector, said Su.

Stocks in the country's 3D printer makers surged after the ministry made the remarks.

On Wednesday morning, at least three companies, including Suzhou-based SVG Optronics Co Ltd and Guangzhou-based Epoxy Base Electronic Material Co Ltd, hit the 10 percent increase ceiling on Chinese stock markets.

3D printing is a technology of making solid objects by laying down successive layers of material. The technology is in huge demand in the manufacturing, designing and education industries.

 

[cir]

This Chinese Startup Wants to Bring You a 3D-Printed, Smartphone-Controlled Drone

Jan 2, 2013 at 21:58 PM by Steven Millward, in Creative, Gadgets, Startups, Web

Video：http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/XNDg0MjI2OTI4/v.swf

We don't find hardware startups in China as often as we'd like – but we've stumbled across what looks like the coolest we've ever seen. The team of tinkerers and 'makers' behind AngelEyes is prepping crowdfunding for its upcoming HeX Air Robot, a smartphone-controlled drone that looks like some sinister stealth helicopter (pictured above).

Team member George Liu tells us that the HeX Air Robot (see it in flight in the video below) will soon drone its way onto Kickstarter to raise funds to evolve and then manufacture the flying machine. Until that launches, the globally-minded Chinese startup has a couple of software platforms to sell, as well as a huge fascination with 3D printing to keep everyone occupied. To find out more, we fired him a few questions:

How did AngelEyes come to life, and how many products do you have right now?

George: AngelEyes came to life from the vision to propel the democratization of technological innovation. Before AngelEyes existed, we did some projects purely on software and they failed eventually. But now the tide is turning, and it is becoming easier and affordable for individuals to manufacture things on their desktops, which means hardware can be as easily iterated as software, and the cost of going through several lifecycles of hardware manufacturing decreases dramatically.

Plus, crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter unfolded a new way to finance tech startups. That's pretty much the context how we plunge into projects that can integrate software and hardware. So far, besides HeX, we've got two other cloud services: 'AR Generating' and 'Pattern Recognition'.

When will your HeX Air Robot be for sale, and how could it be used?

George: Actually there are several stages in the development of HeX. The first stage, which we are on now, [means we've] finished the first prototype of it and we're improving it. We plan to sell it on Kickstarter.com, which we estimate might happen at the end of January, to raise funds for the next stages of evolution. With the money we could raise, we're going to add some sensors and an airborne computer on HeX to make it able to avoid obstacles automatically. Ultimately, we plan to mount a camera on it (pictured below) and make it able to track a moving target and film it so that extreme-sports fans can use it as an aerial filming kit.

You seem to be interested in 3D printing. Is that just an experiment right now, or can you sell printed products at good prices?

George: Yes, we find 3D printing fascinating. It's not just an experiment. Actually, we make some components and parts needed on HeX by 3D printing and all of the design files will be shared on the website Thingiverse so that hobbyists can download them to make and customize a HeX for themselves. Also, we'll sell HeX and its parts via Shapeways, which we think is a new way to sell hardware.

Your hardware website is all in English – which markets are you aiming at?

George: We're aiming at foreign markets, particularly North America that is a huge and mature market for things like HeX.

Does your startup have any funding, and how large is it right now?

George: We haven't drawn any funding yet. That's why we're planning to get funded on Kickstarter.com and we hope to draw some seed funding as well. Right now we have six employees and two interns.

 

[badguy2000]

3D print tech can not replace traditional manufacturing tech completely.......

 

[sayareakd]

good example about 3D printing