3d printer how does it work

The material begins as a liquid and changes to a solid when hit by a concentrated ultraviolet light beam. DLP is similar to stereolithography in that it uses light to harden a liquid into a solid.

However, in digital light processing, the object starts as a vat of full liquid. A portion of the liquid is exposed to light, which hardens, then the build plate is lowered by a small amount. Another shot of light hardens more of the liquid, and this process repeats. Any leftover liquid is drained, leaving behind a solid model.

SLS uses a high-power laser to fuse material particles e. EBM is a 3D printing process used for metal parts. The process takes place in a vacuum and begins by spreading down a layer of metal powder most often titanium.

An electron beam then melts the powder into a solid layer. Objects created this way are surprisingly dense and strong. MJM works similarly to modern InkJet printers. It spreads a layer of resin powder and then sprays a colored binding glue-like substance that hardens the powder into a single layer. Multi-jet modeling is extremely useful because it is fast and supports colored printing. FDM uses a heated extrusion nozzle that melts a material e. You've heard the hype about 3D printing but how does it actually work?

Andrew Walker explains it's like baking a sliced loaf of bread backwards. Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile.

It seems like everyone from the White House to Amazon. A 3D printer can make pretty much anything from ceramic cups to plastic toys, metal machine parts, stoneware vases, fancy chocolate cakes or even one day soon human body parts.

They replace traditional factory production lines with a single machine, just like home inkjet printers replaced bottles of ink, a printing press, hot metal type and a drying rack. In theory, if you printed over that same page a few thousand times, eventually the ink would build up enough layers on top of each other to create a solid 3D model of each letter.

There are also different types of 3D printing depending on the size, detail and scope of a project. Each different type of printer will vary slightly on how an object gets printed.

Here are a few cool examples of how 3D printing is changing the future:. In fact, if it can be pureed, it can be safely printed. Like something out of a sci-fi show, 3D printers layer on real pureed ingredients, like chicken and carrots, in order to recreate the foods we know and love.

You might want to order your meal ahead though. For example, a detailed piece of chocolate takes about minutes to print. Nonprofits and cities all over the world are turning to 3D printing to solve the global homeless crisis.

New Story , a nonprofit dedicated to creating better living conditions, is actually printing homes right now. Using a foot long printer, New Story is able to churn out a square-foot home , complete with walls, windows and two bedrooms in just 24 hours. Instead of the traditional organ donation process, doctors and engineers are teaming up to develop the next wave of medical technology that can create hearts, kidneys and livers from scratch. This breakthrough technology has the ability to change the medical industry as we know it and reduce the drastically high number of patients on the organ donation waitlist in the US.

Perhaps most impressively, 3D printing technology has even fast-tracked production and durability of prosthetics while reducing costs, like how GE Additive has produced over 10, hip replacements through 3D printing from through Will the future of space travel rely on 3D-printed rockets? Companies, like Relativity Space in California, think so. The company claims that it can 3D print a working rocket in just a few days and with one hundred times fewer parts than a normal shuttle.

The rocket will be custom-printed using a proprietary alloy metal that maximizes payload capacity and minimizes assembly time. The total payload capacity for this rocket reaches 1,kg about the weight of an average Rhinoceros. Not bad for something that came out of a printer.

Not only are 3D printed materials easier to manufacture quickly and at lower costs but 3D printing also provides a way to reduce the total number of parts that need to be welded together while also significantly reducing weight and increasing strength.

Spare parts, tools, jigs and fixtures can all be produced on an as-needed basis while providing flexibility that would have been unimaginable to previous generations. Additionally, 3D printing provides a way for automotive enthusiasts to customize their vehicles or restore old cars with parts that are no longer in production. 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. It will begin to print out the model according to the specific instructions of the slicer program using different methods, depending on the type of printer used.

For example, direct 3D printing uses technology similar to inkjet technology, in which nozzles move back and forth, and up and down, dispensing a thick waxes or plastic polymers, which solidify to form each new cross-section of the 3D object. Multi-jet modeling uses dozens of jets working simultaneously, for more rapid modeling. In binder 3D printing, the inkjet nozzles appliesa fine dry powder and a liquid glue, or binder, that come together to form each printed layer.

Binder printers make two passes to form each layer.