Simply put, 3D printing is to add a dimension to ordinary 2D printing. The printer first prints a layer of powdery materials such as plastic and metal on a plane like ordinary printing, and then prints and sticks these adhesives layer by layer. Through the accumulation of different "graphics" on each layer, a three-dimensional object is finally formed. Just like building a house, bricks are layered, but when piled up, they become a three-dimensional house.
What is 3d printing technology? Specifically, 3d printing is a technology based on digital model, which uses metal or plastic as printing material and prints layer by layer. A method of printing the drawing from the model by connecting the computer with a 3d printer. Nowadays, this technology has been applied in many fields. People use it to make clothes, building models, cars, chocolate desserts and so on.
Advantages of 3d printing technology
3d printing is very different from traditional mold production. The biggest advantage of 3d printing is that it can directly generate parts with arbitrary shapes from computer graphics data, without mechanical processing or any molds, thus greatly shortening the product development cycle, improving productivity and reducing production costs. At the same time, 3d printing can also print some shapes that cannot be produced by traditional production technology. At the same time, 3d printing technology can simplify the whole production process, fast and effective.
Application fields of 3d printing technology
At present, 3d printing is mainly used in traditional manufacturing industry, medical industry, cultural relics protection industry, architectural design industry and jewelry decoration industry, and has been widely used in these industries. In the medical industry, 3d printing can also tailor the required organs for organ transplant patients. Of course, printing human organs requires special polymer materials in order not to exclude the human body!
Process principle of 3d printing technology
The printing process of each layer is divided into two steps. Spray a layer of special glue on the area to be molded first. The glue drops themselves are very small and difficult to spread. Then spray a uniform layer of powder. When the powder meets the glue, it will quickly solidify and bond, while the area without glue remains loose. In this way, under the alternation of a layer of glue and a layer of powder, the solid model is "printed", and after printing, the model can be "planed" as long as the loose powder is swept away, and the remaining powder can be recycled.
Printing consumables have changed from traditional ink and paper to glue and powder. Of course, glue and powder are treated special materials, which not only require fast curing reaction, but also have a direct impact on model strength and "printing" resolution. 3D printing technology can achieve a resolution of 600dpi, and the thickness of each layer is only 0.0 1 mm, which can clearly print even if there are words or pictures on the model surface. Limited by the principle of jet printing, the printing speed will not be very fast. The more advanced products can reach the vertical speed of 25mm per hour, which is 10 times higher than the earlier products. Moreover, color printing can be realized by using color glue, and the color depth is as high as 24 bits.
Due to the high printing accuracy, the quality of the printed model is naturally good. In addition to showing the design on the contour curve, not to mention the structure and moving parts. If used to print mechanical assembly drawings, gears, bearings, pull rods, etc. It can move normally, and the shape characteristics of cavity and groove are accurate, even meeting the assembly requirements. The printing entity can be further processed by grinding, drilling and electroplating. At the same time, powder materials are not limited to sand mold materials, but also elastic expansion, high-performance composite, investment casting and other materials to choose from.
first contact (of an eclipse)
A machine that uses solar energy to melt sand and print solid objects. The work printed by this machine looks rough, but it is actually very advanced-it uses sand and solar energy. In other words, you can even easily build a city in the desert with this machine.
But in fact, the concept of 3D printing appeared in the 1980s. 1995 MIT coined the term "3D printing", and then 3D printing began to sprout in the laboratory. Then slowly, 3D technology began to be used in medical models, building models and other industries, and its application fields were more extensive.
3D printers are becoming popular and realistic.
3D technology is getting closer and closer to people's lives, and 3D printers are becoming more and more popular. The original 3D printer is huge, and basically only exists in large hospitals, scientific research institutions and related enterprises. Not only does it cost hundreds of millions to buy such a machine, but also the printed materials are very expensive.
But now, 3D printers can be as big as ordinary inkjet printers. Many start-ups provide various printers, such as the color 3D printer provided by MakerBot, the 3D printer priced at 2,000 yuan by Makeble in Hong Kong, and the ultra-high-speed printer that can print sand-sized racing models by Vienna University of Technology.
In addition, there are more and more 3D printing design softwares, such as Sculpteo for designing 3D objects on iPhone, 123D Design on iPad, Kinect for scanning 3D models to Kinect-To-Print of printers, and Augment for simulating 3D drawings into 3D models.
In addition to 3D printers and software, there are also some startups that provide 3D services, such as "National Weapons Program", MakieLab, GrabCAD, Shapeways, Formlabs, Stratasys and so on.
Magical 3D printed works
Today, people have printed a lot of things with 3D printing technology. In addition to some complex 3D geometric models mentioned below, the industry has printed heart valves, jawbones, circuit boards, cars, houses, automatic rifles, and even shoes, underwear or raw meat with 3D printers.
3D printing imagination
Because of the strong plasticity of 3D printing products, 3D printing can be accurate to 600dpi from 2D to 3D, and the thickness of each layer is 0.05438+0 mm.. So almost any complicated structure can be easily printed, such as Klein bottle, Mobius net, Meng Le sponge, etc. This has brought people great imagination, and many people are imagining what revolutionary changes 3D printing will bring to various industries.
Paul graham, founder of YC, said: "The era of hardware revival has arrived." Mary meeker, the queen of the Internet, also declared in her "20 12 Internet Trend Report": "The emergence of 3D printers makes it possible to customize, and production will face changes." Chris Anderson, who put forward the long tail theory before, also resigned from Wired and turned to pay attention to the long tail effect brought by 3D printing technology to the world.
Therefore, the future of 3D printing is within reach. If you really like it, you can try to buy a 3D printer now and start your own creative journey.
Obstacles to the popularization of 3D printing
The obstacles to the current popularity of 3D printing are materials and cost. In terms of materials, the existing materials are far from rich and close to civilian materials. In other words, even though many materials can be printed in 3D, they are not environmentally friendly enough to meet civil standards. Most 3D printers can only print 1 materials or several materials with similar properties. The emergence of printers with mixed materials or multiple materials is also the future trend.
Cost is the biggest obstacle to popularization, just like computers in the stage decades ago. At present, high-precision 3D printers are relatively large and expensive, and the technical patents are basically in the hands of foreign giants. Civil minicomputers used open source technology more than ten years ago, and their accuracy could not meet the requirements. Domestic 3D printers are often more gimmicky than reality, and are far behind foreign countries in terms of stability and product quality. Therefore, the technology monopoly of foreign companies undoubtedly keeps the prices of printer equipment and consumables high. Through the disassembly of foreign machines, it will be found that the cost of the whole machine is not high, and the main components such as lasers are expensive, and it is impossible to achieve localization at present. Raw material formula is another monopoly factor. Domestic materials will never reach the quality of imported materials. For example, the powder used in SLS technology is not as good as the original one, even the substitute powder made in Japan.
I believe that in the future, 3D printing will be the same as the previous 2D printing. With the maturity of localization and technology, the cost and price will gradually decrease and then gradually become popular.
As far as natural skills are concerned, let's take the Form 1 developed by MIT team as an example. In their team, material experts played a great role and developed their low-cost photosensitive resin, which was lower than the price of similar materials by more than 1.5.
Secondly, there are talents in graphics technology. 3D printing needs the support of content very much. How to develop simple and easy-to-use modeling software is very important. Just like the iphone needs the App store. Therefore, in the future, whether it is OPEN GL WebGL development talents or 3D scanning, 3D modeling technical talents will contribute to the further development and popularization of 3D printing technology.