3D printing: answers to the most popular questions in 2022


Custom manufacturing company Hubs.com offers to produce custom parts, often using 3D printing technology. She recently analyzed Google search data to determine the top 10 technology-related questions people ask Google.

While the press release lists the questions, uses them to illustrate the size of the market, and comments that 3D printing has grown substantially, it does not attempt to answer them. That’s where this article comes in. We’re going to go around the table where we’ll answer all the questions in order of popularity, each in a few paragraphs.

What is 3D printing?

3D printing is the term applied to a form of manufacturing called additive manufacturing. Essentially, objects are built layer by layer, with each layer adding material on top of the previous layer. The process is much like printing on paper, except the material (usually plastic) adds a third dimension.

This process is different from other manufacturing processes, which are often subtractive. These remove material to create an object. CNC machines are often subtractive, they cut wood, plastic or metal to obtain a finished object.

How much does it cost ?

The price range of 3D printers is quite wide. You can buy one for hobbyist use for under $200, or you can buy a giant industrial machine for well over a million. In practice, for home, office, and conceptual prototyping work, you can buy very good quality 3D printers for between 200 and a few thousand dollars.

Price is often determined by the size of the machine, its sturdiness (whether it’s built from steel or plastic), and the features that come with it. Among the slightly more expensive models, some have Wi-Fi, a camera and various printing conveniences, such as automatic bed leveling.

How does a 3D printer work?

A number of technologies enable additive manufacturing. The two most popular are Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Stereolithography (SLA).

FDM printers use rolls of plastic filament. This filament is threaded through the machine, a drive mechanism pushes the strand of filament into a “hot end” which melts the plastic, and an extruder pushes the molten plastic onto a plate. A series of gantries move the extruder around the plate to place the filament, and the plate or gantries move up and down as layers are added.

SLA printers work differently. They use a resin tank with a transparent bottom. Under the tank is a light source. This is usually an LCD screen, like the one on your smartphone or tablet. Some pixels light up, exposing the resin and causing the exposed resin to harden. At each exposure, a gantry lifts the exposed resin from the transparent bottom of the tank, and the next layer is exposed.

Other 3D printing technologies involve the use of molten powders, sand, and a wide variety of other approaches, but are mostly limited to heavier industrial use.

What can I make with a 3D printer?

Lots of things: from miniature houses for a scale model to real houses, and pretty much everything in between. In fact, if you can design an object for 3D printing and your equipment can handle it, you can manufacture it.

More concretely, what can be done with a printer under 1,000 euros? Resin printers produce amazing detail and are widely used for board games, to create miniatures, and by model railroaders to create model trains and accessories. They are also used to create product prototypes and physical mockups.

FDM printers don’t produce small details as well, but they can make a lot of useful things. I use it to make stirrups, bases and stands for making videos. Automakers use them to create jigs and fixtures right in the factory. Military ships use it to make spare parts. Schools make scale models of dinosaur skeletons to teach history.

What is PLA?

PLA, or polylactic acid, is a material for making plastic filaments. It is probably the most common material for 3D printing, as it is very easy to use. It adheres well to the build plate, it doesn’t have difficult issues with temperature changes, it produces fairly clean objects that don’t require a lot of post-processing, and it’s relatively environmentally friendly.

That said, it does not hold up well to the sun. It can be a little flimsy, and while it’s quite tough, it’s nowhere near as strong as nylons or even ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), another common plastic. Legos are made of ABS, for example.

Overall, PLA is a good general-purpose printing filament, available at a relatively low price and in a wide variety of colors and variations.

Who invented 3D printing?

3D printing is a technological concept that has been around for decades. The American Chuck Hull is considered the inventor of stereolithography in 1984. He filed a patent in 1986. But authorship is disputed. A Japanese inventor, Hideo Kodama, filed a patent in 1981, but was unable to fund it to completion.

An excellent article on the history of 3D printing is available on the All3DP site. Justin Haines, the author of the article, traces back to a science fiction story written in 1945 by Murray Leinster, which described a pretty good prediction of what 3D printing would become. If you want to learn more about the history of 3D printing, I recommend reading the article.

What materials are used for 3D printing?

By far the most common material for 3D printing is plastic. Used in filament or FDM printing, it melts easily, extrudes smoothly and hardens when cooled. It is therefore particularly easy to build objects with it.

Some vendors infuse their filaments with particles of other materials. Wood filament is a wood-infused plastic, and it sands well. The copper filament is infused with copper bits, which tarnish and polish like real copper. Carbon fiber filament is, you guessed it, plastic filament infused with carbon fibers for added strength.

Objects printed with resin printing begin life as a liquid, moderately harmful resin. Light (especially some wavelengths of ultraviolet light), not heating and cooling, causes resin to harden.

Other materials are also used in 3D printing. 3D-printed houses are made with concrete that hardens in the air after being pushed out of a moving gantry system. Metal objects have been made by 3D printers that use metal dust (like sawdust, but metal) that is either heated to form a bond or mixed with a glue-like agent to hold the bond together. all together. There are even 3D printers that extrude chocolate and other food products to make 3D printed food.

Expect a lot of innovation when it comes to 3D printing materials. This is a growing field, especially as 3D metal printing becomes more convenient, more affordable, and more commonplace.

How to design for 3D printing?

Most 3D printed designs are created in a CAD (computer-aided design) program like Fusion 360, Tinkercard, or Blender.

It’s basically drawing shapes on the screen, combining them together, and creating objects out of those shapes. When I first got interested in 3D printing, I wrote an article called “If you can do PowerPoint, you can do 3D design” because a lot of the basic design of the 3D printing is simply drawing and placing rectangles.

Blender is a free, open-source project that provides professionals and others with an all-in-one 3D modeler and animation and video editing tool for Hollywood-style creations.

  • Downloads: 19
  • Release date : 03/08/2022
  • Author : Blender Foundation
  • Licence : Free license
  • Categories:
    Multimedia – Video
  • Operating system : Linux – Windows 64 bits – XP/Vista/7/8/10/11 – Windows Portable – XP/Vista/7/8/10/11 – macOS

Personally, I use Tinkercard for my quick and simple designs. It’s very quick and easy to learn and use, and if I’m creating a relatively simple object and want to do it quickly, Tinkercard (which is free) is a great option.

Autodesk Tinkercad is a completely free online 3D creation and modeling service offered by the famous AutoDesk editor, to whom we owe the AutoCAD software, you will learn everything you need to know about 3D creation.

  • Downloads: 98
  • Release date : 04/25/2022
  • Author : Autodesk
  • Licence : Free license
  • Categories:
    Multimedia – Office – Development – Education
  • Operating system : Online service All internet browsers – iOS iPad

When I’m designing something more complex, I turn to Fusion 360. Not only is it more powerful, but it uses what’s called “parametric design.” This is a feature that allows you to assign variables to dimensions and by changing the number assigned to the variable, the whole design is resized.

Autodesk Fusion 360 is a cloud-based, collaborative platform for CAD, CAM, CAE, and PCB design tools. It allows you to manage a project from conception to completion.

  • Downloads: 125
  • Release date : 07/20/2022
  • Author : Autodesk
  • Licence : Demonstration
  • Categories:
    Utilities – Development
  • Operating system : Android – Windows – iOS iPhone / iPad – macOS

What is 3D printing used for?

The answer has already been given, but as a searched term on Google it appears as distinct from “What can I do with a 3D printer?” “. Rather than list a bunch of other things you can build, I’m going to share my tips with you when getting started.

3D printing is far from magical. Each object must be constructed from a series of shapes. It is not enough to wave the brushes of an artist to obtain a painting of master. Like painting, 3D printing requires a certain level of design and effort. Similarly, as with painting, the medium must be kept in mind. With melted plastic, you cannot create large open areas, otherwise the plastic will simply sag. Instead, you need to design “supports” or other ways to handle the material properties of the plastic.

3D printing is used for rapid prototyping, product design, small-batch manufacturing, hobby projects, home crafts, and more. She excels in creating low-cost custom solutions. But to get a 3D printed object, you either have to buy or download one that has already been created, or design it yourself in a CAD program.

Source: ZDNet.com





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