The hereafter of 3D Printing

Firstly lets interpret what is meant by 3D printing, well in a nut shell it is a way of fabricating objects designed on computer, for example if you designed a mug using computer aided design, within a few hours you could have the real thing sitting in front of you. It is possible to watch your very creations come to life in true Star Trek fashion, before your very eyes.

To go into more detail, currently printers are fairly slow, tiny and not tremendously precise. A home 3D printer will typically set up back about ten thousand pounds, but this is cheap inspecting the first commercially ready printers cost at least ten times that amount. 3D printers presently are capable of fabricating objects using silicon and clear types of metal, other substances that have been tested are plaster, play-doh and even chocolate!

Printer Inkjet

A home 3D printer is about the size of a Microwave and connects directly to a desktop computer running software that controls its operation. It then creates objects layer-by-layer by squeezing material from a mechanically-controlled syringe. Unfortunately printers are somewhat tiny in the sense they still produce a fairly rough end goods and the time scale it takes to print an object is considerable.

Despite all the technical implications, there are huge possibilities for the future of 3D printing. All ground breaking technology starts somewhere, for example in the case of the Pc, mainframes had existed for years, but personal computing only took off in the late seventies. A cheap self-assembly computer called the Altair 8800, launched in 1975, sparked the rapid development of personal computing. In similar circumstances self assembly 3D printers hope to spark the same rapid development in rapid prototyping.

There are a number of dissimilar 3D printers ready on the market today, all with slightly dissimilar advantages, disadvantages, quirks and features. Some keen projects include an open source 3D printer which has successfully been used to manufacture best parts to replace existing parts on the printer itself. The ultimate goal of 3d printers is to perfectly replicate themselves, allowing much more cost efficient manufacturing.

The future for 3D printing seems very promising, it is the fastest growing part of the rapid-prototyping manufactures with revenues this year thinkable, to be practically a billion Us dollars. Many industries are showing huge amounts of interest and are seem great possible in dissimilar applications where they could use three dimensional printing. The Us army have experimented using rapid prototyping to originate parts for broken tanks, guns and other hardware in combat situations. Businesses believe a rapid prototyping machine could prove invaluable in showing factories how to assemble parts remotely, for example in China. Even Nasa has requested a high resolution machine to manufacture crucial parts in space.

In closing what is stopping you being part of a truly revolutionary technology, which could come to be one of the major breakthroughs of the twenty first century? 3D printing has merely been science fiction until recently, where it is now most positively science fact. What can we expect to see in the not so far away future? Well one ultimate goal is printable organic parts, for example transfer organs, same skin grafts and even limbs, to combat victims of illness, disease and war.

The hereafter of 3D Printing