New 3D Printer Prints Using Carbon Fiber

Printer uses other print mediums as well

There is no shortage of 3D printers on the market today. There are printers that use all sorts of materials from plastics and other things to paper. One medium that there wasn’t a 3D printer out there using was carbon fiber. At least until Gregory Mark came along.

“We took the idea of 3D printing, that process of laying things down strand by strand, and we used it as a manufacturing process to make composite parts,” he told PopMech. “We say it’s like regular 3D printers do the form. We do form and function.”

Mark owns part of a business that makes wings for racecars out of carbon fiber. Making things out of carbon fiber is an intensive hands on process.

Mark says that he started to look for a 3D printer, and ended up building his own when none were out there. The printer can use carbon fiber, fiberglass, or PLA as media reports Popular Mechanics. The parts the machine prints using carbon fiber are five times stronger than ABS.