3D Printing

3D printing is supposed to be so revolutionary that it will move us away from the mass production lines to customizable, one-off production. But what is 3D printing really? What can it really print? How much of it is just hype? To answer those questions, let’s first see how it works.

Just as good old 2D printing requires something like a Word doc, 3D printing requires a 3D file called a Computer Aided Design (CAD) file. You can create a CAD file from scratch or you could scan an existing object using a 3D scanner and then edit the file to suit your needs or you can just get 3D files as-is from the Net for free. As you might have guessed, there are several free tools on the Net for editing such files.

Ok, so you have the 3D file ready. The way it gets printed is called “additive manufacturing”. Huh? Let’s first understand the opposite of that. When Michelangelo was asked how he sculpted David, his response was:
“You just chip away the stone that doesn’t look like David.”
That process (removing parts to make something) is called “subtractive manufacturing”. Additive manufacturing is the opposite: it creates something by adding materials for each layer. That’s less wasteful. The software slices the 3D drawing into thousand or more layers which are then printed on top of each other until the entire object is ready.
(By the way, 3D printers have been there for a long time. They just became faster and cheaper in recent times. Today, there are even sites where you upload your 3D file and they print it and send it back).

There are many techniques for 3D printing: UV light that hardens liquid photocurable resin layer by layer (SLA); the same as SLA except using a powdered material instead of resin (SLS); extruding a stream of melted thermoplastic material to form layers (FDM); similar to inkjet printing except that a photopolymer liquid is jetted out and then hardened with a UV light; and many others. The techniques vary in time to print, cost, quality and suitability for the specific material type of the printed object.

So what can you print with 3D printing? Body parts like ears, kidneys, skin, bones. Pizzas (NASA funded that for space feeding)! Art, toys and jewelry. Chocolate, clothing, musical instruments (though they don’t sound too good), even a (very ugly) car, guns, and drones. And yes, even a 3D printer itself!

If you were thinking of printing an iPhone, think again. 3D printing only works if the following conditions are met: The object should be able to support itself while it is being printed, and it can only be of certain materials. Complex electronics is way out in the future, if at all. As this FAQ site on 3D printing said:
“If you’re looking for a replicator that can build any object, watch Star Trek instead.”

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarAugust 30, 2015 at 11:33 AM

    Good presentation. Makes the understandable, once some basics are known - see, you can't explain 3D printers to someone who asks, "By the way, what are 1D and 2D printings?" :-) or, better still, "Computer aids design? Strange! Who is this fellow, Mister Computer, who claims to know all about design?" I can see you have the talent to write. Writing is less about writing and more about imagining how the receiver would get it easily. You should try writing a book and attempt to publish it in the 'kindle'.

    Perhaps the most important truth emerging from your piece is that in future pizzas are going to be provided by computers and not by kitchens! Chefs will shorty be an endangered species. So, I read your sentence three times before dismissing it as utter nonsense. NASA, I finally assumed, may not use the US tax payers money for such petty nonsense; usually they reserve that for jumbo nonsense! :-) The moral is: If pizzas come from the computers, can soups and paani-pooris be far behind? [The consolation is: Isn't it time to move from solid-state to liquid-state in computer technology anyway?!] :-)

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