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The Funbox 3D printer for kids [Source: Ugee] Remember the Funbox 3D printer? It’s now available for purchase. First announced in July by Ugee, they’ve now put the tiny 3D printer on sale in several locations. The company behind Ugee is Shenzhen Hanvon Ugee Technology Co., Ltd., a maker of pens and tablets, which is now entering the 3D printer market. Ugee is their main brand. What’s the deal with this device? It is one of the very few 3D printers that is specifically designed for children.

Patent design for a robot arm to insert crystals into an ongoing 3D print [Source: Espacenet] Here’s an unusual idea from IBM: what if a 3D printer could decide exactly where crystals should begin growing inside a print? That’s the concept behind recently published patent application US20260252052A1, “Method and System for Selective Crystallization During 3D Printing.” The applicant is International Business Machines Corporation, a.k.a. IBM. This isn’t about printing decorative crystals.

Object 3D printed in water / ice [Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences] Here’s an interesting way to 3D print with ice: don’t make the room colder. Make the pressure lower. Living in a cold climate, I’ve always wondered about the possibility of printing ice structures using water. Water is liquid at room temperatures, but solidifies when sufficiently cold. That’s the same pattern we see with FFF materials, so why can’t we do the same with water and ice?

Charles G. Goulding explains how breakthroughs in 3D printing are ending the era of one-alloy parts, allowing engineers to design materials that change composition within a single component for unprecedented performance. Traditionally, industrial parts have been made from one alloy only. One alloy is easier to manufacture, test, and certify. Aerospace engineers know exactly how a particular alloy behaves because it has been studied for years.

An unusual rotating FFF nozzle design [Source: Materials & Design] A new study examines a rotating nozzle FFF system for short fiber polymer composite manufacturing. The paper, published in Materials & Design, focuses on an unusually important limitation in composite fused filament fabrication (FFF): extrusions do not just define the part’s shape. They also influence how short reinforcing fibers align, and that orientation strongly affects the final part’s strength.

Modix Gen 5 system printing at a 45 degree angle [Source: Modix] Modix announced a key upgrade to their BIG series of large-format 3D printers. The company has produced large-scale equipment for quite some time now, and periodically introduces new changes as they receive feedback from customers and new technologies are developed or adopted. This upgrade, “Generation 5”, seems to be focused on a migration to the latest Duet 3 platform.

LLNL patent diagram showing complex 2PP multimaterial setup [Source: Espacenet] Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory appear to have found an unusual way to 3D print multiple materials with a two-photon system: change the light instead of changing the resin. The concept appears in recently published patent application US20260249547A1, assigned to Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC.

It appears that California AB2047, the proposed law to control 3D printers, has passed the California legislature. The California Senate passed the amended bill, 30-10 in favour, which was then passed back to the assembly. They promptly approved it with a vote of 60-18 in favour on September 4th. This does not quite yet mean the bill has become law in California. There are a few steps remaining, not the least of which is that the Governor must sign off on the bill.

Home Depot Pro Advertisement [Source: The Home Depot] Charles R. Goulding and Nimra Shakoor explain how Home Depot’s expanding Pro ecosystem, strategic acquisitions, and emerging manufacturing technologies could reshape the future of construction products. Home Depot is facing a changing retail environment. Higher interest rates, elevated home prices, and weaker housing activity have pressured parts of the home improvement market (Financial Times).

Typical 3DCP setup [Source: OpenAlex] Construction 3D printing is usually sold on these benefits: fewer workers, faster construction, less waste and the ability to produce unusual geometries. But what if the reason you want fewer workers on site is because the site itself is dangerous?