3D printing hasn’t just made it possible to fabricate items at home; it’s changed lives and industries with its unique approach to manufacturing. Though 3D printing has its drawbacks, some items wouldn’t exist (or would be much harder to make at greater cost) without it.
Here are a few of them.
Rapid customized prosthetics and other medical devices
Speed, comfort, and charitable initiatives
3D Printing for the Middle East is a US-based non-profit organization that aims to provide life-changing healthcare to children across the Middle East with the power of 3D printing. The organization’s Step-by-Step project has provided 3D-printed prosthetics to patients in Jordan and Syria, with aims to do the same in Gaza.
Beyond victims of conflict, 3D printing has seen use in medicine all over the world. 3D printing enables rapid production of custom-fit devices, where medical imaging data is used to create tailored products. Academic institutions like Loughborough University have overseen breakthroughs in recent years that will enable prosthetic manufacture in remote locations or at home.
Also of note are 3D-printed dental products. There is evidence to suggest that 3D-printed dentures can be made faster, offer greater comfort, with comparable results to regular dentures in terms of post-insertion maintenance.
Print-in-place hinges and other mechanisms
No assembly required
3D printing is used to build items layer by layer. Though this comes with downsides like visible layer lines and points of weakness, it also enables the production of print-in-place models. These are objects that interlink like hinges or loops, that do not require any assembly.
Movement is possible thanks to small gaps in the print at articulation points, with most prints requiring a bit of a flex before they function as advertised. In addition to toolboxes and fidget toys, 3D-printed fabric is probably one of the most interesting use cases.
Fabricated items with random and customizable elements
Generate and print
Plastic items are typically fabricated using injection molding. For this to work, a large mold is made, into which molten plastic is cast and set. It’s incredibly cheap to do at scale, results in flawless-looking items, and is as strong as the plastic you use. It’s perfect for mass production.
But what if you want each item to be unique? In that case, you’d need to create a new mold each time. This is where 3D printing comes in. By using a puzzle box STL generator (or tilt-maze generator), you can create an entirely random maze puzzle simply by clicking a button and sending the file to your printer.
Alternatively, you can customize each item before you print it with branding, a name, or a pattern. This is perfect for small runs of items, even if the per-item cost is much more than traditional injection molding. Of course, the benefits can really be seen with parametric models that allow for massive customization.
Objects with complex internal geometry that save money and weight
That’s infill to you and me
Infill density determines what percentage of your model has plastic inside of it. 100% would be a solid plastic object, but that object would also cost a fortune in filament and be heavy. Reducing infill to a percentage determines how much material is used internally, while the infill pattern determines how an item distributes force and overall strength.
One of the most popular infill patterns among engineers is gyroid, a lattice that is very hard to produce through standard manufacturing (though not impossible). It offers good strength in all directions, while keeping infill density low to save on weight. This is one technique you can use at home that is also used in industry.
This intersection of strength and weight-saving has many benefits as highlighted by specialist firms like Graphite Addictive Manufacturing. It is used in aircraft manufacture, medical devices, automotive parts, and more. Many of these industries depend on specialized metal printers, rather than the sort of filament printers you might use at home.
Hyper-efficient specialized industrial parts
Shaking up some of the biggest industries on the planet
In late 2014, GE Aviation published a blog post in which the company outlined plans to build an additive manufacturing facility in Alabama to 3D print parts for jet engines. By 2018, the company had fabricated 30,000 fuel nozzle tips there.
According to GE Aviation, this “walnut-sized” part signaled the company’s move from using 3D printing purely for prototypes to finished products. The result is “a single elegant piece that weighed 25 percent less than its predecessor, and was five times more durable and 30 percent more cost-efficient.”
The parts have made it into production Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX passenger jets. The company tried to cast it eight times before resorting to 3D printing. GE now manufactures other parts using additive manufacturing, including heat exchangers, blades, and engine components.
- Build Volume
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256x256x256mm
- Printing Speed
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600mm/s
The Bambu Labs P2S 3D printer is ready to go out of the box and can have you printing within 15 minutes. It features up to 20-color printing with the AMS unit, has an upgraded built-in camera for remote monitoring and time lapses, and has an enclosed body for printing even high-temperature filament.
3D printing has changed the world, well beyond the sort of useful budget-friendly prints you’re used to producing at home. It’s exciting to see how the field will evolve as more advanced printers become more widespread, cheaper, and accessible.
