Do you recall doodling something three dimensional on a piece of paper and then wishing you had it? What if we told you that, in today's developing era, whatever you wished to have from your drawing is possible!
This is what 3-D printing is.
Whatever you purchase from the market may have been created after a large number of defective pieces or after so much wastage. Perhaps you didn't get exactly what you bought due to a human error.
A 3D printer, on the other hand, will produce the exact product that you design. Today, engineers, doctors, hospitals, and even chefs will benefit from 3D printing.
Before getting to the pros of 3D printing, let's learn what 3D printing is.
3D printing is the method of creating a solid three-dimensional item from a digital file in an automated manner. Additive manufacturing is another name for it.
3D printers generate objects that vary in shape, size, rigidity, and color by layering around material such as plastic, composite, or biomaterial.
It is making anything from nothing!
3D printing originally appeared in the early 1980s, but it was prohibitively expensive. It was difficult to use for decades, and it was typically inaccessible to anyone who wasn't trained in the field.
It has radically transformed during the previous ten years. Engineers, doctors, hospitals, chefs, and others can now easily access it.
Why 3D printing and not buying?
First of all, let us learn how products are made.
There are four methods to make the product:
- Subtractive Manufacturing is a process in which we take a specific item, such as wood, stone, or any other material, and give it a shape.In a nutshell, we remove or subtract the parts that aren't required to produce something. For example, we create a wooden chair from a tree or a statue from stone by just cutting the item to form a shape.
- Forming manufacturing is a manufacturing process in which we take blocks and use a force to modify their shape or link them together to create the desired shape. In the same way that children play with Legos and create their designs, we take blocks and shape them into desired shapes in this procedure.
- Casting Manufacturing is a technique of manufacturing in which we take a solid material and turn it into a liquid before pouring it into a mould.
Like how we melt chocolate and then pour it into a mould to make them in the shape we want.
- Additive Manufacturing is a method in which we start with nothing and end up with everything. Because of this, 3-D printing is sometimes referred to as additive manufacturing. 3-D printing is one type of Additive Manufacturing, and it involves making an object by adding one tiny layer at a time.
What are the advantages of 3D printing?
The key advantages of 3-D printing are its speed, flexibility, and low cost.
3-D printing is far superior to conventional industrial technologies for short production runs, prototyping, small business, and educational use.
To create innovative shapes and items that were previously impossible, a variety of materials such as plastics, metals, food, and even living cells from our bodies can be used.
3D Printing is best for the use of prototyping.
Prototyping is a method of demonstrating the main concept behind your production while also avoiding large upfront costs because we will have a sample before investing at the start of production.
The items we purchase from the market are not the materials we require, nor are they biodegradable or bioplastics. But now, as we have 3D Printers, we can choose the material.
If you want to use it on your 3D printer, PLA is biodegradable plastic made from renewable resources rather than petroleum.
One of the most important aspects to consider is the material used in 3D printing. Because the material will vary depending on the application. The material used in medical applications will differ significantly from that used in quick prototyping.
Most 3D printers use a process called Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). FDM has one type of material in it whether it will be plastic or metal etc. The printer will print the product in the same color and material because of this process.
Many big companies are using the multi heads 3D printer that can print in different colors to different areas of printed objects.
Models with sophisticated functional elements can be simply constructed by graphic design students. Students of the sciences can make and examine cross-sections of human organs and other biological specimens. Students of chemistry can create 3D models of molecules and chemical compounds.
Who is using 3D printers?
Engineers use them to make parts of jet engines that are lighter and stronger to make airplanes more efficient and use less fuel.
Doctors use printers to make new hands, arms, legs that can perfectly fit the patients who need them.
Chefs use them while experimenting to make amazing new types of food that a person just couldn’t imagine.
Hospitals use 3D printers to make new body parts for people, such as new bones to repair really bad fractures in the foot or the hand and even make objects from cartilage, like constructing new ears for people who may have a bad accident.
Companies like Megvi, viso.ai and Tooliqa are participating extensively in 3-D technology.
You will be glad to learn that soon, we might even print new organs, like kidneys or livers, inside a human body using a patient’s cells in these printers.
We are still evolving the stages of 3-D printer development.
Nowadays, desktop 3-D printing is mostly a hobby, but soon you'll be able to produce products that you don't have when you need them.
Technology is continually advancing; we are producing newer, larger devices and using new materials. People are coming up with new ways to use 3-D printers. However, in many spheres of business, development without 3-D printing is almost unthinkable.
3-D printing is an innovation that spurs more innovation.
Read also: Rapid prototyping with 3D | Insights - Tooliqa
Tooliqa specializes in AI, Computer Vision and Deep Technology to help businesses simplify and automate their processes with our strong team of experts across various domains.
Want to know more on how AI can result in business process improvement? Let our experts guide you.
Reach out to us at business@tooli.qa.
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