Jul 28, 2014

Startup gives new shape to 3-D printing

John Mardlin (left), Charles Mire (centre) and Andrew Finkle of Structur3d Printing hold up a bust of Yoda they produced on a 3-D printer.By Terry Pender

KITCHENER — The small, white plastic box made by Structur3d Printing is packed with promise for a low-cost future in 3-D printing.

The startup, based in Communitech's Hyperdrive accelerator in the Tannery building in downtown Kitchener, is preparing final designs and getting ready to make the first 400 devices.

The devices are extruders that enable 3-D printers to use materials other than plastic to produce objects. A 3-D printer is usually loaded with plastic, which must be heated before it can be used to make anything.

Structur3d Printing's Discov3ry extruder allows all manner of paste-like materials to be 3-D printed. Think icing sugar, Nutella, latex and silicone. The first extruders are scheduled for shipping in September.

There appears to be a lot of interest in Structur3d Printing's device.

A Kickstarter campaign reached its goal of $30,000 in one day, and eventually raised $126,000. The money will pay for the final design work and the cost of making the devices in-house.

Charles Mire, one of the startup's founders, became fascinated with 3-D printing while doing his PhD in conductive printing of polymers and bio-polymers. Polymers are compounds made up of many large molecules to form a long, and sometimes complicated chain. Bio-polymers, such as cellulose, are produced by living organisms.

At first, Mire focused on ink-jet printing, but he became frustrated with its limitations. That eventually brought him to the idea of developing an extruder that uses low-cost, over-the-counter materials for 3-D printing. He wants to market the device to the maker culture — a tech-savvy do-it-yourself group.

"We want people who are early adopters, people who are technical and love to tinker with technology," he says.

The maker culture is a hotbed of creativity, and Structur3d Printing plans to closely follow what it does with the extruders. "Then we see which area has the most traction, and we focus on that," Mire says.

After the core patents on 3-D printing expired in 2008, interest in the still novel technology quickly grew. While the possibilities seem almost endless, so far there is no killer app for the consumer market.

The technology is being used to print fashion accessories, such as bowties, shoes, buttons and buckles. In China, big 3-D printers use concrete to make up to 10 houses a day. Icing sugar can be used to make elaborate decorations for cakes and others foods.

Another startup in the Tannery — Voltera Inc. — is working on a 3-D printer that uses conductive inks to print circuit boards.

Further down the road is the possibility of a 3-D printer and extruder that could make human organs for transplant, Mire says.

"There is still a lot of research to be done, but the promise is definitely there," he says. "Having the ability to mixmaterials as the engineering of 3-D printing becomes more sophisticated is certainly the way to go."

For example, a prosthetic limb made using 3-D printing could use traditional plastic for the hard parts, and a paste-like material and the extruder for soft, flexible parts.

Andrew Finkle, the other founder of Structur3d Printing, also is a materials scientist. He is doing his PhD at the University of Waterloo in nanotechnology engineering.

Finkle was researching plastics and using a 3-D printer, but when he wanted to use other paste-like materials there was nothing he could find that would feed the semi-liquid materials through a printer.

"I had to essentially create something that would be able to 3-D print with paste," he says. "While I was working on my own design, just by chance I ran into Charles, who was also having the same problem."

The conversations between Finkle and Mire eventually led to them launching Structur3d.

"This is a gateway for us to get new materials out to the 3-D printing area," Finkle says.

John Mardlin, who handles business development for Structur3d Printing, likes the firm's timing. There are moremakes and models of 3-D printers coming out all the time. Structur3d Printing's extruder is compatible with all 3-D printers.

Mardlin says the extruder allows people to use inexpensive, off-the-shelf materials for 3-D printing. It also allows them to make custom gaskets and O-rings. It could be used to make head gaskets for vintage cars, for example.

"The real strength is being able to do one-off custom parts as opposed to tooling up and creating moulds for a run of 3,000 or 10,000," he says.

tpender@therecord.com