Hasta La Gadget!

As you whiz down the highway from LA to Las Vegas in your Tesla Model S, your Bluetooth humming, your Google Glass flashing messages from VCs trying to get into your next round, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to reach down and grab a refreshing cup of ice-cold Kombucha? Well now you can 3D print your very own custom center console designed to hold your fermented teas, fair trade lip balms, or any number of other tchotchkes, bootstrap-style!

Sure Tesla is about to release a premium center console with fancy Corinthian leather cup Snugglerz™ and his and hers matching USB 3.0 ports, but what about now? What can you do now that will improve your ability to hold a fresh-squeezed Vegan Blackberry Juice and Farm-Raised Civet Coffee Coolata from the Creamery? A 3D-printed center console cup holder, ya big lug!

You can have your assistant download and print this sexy little Model S center console rig for you right now so he can assemble it and place it into your car, allowing for an amazing range of potential pluses for you and your friends as you scoot across town in your futuristic transport. You can keep all sorts of drinks in there, but don’t go crazy with the phablets. iPhones only, please.

So there you have it: improving the human condition one center console at a time. It’s almost enough to make you want to Selfie a smile.

via 3Ders

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An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the Tesla Model S did not come equipped with front drinkholders. This has been corrected.

So we have seen color 3D printers, 3D printers that can print an entire house, and 3D printers used to print book covers, but the good news for auto and motorcycle enthusiasts is that for $5,000, you will be able to get your hands on a 3D printer that is able to print carbon fiber. Dubbed the Mark One, this 3D printer by MarkForged claims to be the first 3D printer to be able to print carbon fiber, and with an asking price of $5,000, it doesn’t seem overly expensive, especially if you plan on printing carbon fiber components for auto and motorcycle enthusiasts and make a couple of bucks off them.

When it comes to performance parts, carbon fiber has been the material of choice due to it being light-weight and strong. In fact when you come across a vehicle with carbon fiber body parts, you would automatically assume that this car was designed to be raced. Whether or not it actually holds up is a different story. According to the specifications, the Mark One will have the ability to print a maximum size of 305 x 160 x 160mm. The Mark One will also be able to print other types of materials, such as fiberglass, nylon, and polylactic acid, although it should be noted that only one material can be printed at a time due to the printer’s design. No word on when the Mark One will be made available, but its CEO claims it will be available “soon”. So, any automotive enthusiasts thinking up the different types of parts they can print?

The Mark One Is The World’s First 3D Printer That Can Print Carbon Fiber original content from Ubergizmo.

Carbon fiber is a wonderful material, strong and lightweight. But building with it is both intimidatingly complex and prohibitively expensive—which is why Mark Forged has developed this new 3D printer which can build objects layer-by-layer using the stuff.

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Meet the Mark One. Billed as the world’s first desktop printer capable of printing composite materials. For $5,000, you too can make a carbon fiber 1:1 scale model of a banana.

Named aptly for its creator, Gregory Mark, who also owns Aeromotions, this desktop printer debuted at SolidWorks World 2014 in San Diego. After seeing the expense and time currently associated with carbon fiber manufacturing, Mark started down a path that eventually ended up at the Mark One.

“We took the idea of 3D printing, that process of laying things down strand by strand, and we used it as a manufacturing process to make composite parts,” he told Popular Mechanics. “We say it’s like regular 3D printers do the form. We do form and function.”

The Mark One not only prints composite materials like carbon fiber, but also fiberglass, nylon and PLA. Of course, only one at a time. The printer employees some pretty nifty advancements, too, including a self-leveling printing bed that clicks into position before each print.

Pre-orders start in March with a price tag of $5,000.

The quickly-growing world of 3D printing technology has found itself utilized in a variety of fields, serving all sorts of purposes in each of them to improve or create things … Continue reading