3D printing has revolutionized manufacturing technology in various fields. From classrooms to large-scale industries such as marine, defense, medical, automotive, communication, and entertainment. In industrial terms, 3D printing is called additive manufacturing.
The main difference between 3D printing and additive manufacturing is that the former produces a product by building it in layers, and the latter adds material that may not be in layers.
Various types of 3D machinery have made it to the market in the last decade. These technological advancements keep getting updates that make them relevant and fast options for manufacturing parts, molds, complex structures, and other designs.
Home 3D Printer
A home 3D printer is a simpler and smaller scale of 3D technology that you can witness at work. A bioplastic spool serves the function of raw material. It is melted and layered by the 3D printer to create your desired design.
The user can experiment with other suitable materials to create more intricate and durable designs.
After the 3D structure cools, the support structures that the machine created to stabilize the design in the 3D printer are then removed carefully by the user. After finishing the product, it is ready to serve its function.
Industrial Additive Manufacturers
Each technology in the additive manufacturing machines serves a particular industry. These machines differ in their raw material and mechanism for production.
The additive manufacturing technology became famous because it offers to widen the range of design. Designers have more liberty when working with a 3D manufacturing printer instead of the traditional methods. The additive manufacturing machines can efficiently create complicated structures that are impossible to make through older methods. They all save time for the manufacturing companies, some more so than others.
Direct Casting
Direct casting is a high-level additive manufacturing technique that uses advanced technology to create molds and fill them with a thermoset material to create the design. Companies like Massivit 3D have used 3D printers that can drastically reduce the time required to build the part.
The Cast-In-Motion technique allows the designer to use water-breakable or photopolymer material for molds that significantly lower the time for detaching the supports from the design. The precision in this technology helps create isotropic shapes efficiently.
Powder Bed Fusion
A powder bed fusion technique in additive manufacturing technology is distinguished because it uses a powdered metal as a raw material. A powdered metal can create a design with the help of heat, metal laser sintering or melting, and an electron beam.
In this type of 3D printing, the laser or casting beam creates the design in the powdered metal layer. The layer gets hit by the heat in specific areas and solidifies to produce the design. The whole process occurs in an enclosed capsule because the powdered metal is dangerous.
You will need to invest your money into safety precautions when you use this type of method for 3d printing because the powdered metal is a flame hazard and respiratory hazard.
One of the drawbacks of this technology is the rough surface parts left on the design that you can clean afterward.
Also check: How Cloud Service Providers Can Benefit your Business
Direct Energy Deposition
A Direct Energy Deposition system for manufacturing allows the manufacturers to realize a design by directly adding material to the structure. The machine may use a wire arch or powdered substance to weld into a part.
The field of robotics uses the DED-arch method to create complex designs that need to stay together. This process reduces the cost and time of the assembly step of the manufacturing.
Fused Filament Fabrication
A Fused Filament Fabrication or Fused Deposition Modeling is a type of 3D printing that extrudes the material to create the design. It is the type of 3D modeling that you can find in a home 3D printer because it uses plastic or other material to melt and create the required design.
FFF is useful when one needs to create models or test the functionality of a design.
Other types of 3D printing, such as multi-jet fusion, use electrically charged ink droplets to join the nylon powder; later, a heating substance connects all the layers.
In a nutshell, one uses all these 3D technologies in the industrial and local areas to enhance performance and save time.
