In recent years, with the development of technology, the forms of manufacturing have become more abundant, the most representative is the traditional machine tool and new technology for large format 3D printing. So far both technologies have found their niche, so what was the difference between them?

Furniture printed by Dowell3d printer

This week I successfully printed motorcycle parts using Dowell3d large format 3d printer.

Most customers of 3D printing are printed out for testing, which will simulate the use scene of the product. For example, this product has a transmission device, and it needs to be printed out to test whether the designed transmission device is feasible. For different functional requirements, different 3D printing materials need to be used. Let's introduce the characteristics of 3D printing high toughness photosensitive resin and what kind of functional tests it is suitable for.

3D Printing is also called additive manufacturing. It is a general technology that uses powdered metal or non-metal adhesive materials to construct objects based on digital model files by printing layer by layer. The 3D printer will slice the digital model, and then let the print head repeatedly lay the material on the printing plate according to the preset trajectory and merge the continuous material layers until the final three-dimensional model is formed. Fusion deposition technology (FDM, Fuse Deposition Modeling) and light curing technology (SLA, Stereolithography) are currently the two most common 3D printing technologies on the market. Because the two technologies have a long history of development, whether professionals or amateurs, they generally use these two technologies as entry options when they come into contact with 3D printers, so they are also the most mature of the current 3D printing technologies. Whether it is for prototyping, model display or general parts manufacturing, although both can print relatively similar parts for users, how to choose the most suitable 3D process and materials in the actual production process is still necessary Pay attention to many details. Let's compare the advantages and disadvantages of these two processes and under what circumstances they should be used. The working principle of the 3D printer of FDM technology is to extrude the molten thermoplastic onto the 3D printing platform, and lay it layer by layer in a layer-by-layer manner until the final 3D model is formed. There are many types of 3D printer materials using FDM technology, from the more common ABS, PLA to composite materials doped with a variety of enhanced powders, making the application fields of FDM 3D printers very wide. At the same time, due to the open source of FDM technology, enthusiasts can also customize the 3D printer, so that printing settings and hardware accessories can be changed according to different needs to meet the needs of more specialized scenarios. The SLA technology 3D printer uses a UV laser or light projector to continuously track each slice layer of the object, and cure the photosensitive resin layer into a hardened plastic until the final 3D model is formed.

Some models always do not print well because the structure or surface is too complex. When encountering this situation, we need to modify the modeling according to some characteristics of 3D printing. Here are some tips for modeling, I believe it will be helpful to some enthusiasts who are new to 3D printing.

Printed parts feedback from customers