5 Common Types Of 3D Printing Technologies | CNCLATHING

1. Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)

Compared with ordinary printers, it is like changing the ink into a material, which can be understood as a kind of plastic wire. This kind of plastic wire will be heated when passing through the printer nozzle, and the plastic wire will melt away and become liquid. After coming out of the nozzle, it will solidify when encountering air. The spray head keeps moving to the designated position to spray the plastic liquid. After it solidifies, it moves to the next position and finally forms. For example, I think it’s like a cake shop making a decorated cake, squeezing cream in a special position to make a shape.

2. Stereo Lithography Appearance & SLA

This is a bit of black technology. The material used is usually liquid, called photosensitive resin. Once encountering specific light (usually ultraviolet light), this liquid will solidify. To take advantage of this feature, we first pour a thin layer of liquid on the base, and then irradiate a specific position with ultraviolet light. After it solidifies, we move the base down a bit, pour a second layer of liquid on the base, and irradiate the designated position of the second layer. Then the third layer. Starts again and again, and finally we can pick up the solidified part from the liquid pool.

3. Laminated Object Manufacturing & LOM

The raw material used in this way can be thought of as a piece of self-adhesive paper, which is a small piece of paper on the back that can be stuck to other things. Put the first piece on the platform, cut it into the shape we want with laser or other methods, and then paste the second piece, cut the second piece, and then paste the third piece.

4. 3D Printing & 3DP

This is the most printer like technology, and it is also the most simple and crude. How crude is it? Glue the powder together! Specifically, a thin layer of powder is laid on the base, and then a nozzle sprays special glue at the designated position of this layer. The powder will be stuck at the place where the glue is sprayed. Compared to an ordinary printer, it turns paper into a layer of powder and ink into glue. After the first layer of powder is printed, lay the second layer on it, then print the second layer’s pattern, and lay the third layer again and again. Finally, take the whole adhesive out of the powder pile, and it is our part.

5. Laser Powder Forming Technology

The raw material is also powder, which can be melted at high temperature. Then lay a layer of powder, use the laser to melt the powder at the specified position, wait for it to solidify, then lay the second layer, sinter the second layer, and then the third layer. This technology has two major branches, one is selective laser sintering (SLS), the other is selective laser melting (SLM).

The difference is that SLS melts plastic powder. For example, when printing metal parts, plastic powder needs to be mixed into the metal powder, and the laser melted plastic powder is used as the binder. SLM, on the other hand, is a black technology. It directly melts metal powder. It is the technology with the highest technical content (think about the temperature and required accuracy of melting metal at that moment), the best product structure and mechanical properties (direct metal integrated molding), and of course, the highest cost technology. In 2017, Siemens began to print gas turbine burners with additive manufacturing technology of selective laser melting (SLM).