I’m not sure who this will.i.am character is, don’t care…more importantly is that you can make cool stuff with 3D printers. Better yet, you can upcycle waste materials into really useful things.
Each EKOCYCLE cartridge turns the equivalent of 3 bottles into your next wearable fashion, music accessory or desktop décor.
The buzzkill is that you cannot recycle your own bottles…yet, as these machines only work with the Ekocycle filimate cartridges…which incorporated an average of 25% PCW(post consumer waste) plastics. It’s PET bottles.
These have a print resolution of 70 Microns.
3D printing has been around since the 1980s, but is really starting to catch on now. Printer “robots” are directed by computers to “print” in 3D with materials like metal and plastic. It’s an additive process, where successive layers of plastic or metals are built. The 3D files are STL files.
The printers don’t need to cost a fortune, and their price has decreased from $20k to less than $1000 in the last 3 years. The DIY crowd can source kits and use RepRap designs to build their own desktop 3D Printer. RepRap is free and open source hardware.
A massive implication of 3D printing is rapid prototyping. Now home based designers and engineers can print their ideas in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost, and refine from there.
A potential problem is that some people are concerned about folks printing out weapons. The benefits far outweigh the negatives here, and now that 3D machines are accessible to every small business and startup, the power has shifted back to the people.
