Rapid Prototyping Services, Professional manufacturer of CNC Prototyping and 3D Prototyping in China. 

3d printing basics

by:Tuowei     2019-08-13
The 3D printer is used to create three-
Size workpiece designed on computer.
3D printers have a wide variety of shapes, sizes and types, but they are essentially computer-controlled additive manufacturing machines.
Similar to paper printers placing ink in one layer to create images, 3D printers place or solidify materials layer by layer to create three-
Dimension object.
The application scope of 3D printer is very wide;
Designers use them to test product ideas, manufacturing companies use them to make complex parts for components, and manufacturing commercial them to DIY make whatever they can imagine.
Although the types and uses of 3D printers vary, all 3D printers can be simply described as tools;
They allow people to make things they can\'t make before.
From this guide you will learn what 3D printers are, how they work, when they should be used, and how to design and use them for them.
I will also provide some resources about purchasing printers and 3D printing services.
Once you\'re done, hopefully you can print something yourself!
3D printers as machines fall into different categories.
They are controlled by computers, making them CNC or computer CNC machines.
Because of the way 3D printers work, they are called additive manufacturing machines.
Instead of cutting or drilling parts from raw material blocks to form some shape (
Subtraction manufacturing)
3D printers add materials a little bit to form their work, making them an additive manufacturing machine.
All in all, this means that the 3D printer is a machine controlled by a computer that adds materials to create a shape that you tell it to create.
3D printers are inefficient compared to other CNC industrial machines because they take a lot of time to make parts, while other machines, such as injection molding machines, can produce more powerful parts, more durable parts in a few minutes.
Different 3D printers have different disadvantages and benefits, but most 3D printers produce relatively weak small parts due to the way parts are created.
So why use 3D printing?
The 3D printer is very cheap, so anyone with a 3D printer can easily make anything.
They let designers go straight from idea to reality, they allow for fast iterative design, and they can create complex geometry without difficulty.
In short, just press a button and you can create anything you imagine.
Unlike most other CNC machines, the associated installation costs or programs for 3D printers are very low.
3D printers can produce custom designed parts relatively quickly and cheaply, making 3D printers one of the best rapid prototyping tools.
Large manufacturing machines may need to accurately process molds or fixtures for each new part, which means they have more installation costs and steps required for production content;
They make thousands of specific parts over and over again.
With 3D printers, parts can be designed and manufactured cheaply, and then their designs can be modified, printed and tested multiple times in a row before the parts reach full production.
3D printing is a manual operation.
Manufacturing process;
Just press a button and anything you design will be made.
Other manufacturing methods, such as drill press, lathe or milling machine, need to be operated by the manufacturer.
The workpiece needs to be aligned, measured and processed by the user, which introduces human error in the manufacture of the part.
3D printers, because of the way they make parts, can make many parts with complex geometric shapes, including natural shapes such as artificial limbs or animal models, or more complex shapes, such as multi-angle or proportional building replicas.
3D printers offer manufacturers a lot of opportunities because they allow people to make things that they could not have made before.
As mentioned earlier, the 3D design can be easily changed on the computer and then re-printed.
This means that files can be customized for certain people or things and can be printed easily without changing the settings of the machine.
Ability to create personalized content for small-
Because it allows them to create designs for specific people and even produce designs that others give them.
Personalized Jewelry, custom fitted artificial limbs, and even 3D scans of people can be printed and modified to suit the final recipient.
To understand more specifically how 3D printers work and how to design them, you need to understand different types of 3D printers on the market.
Although the materials and methods for creating parts vary greatly, all 3D printers build parts by adding materials layer by layer, merging each layer together to make solid objects.
There are several different types of 3D printing process: some are more suitable for mass manufacturing, some allow many materials or colors during printing, due to the way the printer works, some types of printers can even be built fairly easily.
I include the most common 3D printer types in this guide, and there are several other types of printers, but most of the time they come from the following four types.
Molten deposition modeling is probably one of the most common types in 3D printing and the easiest to understand.
In this type of 3D printing, the material is usually ABS or PLA plastic, melted by the print head and squeezed into the printer bed, similar to the way ink is deposited on the page on the paper printer.
The printer\'s camera head places the material layer by layer to create a 3D model, each layer blends with the previous layer when cooling.
Because they are cheap and easy to build, finite difference printers are very common desktop printers.
Their accuracy depends on the quality of the motor that controls the nose relative to the position of the platform being built, and the level of sophistication when the head is extruded from the material.
Because the material is piled up layer by layer, the printed parts tend to be weak in the horizontal cross section.
In addition, on a finite difference printer, any extended part of a 3D printed part requires a support material to support the extended part.
FDM printers with multiple EDM heads can be printed in soluble supporting materials dissolved in certain chemicals, while those with a single extruder have less density when printing, and can be disconnected after printing.
Multiple extruder heads also allow FDM printers to print in multiple colors or materials, expanding their functionality.
Stereo printing is the oldest 3D printing method in which the laser is used to cure liquid resin with UV rays.
When the FDM printer pulls out a layer of filaments to form a 3D model, the laser beam on the SLA printer pulls out a part to solidify the liquid resin layer by layer to generate a 3D part.
When most other 3D printers print from the bottom of the part and work up, the SLA printer can print from top to bottom.
The laser and resin bath sits at the bottom of the printer, the parts are fixed on the bottom build platform and are drawn when printing.
Due to the nature of the SLA printer, it can be very fast and precise.
However, the resin itself is expensive because it is curing and needs to be stored in a specialized container.
Most resins are often very brittle when cured and cannot withstand too much force, so SLA printing is often useful in prototyping, but does not work in production.
As with FDM printers, SLA printers need to print support structures for parts, but they have limited materials because they can only be printed with cured resin and cannot print multiple material types at the same time.
However, the accuracy of SLA printers enables them to print very complex and refined structures.
Selective laser sintering is very similar to stereo forming because the laser is used to solidify the material and form a solid shape.
The biggest difference between the two technologies is that while SLA printing uses liquid resin, laser sintering can solidify powder materials.
Lay a layer of powder on the print bed, and the particles of each layer are cured by laser.
The advantage of selective laser sintering is that it can support a wide range of materials, including plastics, glass and some metals.
Printing parts on SLS machines does not require supporting materials because parts are immersed in power, so they can be used to make parts that are more complex and precise than most other printers.
However, they are usually only found in industry because they require high power lasers and are very expensive.
During the manufacture of laminated objects, a laser or knife is used to cut a slice of a 3D model from a material sheet.
Each page material is pulled on the previous page, cut out with a cutting tool, and then glue is laid so that the next page is glued to it.
As a result, the printer produces a pile of paper materials that are cut and fused together.
Since the LOM printer consists of a pile of paper, it can be used in (in 2D)
Before using it on the machine, this means that these printers can actually be used to create color 3D printed artifacts.
The production cost of these printers is very low because the raw materials are just a lot of paper or plastic.
Due to the material properties of the paper, they have the benefits of printing flexible, sturdy parts.
Although the parts are strong, they are just a stack of paper, so they are easily worn out and the features of the small parts are easily peeled off.
LOM machines are best at making large parts with minimal small details.
Every print needs a lot of mail.
Remove the processing of the part from the rest of the material.
These printers usually generate a lot of waste, because each part needs to be excavated from a pile of paper, and the geometry of the created part is limited due to the way the part is made.
3D printers allow designers to move directly from concept ideas and design to physical models.
To do this, it is necessary to design objects on a computer using some kind of 3D design software.
Once the part is designed, it can be imported into software specific to the 3D printer being used, which will slice the part, and send a list of the paths and directions used to create the part to the printer.
There are a lot of different CAD (
Computer-aided design
Program for designing 3D models for various purposes.
Design programs like Tinkercad or Autodesk 123D are free for beginners interested in 3D design and 3D printing, great, professional engineers use programs such as SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor to design the parts and components needed for production.
I will introduce some of the issues that need to be considered when designing 3D printed parts.
When designing for 3D printing, some design guidelines and constraints should be followed, just like any manufacturing process.
One of the most important considerations in the design process is to design with the construction surface in mind.
All printers build parts from the print bed, so it\'s important to remember the face the parts print.
While it is slightly different to determine the best part direction on all printers, optimizing the design of that direction will minimize the risk of material use, printing time, and printing failure.
By adjusting the direction of the part and reducing the printing time and supporting materials, you can reduce the amount of supporting materials you need to minimize the material and printing time.
The supporting material can be difficult to remove and produce a rough surface finish, which is not the best if you want your parts to look like a finished product.
To eliminate the impact of the supporting material, the part needs to be polished and polished, which may affect the tolerance of the part if the part is connected to other materials.
On most desktop printers, parts usually break along the cross direction
The part parallel to the construction plate.
The material is laid or solidified layer by layer, which are not fused like high-end printers, forming seams along the cross line
Part of.
This means that the part can easily be cut along these planes if the force is applied.
If you know how and where the force will be applied to your part, then adjust the direction of your part so that the direction of the force will not follow these intersections
Segmented plane.
Build bonding on most printers, mainly FDM machines, 3D printed parts stick to the build board when printing, and very small contact areas can cause the parts to fall off the build board.
One side of the part has the largest surface area on the same plane, usually the one you want to print, although this may change depending on the function of a given printer.
As I mentioned earlier, most printers need a printed support structure to support the flat highlighted features of the part.
Since the material is laid layer by layer, most printers (
Mainly limited differential and SLA printers)
Features such as vertical holes or round arches can be created and can be handled from a horizontal direction up to 45 degrees without support, and with minimal sagging.
In order to avoid the support material, please pay attention to the plane or low
The prominent angle is, or re-
Determine the direction of the part, or make sure that they are supported by other part features, such as a angled stand-out or arch.
Most 3D printers involve heating and melting of plastic or resin, so the parts shrink slightly when cooling.
This means that printing parts (such as gears, sliders, or brackets) that will interact with other objects can be tricky.
Tolerance if you are designing a part that is suitable for other parts or around them, make sure there are some gap tolerances left between the two parts.
This tolerance will depend on the printer you are using, so you may need to print out some test pieces to try the installation.
Many 3D printers in HolesOn, the holes will never be as precise as you drill or drill them out.
This is because the shrinkage of the part slightly changes the size of the part, and also because it is usually Descartes-
Circular holes are being manufactured using a printer-based printer.
To ensure that there are precise holes on the part, the holes are designed to be slightly smaller (
A few thousand parts)
Then drill the hole to the right size with a hole expansion.
When designing the part where the screws or nuts will be screwed, do not print the threads, because the tolerances may not make them as accurate as the threads on the assembly.
To fix the screw to a 3D printed part, make the hole slightly smaller than the thread diameter of the part and tap the hole after the printing is complete.
The plastic used by most 3D printers has a relatively low melting point, as the plastic needs to be heated and safe when heated.
That\'s why ABS and PLA are usually used for FDM machines.
However, the low melting point means that they are easily corroded by friction applied.
SLA printers usually produce very brittle parts due to the type of resin required.
3D printed parts are often not suitable for high-speed or high-force situations, as features tend to rub off after a period of time, or the parts break.
Sliding, rotating, or moving parts work when 3D printing, but wear and tear.
CNC Machines3D printers belong to the category of machines called \"Computer CNC (CNC)Machines.
The CNC machine is a machine controlled and operated by a computer.
The machine controller gives the machine a CAD file that the machine creates through a series of operations.
CNC machines are usually more accurate and reliable than humans.
Operate the machine.
3D printers are additional manufacturing of CNC machines because they are controlled by computers and they add materials to make parts.
Other machines, such as Mills and lathes, are subtraction manufacturing machines because they remove materials to make parts, just as you cut a piece of paper into shape.
Like a 3D printer, the laser cutting machine is another fast prototype CNC technology.
Laser cutting machine is a very fast and efficient tool to use laser to cut or etching plane materials according to 2D CAD drawings.
They can be made of wood, plastic, sometimes metal, and other materials into functional prototypes, or they can be used to make artwork because of their collection capabilities.
The 3D ScannersA 3D scanner is another technology usually developed hand in hand with 3D printing.
3D scanners generate 3D CAD models of real-world objects.
In order to scan the object, the 3D scanner maps the points on the object to the distance from the scanner, so that the 3D representation of the object can be generated, it can be 3D printed, and it can be used for more design work.
Custom message
Chat Online
Chat Online
Leave Your Message inputting...