https://www.canva.com/design/DAGD9En74Oc/o_MMIQVfQpEUIbojRrDV6A/edit

• Types of 3D Printers
  • FDM (Plastic-Melting)
    • Uses Spool of Plastic, Metal, Etc.
    • Will be focused on for this Presentation
  • SLA (Liquid-Resin)
    • Uses Liquid

• How FDM Printers Work
  • CAD/3D Models
    • Like all 3D printers, FDM Printers start with a 3D Model. Applications such as Blender, SolidWorks, Rivet, and many more are used to design the product and then that is put into a slicer app which will cut the model into layers which will be printed. The slicer also allows you to modify how dense the print will be, the size of your print, the temperature, etc…
  • Moving The Printer
    • For the printer to start printing, it needs to move. First, the “bed” or printing surface must be leveled, whether it be automatic or manual. After that, the printer will start to move to begin printing. Most printers typically use pulleys and belts to move the nozzle side to side as it’s very fast and lightweight, while to move up and down, and move the bed forwards and backwards, lead screws (which are just long bolts) are used to create a very smooth motion that can support a lot of weight. All this movement allows the printer to be able to print entire structures out of nothing due to it having the ability to go up, down, left, right, forward, and backwards; all three axes.
  • Bed and Nozzle
    •  To melt the plastic being used to print, there must be a heated element to melt it. This is where the nozzle comes into play, the nozzle gets heated up and barely melts the plastic to get it to be laid down and quickly cool down. The bed is also heated to ensure the plastic sticks and keep the foundation stable.

• Applications
  • It’s not just 3D Printing a bunch of phallic objects but it has real-world uses!
  • Prosthetic Limbs
    • One Application of 3D Printing is creating prosthetic limbs. Some organizations, such as e-NABLE, make it their mission to help those in need. The non-profit organization “e-NABLE” ‘s mission statement reads, “The e-NABLE Community is an amazing group of individuals from all over the world who are using their 3D printers to create free 3D printed hands and arms for those in need of an upper limb assistive device.”  This is just one example of how 3D Printing changed the world and made necessities that cost thousands, accessible to so many lives that normally couldn’t obtain these aids.
  • Medical Implants
    • 3D Printing also has another application, and that’s in the field of medicine. A study done by Christian Kweller in BMC Health Services between the years 2021 and 2022 was done using 3D Printers to create patient-specific anatomical models, otherwise known as PAMs, and patients were given 2 months to rate out of 10 based on knowledge, communication, and planning/execution. After all the data was collected, an overwhelming majority rated a 7 or above on how 3D Printing altered their knowledge of the procedure they were undergoing while most individuals rated a 5 on the invasiveness of the procedure, keeping it at roughly the same level as a normal procedure.
  • Custom Parts
    • The final application covered in this presentation will be the ability to create custom parts. One field where this is heavily used is FIRST Robotics Competition robots where teams will typically 3D Print parts for their robots. Some popular items that are 3D Printed for these robots include custom hubs, covers for gearboxes to keep them clean of dust and debris, custom guides for game pieces to follow, custom mounts for encoders, and even gears. The biggest upside for this is how accessible it is for many. This is because most people don’t have access to huge shops that can manufacture any custom items on the fly, so 3D printing is very appealing as it’s fast, cheap, and easily accessible to all. 

References

• BMC Health Services Research. First experiences of a hospital-based 3D printing facility – an analytical observational study. https://web-p-ebscohost-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=3878f482-850c-4cdb-8e2e-5286871dacfa%40redis . (2024)