platform layer by layer to build the object. Engineers, designers,
and hobbyists use FFF for a variety of purposes, including
prototypes and finished products. Other squeezer printers include
laminated object manufacturing (LOM), bioprinters, and printers
of electronics.
SLA relies on a vat of resin, a syrup-like liquid. The printer’s
UV laser cures, or hardens, the resin, one layer at a time, into a
specific shape. The curing is somewhat like flash freezing syrup.
The shape appears to emerge from the vat of resin. Engineers and
other professionals use SLA to create finished products as well as
prototypes in a variety of fields, including aerospace, automotive,
medicine, dentistry, arts and entertainment, culinary, architecture,
and energy.
SLS requires a vat of powder, something like a tub of fine sand.
High-powered lasers melt the powdered particles together. They
then form a hardened, solid mass. With SLS, you actually pull your
creation out of the remaining powder as if you were pulling a toy
out of sand at the beach. Engineers and designers use SLS to
create objects with complex shapes and highly durable parts and
molds in plastic, ceramic, glass, and metal. SLS works for a variety
of fields including aerospace and engineering. Other hardener
printers include digital light processing (DLP) and selective laser
melting (SLM).
MULT I JET FUS I ON
In the early twenty-first century, several creators of ink-jet
printers—the types of printers we use to print words or images on
a page—have also developed new 3D printing processes. In 2014,
along with its ink-jet printers, HP revealed its new 3D printing
process, called multi jet fusion. Industry reports, along with HP,
claim that the multi jet fusion technology works ten times faster
than the fastest 3D printers.
3 D P R I N T I N G
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