The Challenges Facing 3D Printers

Though still in its infancy, 3D printing has the potential to transform our lives, both at home and at work. With today’s 3D printers, it’s possible to fabricate bones, electronic circuits, human ears, and much more. Here’s how 3D printing evolved over the past decade.

A 3D printer works by extruding a material onto a surface. Either the print head or the surface gets moved in three dimensions. While early 3D printers often made use of a plastic substrate, the newer models can use a broad variety of materials, including metal powder, glass powder, rubber, cement, and ceramic. For newer 3D printers, researchers have even been able to design print heads that will extrude living cells. 

The greatest challenge in 3D printing is material bonding. Think about how a traditional inkjet printer works. It heats extremely small reservoirs of ink until they vaporize. The vapor is then deposited on a sheet of paper, where it condenses and returns to a solid. Since the ink bonds with the paper, it can’t easily be removed once it’s been printed onto the sheet. With a 3D printer, bonding a new layer of substrate is a much bigger challenge. Unlike vaporized ink, heated plastic may not bond to the surface below it with an adequate level of strength.

To improve bonding, many 3D printers use a series of elements to cure extruded substrate. Ultraviolet lamps are often used to improve bonding of substrate. After a layer of substrate has been extruded by the 3D printer, a specialized UV light passes over the new layer. This helps to fix the new layer and increase its strength. A specialized UV laser may also be used to accomplish this step.

3D printers have the potential to change the way people purchase products across the world. While most consumer-grade 3D printers can only be used fabricate relatively simple items, future 3D printers could be used to produce entire electronic devices. Instead of having to go out and purchase a new electronic device or other product, you might be able to print the object in the comfort of your home. 

The technology for 3D printing has even been used to fabricate entire homes. With the use of a specialized cement blend, a 3D printing-style machine has been used to create the various layers of a home one by one. However, this technology is still years away from widespread use. One of the biggest limitations of current 3D printers is resolution.

While these devices can be used to print complex objects, the large size of many printheads limits their fidelity. Many 3D printed objects require some cleanup after they are created. But researchers are working to overcome these limitations. Once they do, the use of 3D printers may become common and much less expensive. Researchers estimate that 3D printers will be able to create complex objects within the next 30 years.

2014 has been a big year for 3D both in printing and well designed websites with 3D and parallax movement, visit Supple Solutions to see more information on that and for some of the medical 3D printing technologies described above, go to Qmed.com.

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