Businesses, institutions adopting 3-D printers
- Both the White Plains Public Library and the Port Chester-Rye Brook Public Library have bought 3-D printers
- Rockland Community College's 3D Printing Smart Lab has $160,000 in equipment
- Businesses can use Rockland Community College's 3D Printing Smart Lab for free
- Entrepreneurs working 3-D technology into their business plans
The $160,000 in 3-D printing gear in a converted Haverstraw factory is a glimpse at manufacturing's future in the Lower Hudson Valley.
"This is a sandbox," said Thomas P. Della Torre, associate vice president of academic and community partnerships at Rockland Community College, which runs the 3D Printing Smart Lab at its Haverstraw extension center. "This is a place for manufacturers to come and work and play and test and prototype and experiment and train."
Companies using the college's extension center aren't the only ones experimenting. Throughout the Lower Hudson Valley, businesses and institutions are embracing 3-D printers and scanners as prices for the technology fall.
Both the White Plains Public Library and the Port Chester-Rye Brook Public Library have bought them and they are preparing to roll out training programs for the public. The technology's affordability has entrepreneurs working 3-D printers into their business plans while bigger manufacturers are creating fast and cheap prototypes they can use to stay ahead of competitors.
Sono-Tek in Milton, N.Y., uses the three printers at RCC's Smart Lab to make prototypes for the precision nozzles it makes. Robb Engle, Sono-Tek's vice president of engineering, said the Smart Lab, which is available to New York companies free of charge, has saved him money and time by not having to make metal prototypes in-house.
"We would have to schedule it in my machine shop. The backlog in my machine shop is typically eight to 12 weeks, so I either have to disrupt a customer's order in order to fit it in or I have to wait for that production cycle," said Engle, who typically emails the designs for his prototypes to the Smart Lab, which Engle's staffers pick up the following day.
A 3-D printer operates similarly to an inkjet printer, which has an ink cartridge that passes over paper laying down ink. With 3-D printers, a cartridge melts plastic, metal or other substances and lays it down in three dimensions according to a three-dimension design fed to the printer by a computer.
The $2,500 3-D printer Robert Caluori Jr. demonstrates around Westchester County is part of the Westchester Library System's effort to bring technology to the masses. In March he took it to a Peekskill Rotary Club meeting.
"I was trying to demystify it," Caluori. "Really just trying to bring it down to everyday life and not something used by NASA engineers."
The technology has existed since the 1980s, but as prices for 3-D printers fall — a hand-held model Calouri built himself from a kit cost just $350 — the technology is affordable for libraries.
Brian Kenney, the White Plains Public Library's director, said a $2,000 3-D printer has been installed in The Edge, the library's teen section. The main reason the library bought the 3-D printer was to engage teens and cultivate their interest in science, technology, engineering and math, the so-called STEM disciplines.
"3-D printing really engages young people in STEM activities," said Kenney of the knowledge required to create an object from scratch on design software. "(Teens are) producing a product that is fun and playful, but it really requires some skills."
The White Plains Public Library also hopes to hook adults with programs that it will begin rolling out later this spring and in the summer. Kenney said buying the 3-D printer was part of the library's mission to expose its patrons to new technologies.
Local companies are already riding the 3-D printing wave.
"Our R&D and design teams are constantly exploring new ideas for product, packaging and equipment innovation. 3-D printing technology can be a useful tool to model and evaluate new ideas more quickly and efficiently than in the past," wrote PepsiCo spokesman Jeff Dahncke in an email.
Mini 3D Me expects to open a storefront in Yorktown in April, and it has been selling figurine reproductions of brides and grooms as well as children in their sports uniforms since December. The company has also begun producing signs and logos for local companies with its 3-D printer and scanner.
Chelsea Waller, a spokeswoman for Mini 3D Me, said the company was originally started just to produce keepsake figurines for parents and newlyweds, but the business has expanded its scope by printing items for local businesses.
The Digital Arts Experience, an educational and coworking business in White Plains, is teaching 3-D printing.
Its spring break programs, which start at $350 for a half day on April 14-18, include two 3-D printing design and modeling classes for children. The DAE's classes allow children and young teens to design and create parts for a Rube Goldberg Machine, which is an overly complicated machine created to perform a simple task.
Laurence Gottlieb, president of the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp., promotes 3-D printing in the region. Gottlieb, formerly Westchester County's head of economic development, said 3-D printing is a way to revive local manufacturing and bring new business to existing design firms.
The HVEDC's work includes forming a partnership between SUNY New Paltz and the 3-D printing company MakerBot to create an innovation center at that college. Gottlieb said the Hudson Valley's strength in the 3-D printing revolution is its abundance of design and creative professionals.
"This is a technology that could work anywhere," said Gottlieb. "It can create a new generation of individual manufacturers that we haven't seen probably in decades, and that's always exciting to me."
Twitter: @Ernie_G_journo
Learn about 3-D printing
The White Plains Public Library will hold a free 3-D printing event called Makers Morning on May 3 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 100 Martine Ave. Library staff will demonstrate its 3-D printer and local businesses, artists or individuals with 3-D printers are invited to exhibit their creations, products or services. Exhibitors can register by calling the library, 914-422-1400.
VIDEO
See how 3-D printing technology works. Watch the video at lohud.com