RIT ventures into next-generation printing Brinkman Lab will be resource for manufacturersPrinting “jewelry” used to mean squirting ink on a page to read that word in a book or a magazine.
Now three-dimensional printers, loaded with plastic or another substances, can actually take a design created in a few minutes on a computer and “print” it out, layer by layer, to create a ring, an iPhone case, a doll, or whatever else you can imagine.
These printers can be had for as little as $1,000, affordable to just about anyone.
“Just two years ago, for these same systems, you would add a zero or more to the price point — $25,000 or $250,000 for some of these plastic printing processes,” said Denis Cormier, Earl W. Brinkman professor in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering at RIT.
With much more sophisticated products and applications in mind, Cormier and RIT officials vowed Friday to maintain a leadership role in the development of new printing and manufacturing technologies by leveraging the acquisition of new high-tech devices and partnerships with industry.
“The idea is to use printing as a manufacturing process, and the fact that it can mix materials together, that’s something you can’t do with other manufacturing processes,” said Cormier, a world-renowned expert in the field.
At a news conference, RIT officials announced that Cormier will use a $599,390 National Science Foundation grant to create the Partnership for Innovation in Printed Devices and Materials. The industry partners are Intrinsiq Materials, located at Eastman Business Park, along with NovaCentrix, an Austin, Texas, company, and Optomec, based in Albuquerque, N.M.
The plan is for Cormier, other RIT scientists and students to work with businesses throughout the state to develop new products and methods and provide training.
“We think that with these new developments in the (Earl W. Brinkman Laboratory at RIT) we can bring more firms into the region that will benefit from proximity to the lab, our researchers and, importantly, our students as their future workers,” said RIT President Bill Destler.
The machines and processes being developed are used to make smart sensors, biomedical devices and touch screens for the medical, aeronautics, military and automotive industries. But the uses for the new technology is expected to grow.
“It’s a great thing for Rochester. The printing industry is undergoing a resurgence and functional printing is going to be huge and we’re pretty well set up,” said Hutch Hutchison, program director for the virtual design and prototype program at High-Tech Rochester.The Brinkman Lab has several machines that can do functional and 3D printing. The latest acquisition is a NovaCentrix Pulseforge, which is used mainly to make printed electronic circuits. The Pulseforge uses short blasts of high-intensity light to heat and fuse special inks with conductive properties. The process is used to make sensors, smart cards, photovoltaic devices and flexible circuits.
“As (Cormier) does research and publishes papers, or finds new applications, then that is basically just new areas of work for our technology,” said Ian Rawson, a senior development engineer for NovaCentrix. “It’s really an investment from our perspective.”
Also Friday, about 100 workers from area companies, including many from Eastman Kodak Co. and Xerox Corp., got a chance to see what the lab’s machines can do and participated in workshops on the new printing and manufacturing technologies.
“It’s an opportunity to see some of the newer machines and processes for alternative uses of printing, particularly for printing electronic devices,” said Todd Spath, a development engineer at Kodak.
“I think, to some degree, it changes the way things would be made. Certainly it changes the way things would be developed. A lot of this equipment is oriented toward small scale manufacturing. It’s very flexible,” he said.
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