3D printing is an additive manufacturing process that has become popular in the past years. It is a technique of transforming your virtual design into a fully three-dimensional product. It is also one of the fastest modes of developing physical prototypes accurately.
When it comes to making 3D prototypes, there are certain concepts, techniques and technologies that should be learned. Knowing how to set up 3D printing machines, selecting the right materials to be used and choosing the appropriate printing technology are crucial. Also, common mistakes may have been encountered during the printing process. For these reasons, here is a beginner’s guide to help you get started.
Whether it is used for industrial or personal purposes, 3D printing has lots of advantages that are not offered in traditional methods of manufacturing.
3D printing allows designers and engineers or even hobbyists to customise the object they want to print. There is no limit to the personalisation. It suits eccentric person who likes to be surrounded by extravagant objects or the people who are passionate about unique accessories. With 3D printing, individual demand for certain product/prototype creation can be meet.
Industrial 3D printing can eliminate the need for tool production. It will help lower the labour costs and shorter lead times associated with it. With its complexity advantages, products can be designed specifically to avoid assembly requirements with intricate calculations and complex features, which minimise the labour costs that corresponds with the assembly processes.
3D printing is a known to be an energy-efficient technology that provides efficiencies in the environment in terms of its manufacturing process. It uses up to 90% of standard materials. It also imposes reduced carbon footprint compared with traditionally manufactured products. Thus, it creates less waste.
3D printers is very useful. It can build different kinds of product that can be of great help in the industrial, medical, aerospace sectors. A complex designed component can be easily made through 3D printing.
To start 3D printing, the first thing to do is to design a 3D model on the computer, connect it to a 3D printer, press ‘print’ and then sit back and wait. 3D printing process makes an object from thousands of tiny little slices of material. It starts from the bottom-up, slice by slice. Those tiny layers stick together to form a solid object.
3D printers can create moving parts like hinges and wheels as part of the same object. It can also be used to print handlebars, saddle, frame, wheels, brakes, pedals and chain of a whole bicycle. It is already assembled, without using any tools.
3D printing means anything that is needed can simply be printed. It is also a method for functional testing and validation of a product. However, a question needed to asked is “what’s in it for the average consumer?” Here are a few examples amongst many possibilities:
Using 3D printing, precise computer-generated design can be turned into a physical object. This means that from a simple idea, an object can be created using a CAD software.
3D printers can print several items that are helpful to everyday life and business. Tools such as vent cap, battery adapters, jig, and many more products or parts can be easily printed in Industries such as automotive, aviation, aerospace, construction, architecture, medical, dental, fashion, product design.
Since 3D printing has the convenience of printing prototypes easily, designers and engineers can also use it to revise or improve a certain product. Furthermore, a specific product can be reproduced with ease based on the existing design through searching and finding it online.
A small design of 3D model can be easily made. However, big products will take time to print. Printing duration depends on the size, materials and setting of the design.
Time taken to print any object depends on size and settings of the object. Factors such as type of printer, speed of the printer head for FDM, size of the print, quality of the print and infill settings affects the printing time.
A tiny object with little dimensions and infills can be printed in an hour. Meanwhile, objects with higher dimensions may take several hours to print.
Basically, SLA prints faster than any other 3D prints. However, it needs more time to clean off the parts after the printing is done.
There are a wide range of techniques of making 3D prototypes. The most popular technology of 3D printing used in the industry are Fused Deposition Modelling, Selective Laser Sintering and Stereolithography.
The common type of additive manufacturing is Fused Deposition Modeling. FDM is easy, affordable and can be used with many different materials. FDM involves filling a spool of the filament into an extruder where it’s meltdown and makes one layer at a time, to create a 3D shape. Simply put, this process is done where the materials are deposited in single layers which are fused together to form a 3D object.
Stereolithography uses a beam of UV light to draw a pattern over a photosensitive pool of liquid resin. Once the light hits the liquid, it will harden through the process of photopolymerization. When a layer is complete, the base will move to make room for the next layer, until the 3D object is made. SLA is suited for designers who want to cast their art in 3D.
This process involves the exposure of small particles of glass, ceramics or plastics to heat using a high-powered laser. While Stereolithography uses liquid, SLS uses powder. The powder will solidify once the laser hits it. The powder that surrounds the object being printed acts as a support. After that, powder is then removed from the solid object. Although there’s not a consumer printer option available, objects can be sent for printing.
Materials used for 3D printing can affect the finished result. It is important to utilise the material suited for the product to be printed.
There are different materials that can be used in 3D printing. The quality of the finished product is affected by the material utilised for printing. When printing a certain model, the materials used should be chosen properly. There is a wide range of materials to choose from.
PLA is an environment-friendly material. It is a biodegradable thermoplastic derived from renewable resources such as cornstarch, potato starch and tapioca roots. PLA can be sanded down and be painted over with acrylic paint, but some people recommend using a primer.
ABS is used for a very large variety of applications by industrial companies nowadays. It is flexible and quite resistant to heat. It is very durable and strong. 3D printers that are able to process ABS plastics normally operate with a hot end at a temperature around 210-250°C.
PVA is a special plastic that is water-soluble. It needs to be kept in a sealed box or container together with a desiccant. It should be dried before use. PVA has normally extruded at a temperature of 190°C. However, it is not very easy to use as it attracts water so much. Ambient air moisture will deteriorate the filament very quickly.
3D printing has made a great impact on the world nowadays and changed the everyday life and business scope a lot. There are some features that a 3D printer should have to provide results that people want.
No matter which price range you’re considering, the best printers should have the following features:
Overall, a 3D printer should have these features above in order to create a quality 3d printed product.
The development of 3D printing has been very crucial to engineers and designers because they are now able to produce models from computer-generated designs to physical objects driectly. For beginners, it seems that 3D printing is difficult task to start off. So they should have enough knowledge and understanding about different concepts, processes and applications in terms of 3D printing.
If you are new to 3D printing, this beginner’s guide could be of great help. But if you prefer to outsource 3D printing, seeking help from for professional 3D printing company is always a good idea.