So far in our videos, we've talked
about traditional printers, such as inkjet printers, laser
printers, and others.
But there's a new style of printing
that you might use called a 3D printer that
prints in three dimensions.
You create an electronic model, you provide that
to the printer, and it's able to provide you
with output that you could hold in your hand.
We often refer to this as additive manufacturing.
We're creating layers upon layers
to finally create the 3D model that you
see in the final output.
Instead of starting with a piece of metal
and grinding down that metal to create the final output,
we're using additive manufacturing
to start with nothing and add layers until we
have the final product.
This allows us to create prototypes very, very rapidly.
We can simply build them on the screen,
and then we can create them with the 3D printer
to see how they might look in real life.
Not only are we using these 3D printers
around the world to be able to quickly create objects.
We're also using 3D printers in space.
The International Space Station has a 3D printer.
And when they need to create a very specialized part,
folks on the ground can send up the design of the part,
and it can be printed on the space station
with their 3D printer.
A very common type of 3D printing
is called filament printing.
You'll sometimes hear this referred to as fused deposition
modeling, or FDM.
With filament printing, we are melting the filament
and placing it in very fine layers to create the 3D object.
The print head will use the filament
to print one layer on the object, move up a bit,
print the next layer, and so on.
This is one of the most common types of 3D printers
because you have so many advantages
when working with these types of objects.
It has a very large print bed.
We'll talk about print beds in just a moment.
You can manage the filament very easily
because it's something that's easy to be transported or put
into the printer.
This doesn't make much of a mess because we're
dealing with these long strands of hard filament.
This is also something that's very easy
to dispose of because you don't have much mess left over
once you've created that 3D object.
Here's a larger view of this filament printer.
You can see that the filament is here on the backside.
We're currently printing with this blue color.
The filament then goes all the way
to the top of the printer, where it
connects with the print head.
And as it's melted, it's able to create the 3D object.
Here's a closer view of this green filament
going into a print head.
And now it's creating layer by layer the object
on this very large print bed.
Another type of 3D printing is a stereolithography printer.
This is often referred to simply as a resin printer, or an SLA
printer.
This type of printing can also create these very fine
3D objects, although, the SLA printing tends
to be smoother and more finely detailed
than the filament printers.
This type of printing tends to work in reverse
to what you just saw with the filament printers.
There's liquid resin that sits on the bottom of this printer,
and the object that you're printing
is attached to a build platform that moves up and down.
This build platform moves down into the liquid resin,
where a light, usually an ultraviolet light or a laser,
is used to Harden this resin to create another layer
at the bottom of this object.
This build platform then moves up
a bit to get rid of any excess resin
and then moves back down into the resin where
the process begins again with the light source hardening
the next layer on this object.
The biggest challenge with resin printing
tends to revolve around how you manage this liquid resin.
You have to use protective gear, so
that you don't injure yourself when working with the resin.
And if there's any resin left over
or any resin that you need to dispose of,
then you have to take that to a hazardous materials
facility in your area.
With both filament printing and with resin printing,
there is a large surface that we use as we're
building this 3D object.
We refer to this surface as a print bed.
This is a flat surface, and it usually
is either adhesive on the bottom with your filament printing
or adhesive on the top, so that you're
able to connect it to the build platform with resin printing.
Everything on this print bed needs to be completely level,
it needs to be clean, and anything
that we're printing on this needs to stay completely still
during the printing process.
That's why this print bed is usually
created from something that is relatively sticky
or makes it very difficult for that object to move.
With filament printing, this entire surface
that is used to print on is what's
considered to be the print bed.
There are a lot of different options for print beds,
and you can find some that are very large some
that are more compact.
With resin printing, the print bed
is the very small area at the bottom
of this printer where the light is able to harden the resin.
That's why with resin-based printers,
we didn't have a smaller print bed than one
you might find with filament-based printers.