3-D PRINTERS NOW BEING MANUFACTURED FOR MASS PRODUCTION - DESKTOP MODELS ON THE WAY

A lot of printing revolutions have happened in the last twenty years. Advances in printers, ink and head design as well as dealing with digital photos and images have changed this industry.From the moment of taking the picture until it is ready for printing, modern printers have made printing truly professional images from a home printer something which we expect now even from an inexpensive machine. One of the truly astounding advances in printing, and one which is so removed from what most people consider printing many people won’t think of it as such.

The latest huge advance, which is now gaining traction at a growing pace, is 3-D printing.

Here at TomatoInk, we are pretty interested in the future of printing. Who knows…maybe in the future we will be able to provide you a full range of cartridges for your brand new 3D printer!

AFFORDABLE 3-D PRINTING FINALLY ARRIVING

There are several different methods of doing this, but in most cases there is a nozzle or set of nozzles (think inkjet printing here) that extrudes plastic and builds the model layer by layer. The design can be taken from most major 3-D modeling programs, CAD CAM and other 3-D design software.

source: breitbart

Other 3-D printers use lasers to build the object from plastic or metal powder (or a combination of different materials). Once again, this model is built layer by layer until the whole thing is done. These types of machines have been around for a while now but have been prohibitively expensive.

They have gotten to the point now where the tolerance level of the printers is getting down to microns, and they are beginning to be used for actual manufacturing rather than just modeling for the first time.

The latest 3-D printer is also reminiscent of an inkjet printer, except instead of the ink cartridges holding ink they hold, in this case, a molecular adhesive. Voxel jet has perfected this technology. Like the laser, this 3-D printer uses powdered substrates of metal or plastic, and the adhesive is applied with super fine precision by nozzles which are very similar to inkjet nozzles.

3-D PRINTING NOT JUST FOR DESIGN ANYMORE

The Voxeljet 3-D printer is geared specifically towards production purposes, and that is another thing that these printers already have in common with our living room printers.

source: voxeljet.de

That is the variability in substances which can be used. There are already many different formulations of plastics and rubbers, but this also includes alloys, glass and ceramics and as time goes on this list will continue to grow. Various mixtures of substances will also be developed, such as ceramic and alloy mixtures.

One area which has already been over taken by this style of printing is the use in dental prostheses. It is estimated that in excess of six million crowns and bridges are made using 3-D printers, and their use in industries across the board is increasing.

In the not too distant future, you can expect to see home models - there is already one company marketing a plastic extrusion 3-D printer for only a couple of thousand bucks, but if the trend is anything like normal printing within a few years you will be able to buy a 3-D printer for you house within years for much less.

Then your ink cartridges might be metal alloy or plastic too.