3d printing how does it work

That is why, today, we chose to focus on these amazing 3D printing systems. How does a 3D printer work? Are there different types of 3D printers? At first, 3D printing seem like a little bit of magic, we see that this amazing technology can help to build houses or any objects from our daily life. But how does it work? From metal to plastic or even chocolate, additive manufacturing gives life to a lot of different projects.

Here is the basic 3D printing process: first, you need to get a 3D file. The 3D design is necessary while starting a 3D printing project, it the digital version of the project that you will 3D print. Then, you will have to choose the 3D printing technology you need for your project.

Each material has its own properties, your choice will totally depend on the nature of your project. Do you need a rapid prototype or an end-use product? Does your object have to be heat resistant, flexible or really resistant to stress? This choice is surely an important step in this process and it will define the quality and the coherence of your project. After all of this, your 3D design will be sent to a 3D printer, to create a three-dimensional object, with a succession of layers.

But, what are the different 3D printers on the market and how do they work? Additive manufacturing can be used by designers, engineers, anyone willing to develop a project and looking for benefits such as innovation, adaptability and scalability with an attractive cost.

For production or rapid prototyping, 3D printers are offering a wide range of possibilities for many industries such as automotive, fashion, medical , or entertainment. Props, jewelry, tools, spare parts , prosthetics … the list of objects that could actually be 3D printed seems to be endless. Thanks to the variety of materials, the development of high-performance materials, the most demanding industries can now start implementing additive manufacturing.

If you are interested in 3D printers and the way they work, you will also have to understand all their advantages. Here are the main benefits of using additive manufacturing:. When you need a part, you can just 3D print it. If you need to modify a part, you can also 3D print it.

Additive manufacturing is a great solution if you need to speed up your product development. You will get better and more efficient iterations management. Time is money, and money is precious while running a business and developing projects. Saving time and quickening your whole product development cycle is a crucial part of your business.

One of the biggest advantages of 3D printing is the freedom offered by design. You can recreate all your ideas to transform them into actual objects. Even the most complex geometries can be printed. While using 3D printing you will be released from the limitations of traditional manufacturing. Creating a design for a layer-by-layer process such as 3D printing is also a bit different: a 3D design created for injection molding will not be adapted for 3D printing, for example.

Mass-customization can be an advantage for numerous industries, from the medical field to the production of consumer goods, and automotive. For example, additive manufacturing allows the creation of made-to-measure prosthetics or tools in the medical industry. But it can also be used to create adapted 3D printed glasses. Implementing additive manufacturing in your process is also the perfect solution to rethink your supply-chain and start thinking about the dematerialization of your storage.

With 3D printing, there is no need to store your parts, you just can print them when you need them. The process of 3D printing begins by making a graphic model of the object to be printed. These are usually designed using Computer-Aided Design CAD software packages, and this can be the most labor-intensive part of the process. For complex products, these models are often extensively tested in simulation for any potential defects in the final product.

Of course, if the object to be printed is purely decorative, this is less important. One of the main benefits of 3D-printing is that it allows the rapid prototyping of pretty much anything. The only real limitation is your imagination. In fact, there are some objects that are simply too complex to be created in more traditional manufacturing or prototyping processes like CNC milling or molding.

It is also a lot cheaper than many other traditional manufacturing methods. After design, the next phase is digitally slicing the model to get it for printing. This is a vital step as a 3D printer cannot conceptualize a 3D model in the same way as you or I. The slicing process breaks down the model into many layers. The design for each layer is then sent to the printer head to print, or lay down, in order. The slicing process is usually completed using a special slicer program like CraftWare or Astroprint.

This slicer software will also handle the "fill" of the model by creating a lattice structure inside a solid model for extra stability if required. This also happens to be an area where 3D printers excel. They are able to print very strong materials with very low densities through the strategic addition of pockets of air inside the final product. The slicer software will also add in support columns, where needed.

These are required because plastic cannot be laid down in thin air, and the columns help the printer to bridge the gaps. These columns are then later removed if needed. Once the slicer program has worked its magic, the data is then sent to the printer for the final stage.

From here, the 3D printer itself takes over. Apart from the realities of designing for 3D printing, which can be demanding, file preparation and conversion can also prove time-consuming and complicated, particularly for parts that demand intricate supports during the build process. However there are continual updates and upgrades of software for these functions and the situation is improving.

Furthermore, once off the printer, many parts will need to undergo finishing operations. Stereolithography SL is widely recognized as the first 3D printing process; it was certainly the first to be commercialised. SL is a laser-based process that works with photopolymer resins, that react with the laser and cure to form a solid in a very precise way to produce very accurate parts. It is a complex process, but simply put, the photopolymer resin is held in a vat with a movable platform inside.

A laser beam is directed in the X-Y axes across the surface of the resin according to the 3D data supplied to the machine the. Once the layer is completed, the platform within the vat drops down by a fraction in the Z axis and the subsequent layer is traced out by the laser.

This continues until the entire object is completed and the platform can be raised out of the vat for removal. Because of the nature of the SL process, it requires support structures for some parts, specifically those with overhangs or undercuts.

These structures need to be manually removed. In terms of other post processing steps, many objects 3D printed using SL need to be cleaned and cured. Curing involves subjecting the part to intense light in an oven-like machine to fully harden the resin. Stereolithography is generally accepted as being one of the most accurate 3D printing processes with excellent surface finish.

However limiting factors include the post-processing steps required and the stability of the materials over time, which can become more brittle. DLP — or digital light processing — is a similar process to stereolithography in that it is a 3D printing process that works with photopolymers. The major difference is the light source.

DLP uses a more conventional light source, such as an arc lamp, with a liquid crystal display panel or a deformable mirror device DMD , which is applied to the entire surface of the vat of photopolymer resin in a single pass, generally making it faster than SL. Also like SL, DLP produces highly accurate parts with excellent resolution, but its similarities also include the same requirements for support structures and post-curing. However, one advantage of DLP over SL is that only a shallow vat of resin is required to facilitate the process, which generally results in less waste and lower running costs.

Laser sintering and laser melting are interchangeable terms that refer to a laser based 3D printing process that works with powdered materials. The laser is traced across a powder bed of tightly compacted powdered material, according to the 3D data fed to the machine, in the X-Y axes. As the laser interacts with the surface of the powdered material it sinters, or fuses, the particles to each other forming a solid.

As each layer is completed the powder bed drops incrementally and a roller smoothes the powder over the surface of the bed prior to the next pass of the laser for the subsequent layer to be formed and fused with the previous layer.

The build chamber is completely sealed as it is necessary to maintain a precise temperature during the process specific to the melting point of the powdered material of choice. One of the key advantages of this process is that the powder bed serves as an in-process support structure for overhangs and undercuts, and therefore complex shapes that could not be manufactured in any other way are possible with this process.

However, on the downside, because of the high temperatures required for laser sintering, cooling times can be considerable. Furthermore, porosity has been an historical issue with this process, and while there have been significant improvements towards fully dense parts, some applications still necessitate infiltration with another material to improve mechanical characteristics. Laser sintering can process plastic and metal materials, although metal sintering does require a much higher powered laser and higher in-process temperatures.

Parts produced with this process are much stronger than with SL or DLP, although generally the surface finish and accuracy is not as good. The most popular name for the process is Fused Deposition Modelling FDM , due to its longevity, however this is a trade name, registered by Stratasys, the company that originally developed it.

However, the proliferation of entry-level 3D printers that have emerged since largely utilize a similar process, generally referred to as Freeform Fabrication FFF , but in a more basic form due to patents still held by Stratasys.

The earliest RepRap machines and all subsequent evolutions — open source and commercial — employ extrusion methodology. The process works by melting plastic filament that is deposited, via a heated extruder, a layer at a time, onto a build platform according to the 3D data supplied to the printer. Each layer hardens as it is deposited and bonds to the previous layer. Stratasys has developed a range of proprietary industrial grade materials for its FDM process that are suitable for some production applications.

At the entry-level end of the market, materials are more limited, but the range is growing. For FDM, this entails a second, water-soluble material, which allows support structures to be relatively easily washed away, once the print is complete. Alternatively, breakaway support materials are also possible, which can be removed by manually snapping them off the part. Support structures, or lack thereof, have generally been a limitation of the entry level FFF 3D printers. However, as the systems have evolved and improved to incorporate dual extrusion heads, it has become less of an issue.

At the entry-level, as would be expected, the FFF process produces much less accurate models, but things are constantly improving. The process can be slow for some part geometries and layer-to-layer adhesion can be a problem, resulting in parts that are not watertight. Again, post-processing using Acetone can resolve these issues. As is the case with other powder bed systems, once a layer is completed, the powder bed drops incrementally and a roller or blade smoothes the powder over the surface of the bed, prior to the next pass of the jet heads, with the binder for the subsequent layer to be formed and fused with the previous layer.

Advantages of this process, like with SLS, include the fact that the need for supports is negated because the powder bed itself provides this functionality. Furthermore, a range of different materials can be used, including ceramics and food. A further distinctive advantage of the process is the ability to easily add a full colour palette which can be added to the binder.

The parts resulting directly from the machine, however, are not as strong as with the sintering process and require post-processing to ensure durability. Material jetting: a 3D printing process whereby the actual build materials in liquid or molten state are selectively jetted through multiple jet heads with others simultaneously jetting support materials. However, the materials tend to be liquid photopolymers, which are cured with a pass of UV light as each layer is deposited.

The nature of this product allows for the simultaneous deposition of a range of materials, which means that a single part can be produced from multiple materials with different characteristics and properties. Material jetting is a very precise 3D printing method, producing accurate parts with a very smooth finish. However, that is where any similarity ends. The SDL 3D printing process builds parts layer by layer using standard copier paper.

Each new layer is fixed to the previous layer using an adhesive, which is applied selectively according to the 3D data supplied to the machine. After a new sheet of paper is fed into the 3D printer from the paper feed mechanism and placed on top of the selectively applied adhesive on the previous layer, the build plate is moved up to a heat plate and pressure is applied.

This pressure ensures a positive bond between the two sheets of paper. The build plate then returns to the build height where an adjustable Tungsten carbide blade cuts one sheet of paper at a time, tracing the object outline to create the edges of the part. When this cutting sequence is complete, the 3D printer deposits the next layer of adhesive and so on until the part is complete.

And because the parts are standard paper, which require no post-processing, they are wholly safe and eco-friendly. Where the process is not able to compete favourably with other 3D printing processes is in the production of complex geometries and the build size is limited to the size of the feedstock.

The key difference is the heat source, which, as the name suggests is an electron beam, rather than a laser, which necessitates that the procedure is carried out under vacuum conditions.

EBM has the capability of creating fully-dense parts in a variety of metal alloys, even to medical grade, and as a result the technique has been particularly successful for a range of production applications in the medical industry, particularly for implants.

However, other hi-tech sectors such as aerospace and automotive have also looked to EBM technology for manufacturing fulfillment. The materials available for 3D printing have come a long way since the early days of the technology. There is now a wide variety of different material types, that are supplied in different states powder, filament, pellets, granules, resin etc. Specific materials are now generally developed for specific platforms performing dedicated applications an example would be the dental sector with material properties that more precisely suit the application.

However, there are now way too many proprietary materials from the many different 3D printer vendors to cover them all here.

Instead, this article will look at the most popular types of material in a more generic way. And also a couple of materials that stand out. Nylon, or Polyamide, is commonly used in powder form with the sintering process or in filament form with the FDM process.

It is a strong, flexible and durable plastic material that has proved reliable for 3D printing. It is naturally white in colour but it can be coloured — pre- or post printing. This material can also be combined in powder format with powdered aluminium to produce another common 3D printing material for sintering — Alumide.

It is a particularly strong plastic and comes in a wide range of colours. ABS can be bought in filament form from a number of non-propreitary sources, which is another reason why it is so popular. PLA is a bio-degradable plastic material that has gained traction with 3D printing for this very reason. It is offered in a variety of colours, including transparent, which has proven to be a useful option for some applications of 3D printing.

However it is not as durable or as flexible as ABS. LayWood is a specially developed 3D printing material for entry-level extrusion 3D printers. A growing number of metals and metal composites are used for industrial grade 3D printing. Two of the most common are aluminium and cobalt derivatives. It is naturally silver, but can be plated with other materials to give a gold or bronze effect.