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3D Printers: Your Own Manufacturing Systems At Home

Introduction

3D printing is the process of producing 3-dimensional solid objects regarding the drawings that you have drawn to a specific computer program. 3D printing is a recently developing modern branch of a business. In 1983, the first 3D printer was invented by Chuck Hull, who is the co-founder of 3D Systems company. Although 3D printing was unpopular when it was invented, nowadays it has a massive variety of workplaces. Thanks to this groundbreaking invention, we are now able to print what we draw and simply imagine. . Besides the profits of 3D printing, there are also some liabilities that cause some concerns about the usefulness of the 3D printers. All in all, with the help of this groundbreaking invention,3D printer, we can eventually develop the quality of production of things even though we have some drawbacks outside of the benefits of 3D printing.




How The System Works

Before getting into the profits and drawbacks of 3D printing, I would like to explain the basic functions of 3D printers. Although there are various types of 3D printers on the market right now, the systematic function for each of them is pretty similar. The very first thing that you should do is simply drawing what you want to produce. There are special programs such as TinkerCad, Fusion360, Rhino 360 and so on… These programs may at first seem to be complex but after you practice a lot, you get used to the system. After you finished modeling your design, it can be anything by the way, (for example, the first thing I drew was Avengers logo since it is easy to sketch), the slicing process is required. 3D printers are required to understand what pieces of the model you want to print and fully comprehend the structure of the model. The reason for this process is that 3D printers produce the object layers by layers which could lead to wrong forms of production if the slicing process is not accurately completed. In the printing process, in order to stick every layer to each other fine dry powder and liquid glue is used. Although it can differentiate from printer to printer, generally 3d printers use a 2 layer system in which they make 2 passes to each layer. While the first pass is for thin coating of the wanted design, the nozzles ( small device that controls the flow and direction of fluids) are used in the second pass to give the final shape of the product.



Benefits

3D printers enable us to make what we want in any shape. You can produce what you draw although it is a very geometrically complex shape or it has two pieces that need to be stuck to each other. The main point is that you can do things that you are not able to do with other machines that many companies and organizations used to use. Due to the beneficial effects of upcoming invention 3D printing, some firms have started to use 3D printers in order to produce and test their new objects, especially the geometrically complex ones. The massive usage of 3D printers is emphasized with these sentences: “3D printing encompasses many forms of technologies and materials as 3D printing is being used in almost all industries you could think of. It’s important to see it as a cluster of diverse industries with a myriad of different applications.” The other advantage of 3D printers related to it producing complex shapes is that 3D printers are commonly used to test prototypes. The reason for that is there is no waste product while the process of production of the objects. Since the resources are reusable and the same materials can be used in many different productions, companies mostly prefer 3D printers for the testing process of their prototypes. To sum up, due to the plenty of beneficial aspects of 3D printing, it has started to be used in numerous different workplaces and it has become to be preferred to be used by companies rather than other machines.


Liabilities

Although 3D printers seem very useful and sophisticated in overall impression, there are some liabilities that push companies and other users to not prefer a 3D printer in the process of production of objects. One of them is that 3D printers are unbelievably slow. For instance, a little keychain could take at least 45 minutes to 1 hour. Because of that reason, companies have doubts about using 3D printers while producing. Not only the cost is important, but the production time is also prominent. But it is not a big deal for the users for a hobby or an interest. Although the production cost is less, it takes far longer to construct an object by a 3D printer compared to the other similar machines. Another disadvantage of 3D printers is that limited materials can be used as a resource. Therefore, only a limited different number of objects can be made by a 3D printer.



Overall, 3D printers are life-changers to many people. It is certain that there are more sophisticated manufacturing machines out there, but the vital thing that I want to point out is that 3D printers enable all people to produce objects. So, it is a critical improvement in providing the majority of people the opportunity to produce something on their own.



-Bora Baykal









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