A World of 3D Printers

A World of 3D Printers

If you are reading this, then you are as captivated by the possibilities of 3D printing as much as I am. Maybe you’ve seen one of the many personal 3D printers in the media and you want to know more; maybe you are an artist, designer, engineer, inventor, or a maker of things and want to know how to get started 3D printing your designs; or maybe you have already purchased your 3D printer and now just need some help in learning what to do with it. Welcome to our journey with 3D printers, starting with a general overview of how 3D printers work. In this post, we will do the following: Find out what a personal 3D printer is and how it works,

Let’s  separate the science fiction of 3D printing from the reality of making objects with a 3D printer.

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

These words should sound familiar to many of you. The character Captain Jean-Luc Piccard from TV’s Star Trek: The Next Generation would say these words to a terminal in the wall and his beverage of choice would materialize in front of him within mere seconds. This fictional device was called a “replicator,” a machine that reorganized the atoms of basic materials to create all manner of new things at the instant of a request. Just to be clear with the current state of 3D printers: we are not there yet. The advances that a community of industrious developers have heralded into place over the last few years has been nothing but astonishing; however, we are a long way from reforming molecular structures to make things from thin air. Instead, the personal 3D printers of today most often build things from plastic using a process called fused filament fabrication (FFF). Plastic filament is heated and extruded from a nozzle like a tiny and precise hot glue gun while the machine draws out 3D objects layer by layer. As one layer of plastic is laid on top of another, they fuse together, and, when cooled, form a solid and durable plastic part. This technology has been around for about 25 years and used in the design and engineering industries for everything from designing parts for cars to designing toaster ovens.