Posted on 07/09/2011 8:51:54 AM PDT by smokingfrog
3D Chocolate Printer looks as quite an amusing name at the first glance. It makes you want to know what it really does. The 3D Chocolate printer allows you to create your own designs on a computer and reproduce them physically in three dimensional form in to chocolate.
This interesting project is funded as part of the Research Council UK Cross-Research Council Programme – Digital Economy and is managed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) on behalf of ESRC, AHRC and MRC. It is being led by the University of Exeter in collaboration with the University of Brunel and software developer Delcam.
The technology used behind the production is not new. It has been in the industry for some time now, but all they had produced was 3D plastic and metal products. This is the first time that it has been applied to chocolate, making it the world’s first 3D chocolate printer. The research work has given a glimpse of the sweet opportunities that technologies give rise to.
Among the different challenges faces by the team, one was that the chocolate is not an easy material to work with because it requires accurate heating and cooling cycles. Researchers integrated these variables with the correct flow rates and found solutions with the development of new temperature and heating control systems.
Research leader Dr Liang Hao, at the University of Exeter said, “What makes this technology special is that users will be able to design and make their own products. In the long term it could be developed to help consumers custom – design many products from different materials but we’ve started with chocolate as it is readily available, low cost and non-hazardous. There is also no wastage as any unused or spoiled material can be eaten of course!
(Excerpt) Read more at crazyengineers.com ...
For some reason, this article made me think of you. :)
Sweeeet!
Print my own chocolate?! In whatever shape I want?!
I. Want. One.
Awful waste of time to watch the video
Four minutes of self-congratulatory blather and puffery. Zero seconds of 3D printer in operation.
Right-o mate!
People will use this to make some perverse stuff. Mankind always finds ways to make inventions do something sinful.
I want a picture of a chocolate bar imprinted on my chocolate bar.
I was just thinking that maybe former Representative Weiner could use it for a new job. He got in trouble for his tweets, so now he can do something with sweets.
Was this stolen from Willy Wonka’s factory?
We need one of these!
One for every habitat at least with the goal being one per room, but I am patient. I can wait at least until Tuesday for the one in every room.
We can have 3D chocolate-printing contests ... who can make the most realistic aardvark and so on.
I’ve seen that before. That’s a true 3-D printer.
The chocolate “printer” in the video does make 3-D objects, but is extremely crude by comparison. I wouldn’t even call it a printer, really.
Will this put Home Depot out of business in a few years (decade or so)? Assuming everyone has one of these in their house—and you just buy the “program” for a piece of something you need to fix? Like a parts for a toilet? Replacement facet...oil pump for your car?
Where can I buy the stock!
Other types of 3-D printing, involving ultraviolet hardening of liquid plastic, or binding of powder, have the limitation that they cannot make a hollow object. Any attempt to make a hollow object will result in the void being filled with the liquid or powder. The ink-jet type of 3-D printer can make hollow objects. All three types have their areas of application.
We still haven't reached the ability to make the infamous "hollow seamless steel sphere" that was the epitome of impossible manufacturing problems when I was an undergraduate.
Ohyah!!!
How cool is that? Let’s just go whomp one up in the Forges!
I like the little Chinese guy: We can use this tek-o-lol-o-gy....
That was cool, too!
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