Being fascinated with 3D printing and R&D, I can’t help but be envious of the technology in this video. Really fascinating. Their printer uses UV cured epoxy, and can print solid plastic and a soft more rubber-like plastic at the same time. It looks like they also have some color options? The printers are supplied by Objet.

Like some other printers, the objects are printed with support, so it is possible to print multi-part items with moving parts like chains and crescent wrenches.

When they are prototyping mice for example, the engineers can basically print and assemble an entire mouse with the electronics and try it out as is. One thing that I find exciting, and that I hadn’t thought of until I watched this video, is that they have the ability to blow up a model of a mechanism or part that is giving them trouble. That way they can play with something like a click-wheel mechanism on a large scale to see how it works.