14 DAY TRIAL // 3D printing technology has come a long way from the times when the best we could hope for was a skewed, defective plastic figurine. Indeed, it has come so far that it's possible to create complex devices, or device components, in a single go.
Case in point, Engineers at Cornell University were able to 3D print an entire working loudspeaker.
That's right, the plastic housing, the flexible diaphragm, the conductive coil and the magnet were all created in a single session, from silver ink or, in the case of the magnet, a viscous blend of strontium ferrite.
A Fab@Home printer was used to achieve the feat under the supervision of graduate students Apoorva Kiran and Robert MacCurdy.
Once ready, the speaker was connected to an amplifier and tested, showing its functionality.