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Lime Green PLA 200g
Orange PLA 200g
3D printing is not a new reality although it is a varied one. It’s also a very cool concept, but takes many hours to create a 3D object from one blueprint or picture.
3D printing, also called Additive Manufacturing (AM), is the process by which a flat object is turned into a 3D shape. What actually happens is a process that deposits binder material onto a specific powder bed using inkjet printer heads. The layers are built up one at a time to form the 3D object. A computer controls this layering process so that the replica is exact to the image sought.
It was in the 1980s that the Additive Manufacturing equipment and supporting materials was developed. There are two methods of AM that fabricate these 3d objects. In current times, the inkjet printer heads have been abandoned for the more accurate fused deposition modeling, which is an extrusion application.
There is also metal 3D printing. An AM process called metal sintering or melting. At this time, most metal objects had been producing using applications like casting, fabrication, machining and stamping. While some factories went so far as using robotic technology to assist these processes of adding metal, most people identified the use of metal in it coming off of instead of being added to.
To create 3D printed objects, a worker would design the object on a CAD program, although they also used a simple digital camera in conjunction with photogrammetry software, or using a 3D scanner. While all of these design programs create some kind of errors, there is a “repair” command that can fix many of them before the object is printed.
Most times, the object that is printed using 3D print technology, produces an acceptable version of the desired image. However, objects can also be printed a slight bit larger and material shaved off by another machine to give a more accurate object.
There are 7 different 3D printing processes:
1. Vat Photopolymerisation uses a container filled with a photopolymer resin that is then hardened with a direct UV source;
2. Material Jetting drops material from a small diameter nozzle, then layered into the 3D object and hardened by UV rays;
3. Binder Jetting uses a powder base material and a liquid binder. Within the binding chamber, the powder and liquid are applied in equal layers and becomes glued together into the 3D object;
4. Material Extrusion uses a coil of plastic or metal filament to fill an extrusion nozzle. This nozzle directs the melted filament to the desired shape. It forms layers that are instantly hardened by a UV light;
5. Powder Bed Fusion. In this process, small particles of plastic, ceramic, metal or glass powders are fused together to create the 3D object;
6. Sheet Lamination uses sheets made of metal, paper or some kind of polymer and bound together with an external force;
7. Directed Energy Deposition is used mainly for the high tech industry. The 3D printer is attached to a multi-axis arm. There is a nozzle that deposits the material onto a surface and an energy source to melt it. Which then forms the 3D printed object.