【经济学人】无法仿制的3D打印钥匙丨2017.04.12丨总第877期

KEYS have been around for a long time. The earliest, made from wood, date back 4,000 years, to the ancient Egyptians. The Romans improved them a bit by making them from metal. But there, more or less, they have stayed. Electronic card-keys aside, a key is still, basically, a piece of metal sporting a series of grooves, teeth and indentations which, when inserted into a keyway, line up to move pins and levers to lock or unlock a mechanism.

钥匙已经存在很长时间了。最早的钥匙由木头制作而成，可追溯到4000年前的古埃及。罗马人把钥匙改进了一点，用金属制作钥匙。但是此后，钥匙就基本没有什么变化。暂且不说电子卡钥匙，一般的钥匙基本上仍然由齿槽、齿、凹槽等金属组成。当钥匙插入到钥匙槽时，钥匙的机制是依次移动销和杠杆来上锁和解锁

• Electronic card-keys aside 电子卡钥匙

• Aside 且不谈，且不管

• Grooves  槽

• Indentations压痕

• Pins销

Such keys are made with conventional manufacturing techniques, such as cutting and stamping. But now there is a new way, in the form of 3D printing, to craft metal objects. And keys are about to succumb to it, to the great benefit of keyholders.

这些钥匙是由传统的技术制作而成，例如:切割和冲压。但是现在有一种新的方法即3D打印的方法，来制造金属性的钥匙。并且这些传统钥匙将要被3D打印钥匙替代，并获取更大的钥匙扣利益。

• Stamping    冲压

• Succumb    屈服

• Keyholders   锁匙扣

A 3D printer works by melting together layers of material that are added successively to the object being created. It can thus make something from the inside out, as it were, by printing intricate internal features and then covering them with a solid layer. Features shielded from view are extremely difficult to copy, let alone reproduce using normal machine tools. What better way to reinvent the key, reckoned Alejandro Ojeda, a mechanical engineer who at the time was studying at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich, than to 3D-print it in this way.（读者试译）

3D打印机的工作原理是将金属层融合在一起，然后依次将金属涂抹到正在制作的钥匙图形上。因此3D打印技术可以由里向外打印钥匙，可以打印出复杂的内部特征，然后将其覆盖到固体层中。看不到的复杂内部结构的钥匙很难仿制，更不用说使用普通的机床来仿制了。“期待您的翻译，将您的理解留言在文章下方留言处，第二天将会有长难句解析的呦。”

•  A 3D printer  3D打印机

• Successively      先后

• Intricate         复杂的

• Shielded        屏蔽

• Machine tool    机床

• Reinvent      重新发明

What prompted his interest is how simple it is to copy most keys: a few minutes at a local key shop will usually suffice. And copying is getting easier. It is now possible to take a picture of a key with a smartphone and turn the image into a computer file that can be used to make a replica with the aid of a cheap, hobbyist 3D printer. The resulting duplicate will probably be printed in plastic, and thus lack durability. But it is likely to be good enough to work at least once—and once might be enough.

仿制钥匙竟然如此的简单，这让他很感兴趣：只要在当地的钥匙商铺几分钟，通常就足够仿制钥匙了。仿制越来越容易，现在可以用智能手机拍一张钥匙的照片，将图片转换成可以使用的计算机文件，利用廉价的个人3D打印机来仿制钥匙。这样制作的钥匙可以是用塑料材料打印出来，缺乏耐用性。但是至少可以用一次，不过一次也就足够了。

• Suffice                足够

• Replica                副本

• hobbyist 3D printer   个人3D打印机

•  Durability         耐用性

Dr Ojeda’s answer is the Stealth Key (pictured). This is printed in titanium, one of the toughest of metals. Its teeth are hidden under a pair of narrow ledges, making it unscannable. But when inserted into the lock the teeth can operate the mechanism.

Ojeda博士的解决方法是隐形的钥匙（图）。这是用钛来打印的，钛是最坚硬的金属之一。它的齿痕被隐藏在一条狭窄的壁架中，使其不被扫描到。当钥匙插入到锁中，钥匙上的齿可以开锁。

• Stealth    隐身

• Titanium     钛

• Ledges    壁架

To bring the Stealth Key to market, Dr Ojeda teamed up with Felix Reinert, an expert on 3D-printing metal, to found a firm called UrbanAlps. Jiri Holda, a lock designer, joined them to help devise a keymaking process that employs an industrial 3D-printing system called selective laser melting (SLM). This is currently used to make high-strength components for jet engines and gas turbines.Indeed, it was these uses, which also involve printing a lot of concealed detail, that gave Dr Ojeda his key-printing idea in the first place.

为了将这款隐形钥匙引入市场，Ojeda博士与专家Felix Reinert合作创建了一家名为UrbanAlps的公司。锁头设计师Jiri Holda加入了他们，并帮助他们设计了钥匙制作过程。这一过程使用被称为选择性激光融化的工业3D打印技术。目前，这项技术用于制造喷气发动机和燃气涡轮机的高强度组件。的确，正是这些用途（包括钥匙中许多隐藏的细节），让Ojeda博士有了打印钥匙的想法。

• Industrial 3D-printing system  

  工业三维打印系统

• selective laser melting (SLM)    

  选择性激光熔化

• jet engines      喷气发动机

• gas turbines    燃气涡轮机

SLM, as its name suggests, uses a laser to fuse the layers of metallic powder of which the object being printed is made. It is good at its job, but slow. It takes only seconds to cut a conventional key, but making a Stealth Key can occupy the best part of a day. UrbanAlps’ SLM machine does, however, print 850 of them at a time—each, naturally, different from the others.

SLM，顾名思义，使用激光把被打印物体的金属粉末融合在一起。SLM擅长做这种工作，但是效率低。制造隐形的钥匙要花差不多一天的时间，切割出一般的钥匙仅需几秒钟。然而，UrbanAlps’ SLM机器一次可以打印850把不同的钥匙。

• metallic powder   金属粉末

• UrbanAlps’ SLM     

Stealth keys are not cheap. A pair, together with a lock mechanism (made the conventional way), cost about $200. But UrbanAlps’ founders hope the added security they bring will make them attractive—probably to industrial customers to start with, and to the general public as padlocks. They do have a downside, though. If you lose one, getting a replacement will involve a security check, because only UrbanAlps has the digital-design file for the original. And a duplicate will take another day in the 3D printer.

隐形的钥匙不便宜。买一副钥匙，再加一个门锁（传统方法制作的），大约要花200美元。但是UrbanAlp的创始人希望这些钥匙所增加的安全性能可以使得隐形钥匙有吸引力。像锁链一样从最初的工业用户开始逐渐过渡到公众。不过，UrbanAlps也有缺点，如果你丢了一把钥匙，想重新得到一把，那么为了安全起见，你要进行身份核对，因为只有UrbanAlps公司有最原始钥匙的电子版设计文件，并且用3D打印机重新打印打印还需要一天的时间。

• Downside   缺点

翻译 ▍上善若水，Sopia.yao

审核 ▍云图

图文编辑 ▍小精灵

责任编辑丨毛毛