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What is 3D Printing?
At its most basic, 3D printing is a manufacturing process in which material is laid down, layer by layer, to form a three-dimensional object. This is deemed an additive process because the object is built from scratch, as opposed to subtractive processes in which material is cut, drilled, milled, or machined off.
3D printing and its impact on your business:
3D printing transforms spools of plastic filament or trays of resin into physical objects. 3D printing is quite literally out of this world. NASA maintains a 3D printer on the International Space Station and astronauts can build custom tools (like this maintenance wrench) without having to fly them into space.
3D printing has been adopted by students, entrepreneurs, hobbyists, and massive factories. Because 3D printing allows for the transformation of a digital design into a tangible object, a wide array of uses have been found.
How expensive is 3D printing compared to traditional manufacturing processes?
That depends. It’s far less expensive and takes far less time to create prototypes, jigs, tools, and fixtures using 3D printing. But once the setup and tooling costs are paid for, traditional manufacturing techniques like injection molding can produce objects in volume more quickly and at a lower cost.
How does 3D printing affect the supply chain?
3D printing is also ideal for low volume or short-run manufacturing. While some companies need to churn out products in the thousands or millions, other companies need to produce a relatively small number of units or produce units on-demand.
Low-volume production is needed in a variety of applications:
- Production for in-house use: A small number of internal departments or users can benefit from the build. Jigs and frameworks fit this need perfectly.
- Test market production: A limited number of units are produced at a manageable cost to test for either suitability for sale, or functionality and performance of features. If buyers respond well, more units can be produced using traditional production means.
- On-demand production: Units needed rarely, or in a back catalog can be “stored in the cloud” and produced only when needed. This allows a large warehouse of parts to be stored virtually and yet made available to customers as needed.
- Entrepreneurial ventures: Small numbers of units can be produced as a proof-of-concept for crowdfunding or to provide to influencers and reviewers to create initial press and awareness of a product before full funding has been closed.
It’s this low-volume, an on-demand capability that 3D printing provides that can be transformative to the industry overall, not just manufacturing. By being able to quickly and inexpensively create and test new objects, it’s possible to innovate at a pace impossible with traditional means.
Additionally, 3D printing promotes the idea of “think global, make local” in the sense that designs for objects can be shared internationally, but new units can be printed out wherever they are needed.
How Can 3D printing transform the manufacturing industry?
“3D printing continues to evolve within the manufacturing sector, and factory workers have led to the adoption of the technology. As their skills continue to develop, the impact of 3D printing will continue to grow in every aspect of the manufacturing process.”-said by the renowned 3D Printer manufacturer. 3D printing is not necessarily suited to volume manufacturing. Because prints can take hours or days, once a prototype is developed, you may want to move to a faster production process for your final sale products.
On the other hand, 3D printing is ideal for creating molds, so you can design your object in a CAD program like SolidWorks, UG, Creo, Catia Fusion 360, print out a prototype, and refine it until it meets your needs.
Filament producer Polymaker, for example, has created a special ash-free filament called PolyCast. This filament can produce investment-casting objects that can be placed inside mold shells and then burnt out, creating a mold with no ash, ready for metal casting.
The consulting firm contends four vast disruptions will drive change in industrial processes and goods manufacturing:
- Data volume and compute capacity:It’s not just big data, it’s the tremendous flow of data, the increase in computational power, and ubiquitous connectivity. McKinsey specifically calls attention to the impact of low-power, wide-area networks common among the Internet of Things.
- Analytics:Between AI and big data, the opportunity to subject every process to detailed examination and optimization based on advanced business analytics will drive supply chains that can be both dynamically reactive to worldwide events and micro-changes, as well as predictive based on accumulations of analytical resources from global sources.
- New user interfaces: McKinsey believes that touch-interfaces, augmented-reality systems, and other forms of human-machine interaction will drive change in the manufacturing sector. You can consider 3D printing a new user interface as well because the opportunity to hold a design concept in your hand can transform how you understand an object at a visceral level.
- Digital numerical control: McKinsey describes this as “improvements in transferring digital instructions to the physical world,” which is, in effect, G-code. But it’s more than that. It’s not only the transfer of instructions, which we’ve had for years. It’s the technologies (ranging from 3D printing to robotics) capable of acting on those instructions that are proving to be transformative.
The manufacturing industry is undergoing a vast transformation of which 3D printing is one element. Other factors include a huge increase in data volume and processing, improved analytics, improved human factors, and the automation of various production processes.
3D printing has played an important role in changing the world economy. It has been an important component of the maker movement, which has benefits to communities, education, entrepreneurship, and traditional enterprises. It helps foster the creation of new products and new companies and teaches skills transferable into a wide variety of technical and professional jobs.
Design and preparation of prints:
The process of going from an idea to a 3D-printed object must always pass through two software tool technologies first: 3D-modeling (or CAD) software and slicers.
3D-MODELING SOFTWARE
3D CAD (Computer-Aided Design), is the creation engine for 3D models. In the same way, you might use Photoshop to create a graphic, Illustrator to create an illustration, or Word to create an article like this one,3D CAD software is used to create the design for a 3D model. There are many CAD programs out there, each best-suited to different tasks.
Resources for learning common 3D printing programs are available in many online classes, taught in colleges, and found in abundance on YouTube. Often specific-discipline engineering skill is required to understand not only how the tool works, but the physics involved in the operation of the final object.
SLICERS:
CAD programs produce virtual models of 3D objects. But most 3D printing occurs layer-by-layer, in slices. The process of converting a 3D design into a series of machine movements on a two-dimensional plane (and then moving the plane) is the job of a slicer program.
Most slicers produce G-code, a standard form of numerical control language understood by most computer-aided fabrication devices (not just 3D printers). vendors often add extensions and modifications. This means that G-code usually needs to be generated by the slicer for specific brands and models of numerically controlled devices.
While some slicers can be operated programmatically by just passing a 3D model file into it and getting G-code output, most slicers today allow for a fully interactive interface. This allows the operator to adjust the print orientation and examine the print process layer-by-layer to locate potential print problems before a print is sent to the printer.
It’s also at this time that different printing settings are configured, ranging from a nozzle and build plate temperature, adhesion techniques, infill methods, print speeds, and even custom G-code blocks to account for special procedures, like stopping a print to embed magnets, and then allowing the print to continue.
MaXellence Engineering Technologies is dedicated to bringing you our 3D printing solutions to help you to ace your industrial process and product creativity.