[rp-ml] 3D printing in Africa

Jim McMahon jim at layergrownmodel.com
Thu Sep 10 23:14:49 EEST 2020


Marshall:

You mentioned old timers and you got my attention.

Yes, I can help.

My Additive Manufacturing Service business is still putting along. It
involves inkjet printing. Not the newer HP "thousands of nozzle jets but
just one (1) single inkjet nozzle printing hot melt plastic and hot melt
wax inks.  These are Three-Dimensional layer inks or inks with raised
surface printing. I call them 3D Printing materials. I suspect that's where
the idea of 3D printing originated from when these printing materials were
introduced in the late 1950's before the computer graphics 3D excitement
began in the early 1980's. Hot Melt Liquid metal inkjet printing was
patented before Hot melt wax, in 1971 at Teletype Corp. In those days it
was not was not called AM but just plain recording but it involved printing
of characters and even "display sign" characters to hang on a wall. That is
a story for another day. AM was introduced much later as a concept in early
2000 I believe.
The current single nozzle hot melt plastic material technology began at
Howtek, Inc in Hudson New Hampshire in 1984 when I was hired to make
inkjets for a color printer, the Pixelmaster. I had already got my first
patent that improved the Steve Zoltan Drop-On-Demand single nozzle jet and
showed it was an acoustical sound wave inkjet. He and I worked at Exxon
Office systems in Brookfield, CT in the late 1970's and early 1980's. It
was installed on  Fax printer but failed for excessive acoustical
interference. I called it printing light phase and dark phase as the
harmonics kicked in.
I joined Howtek in 1984 and helped design the current design single nozzle
jet that has lasted since those early years. A retired Howtek executive
introduced a Hot melt material patent to make 3D objects with Visual Impact
Systems (late 1980's) but the technology wasn't licensed to Sanders
Prototype Inc Until 1994. The difference was it was no longer a (Zoltan)
glass nozzle but it used the (Howtek) Tefzel nozzle. The ink was not
aqueous but was Thermoplastic Hot Melt designed by Howtek chemists with
some of my guidance. These same type inkjets and Hotmelt inks were used by
Ballistic Particle Manufacturing (BPM) in the mid 1990's. BPM's founder had
the idea for drop deposition in the early 1980's and patented it but he had
to wait until 1992 to be introduced to the Howtek inkjet. Charles Hull may
have been looking for a way to make three-dimensional surfaces in the early
1980's but he couldn't find a method for drop deposition and then settled
on UV cured resins since he was in the furniture coatings industry. I wish
he was open enough to chat about this.
Sanders Prototype, Inc made Modelmaker 6 Pro's and then the Modelmaker 2
Rapid prototyping desktop printers. These are still in production today and
have printed many designs for customers. I was the service manager for them
and knew who owned the early machines. The Hot melt plastic was very
popular with jewelers and designers for prototype models. The Jewelers
loved the printers because the Thermoplastic was perfect for investment
casting. In Africa, Technikon Free State College bought their machine a
month after NASA and Ford Motor Company in November 1997. This shows Africa
was very aware of the AM technology and was one of the early users of the
Modelmaker 2. Technikon bought MM2 serial number M348. The MM2's were
serial numbered from M302 to about M765 and this shows they were a early
user. Today it is called the Central University of Technology, South
Africa. I have a few customer contacts who may be helpful for those looking
for contacts. Try jewellersnetwork.co.za, iwjdesigns.co.za or
umjindijewellery.co.za <info at umjindijewellery.co.za>  and they may have
some information or go straight to Technikon in South Africa..


On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 10:53 AM Marshall Burns <ListMail2 at fabbers.com>
wrote:

> Pretty quiet in here. Are there still people here? It’s hard to believe
> there’s nothing going on in 3D printing in Africa. And I’d think that some
> of the old-timers here would know about it.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Marshall Burns <ListMail2 at fabbers.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, September 6, 2020 08:06
> *To:* 'Rapid Prototyping Mailing List' <rp-ml at rp-ml.org>
> *Subject:* [rp-ml] 3D printing in Africa
>
>
>
> Hi folks,
>
>
>
>               I’ve had a conversation with a man who runs an investment
> company in Rwanda that makes seed-stage investments in technology companies
> in different parts of Africa. He’s interested in knowing about:
>
>               * Interesting developments in 3D printing that are happening
> in Africa. Could be research, education, or technology.
>
>               * People who are interested in learning about “frontier
> market” investment opportunities in African tech start-ups.
>
>               * People who might be interested in providing mentoring to
> African entrepreneurs, either locally or remotely.
>
>
>
>               If anyone has suggestions or input on any of that, please
> feel free to post it here or e-mail me privately.
>
>
>
>               I know there are better sources of connections these days
> than this mailing list, so if people want to suggest other places where he
> could reach out, that could be helpful too.
>
>
>
>               Thanks.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Marshall Burns
>
> www.Ennex.com/fabbers
>
>
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> rp-ml at rp-ml.org
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>
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