A lot has been going on in the news about 3d printing but to really understand its awsomeness one must understand its working. 3d printing is a layman's term to Additive manufacturing which is what it was originally called when this tech first came out in the 1980's!. Yes 3d printing has been around for a long time and is growing at a rapid pace of late due to its commercialization. So getting back to its working, there are about three basic steps involved.
- Creating a CAD model.
CAD stands for Computer Aided Design. This is the digital model that can be made through various software's, some are free and the advanced software's come at a price. Using the various tools available inside the software you can create a virtual design of the object.
2. Converting to .stl
Once you have created your digital model you need to convert it into an STL file format. This file will contain the basic geometry of your model.
3. Upload and print
Once your done converting to .stl you will need to upload it on to another software that will interface with the machine and will be able to tell the printer the X Y Z co-ordinates that it has to move in. This also cuts or slices the object into layers. Greater the number of layers better the quality but the time taken will be more.
From the information given to the 3d printer the nozzle of the printer moves around extruding material in the molten state layer by layer, each layer being of about 0.1 mm thickness and hence the term Add-itive manufacturing was created cause we are adding material and building an object from ground up. It is similar to making things using lego blocks. The major advantage of this method over conventional manufacturing is that a lot of material is saved. In conventional methods we start with a block of material and slowly remove the pieces that are not required like how a sculptor works. Hence we can clearly see a lot of that time and money is saved.
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