3D printing is a manufacturing method where objects are made quickly on a machine connected to a computer. Enthusiasts hope it will usher in a custom manufacturing revolution. Current models are expensive and used by professionals. The latest devices use a laser and metal powder to make metal objects. There may one day be 3D printers that use nanotechnology to create products atom by atom.
3D printing, otherwise known as rapid prototyping, is a manufacturing method where 3D objects are made quickly on a reasonably sized machine connected to a computer containing blueprints for the object. The basic principles are like those of a 2D printer: material cartridges, output flexibility, and translating the code into a visible pattern. Enthusiasts hope home fabbers will usher in a custom manufacturing revolution and eliminate (or greatly reduce) the need for centralized manufacturing. Instead of going to a store to pick up a set of dishes, a person could purchase the plans online and print them out of simple materials.
The technology that allows 3D printers to work appeared in the mid-1990s. Upon their arrival, the futurists immediately predicted that soon people would see them in every home. However, the expense of parts, which includes plenty of flexible manufacturing tools, has kept the cost too high for most people. Current models are expensive machines for use by professional product designers or engineers, who use them to create models for use in presentations to clients, for example. Current devices work using various raw materials, such as sawdust and glue, which can be pressed into 3D structures as long as the design allows for the incremental application of layers.
The latest 3D printing devices use a laser and metal powder to make metal 3D objects, making the technology more attractive. These machines have already been used by Israel and the United States to produce UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles. The US Army is researching a battlefield-ready printer that could be used to produce communication devices when needed.
Early projections suggested these machines would likely use a combination of lasers and specialty polymers to manufacture products. There are some polymers that solidify only under a certain mixture of light and this property can be exploited by using a duo of lasers which, independently, do not satisfy these optical conditions, but do when used together. When the two lasers cross in the solution, it solidifies. By building a structure from scratch, a stable product can be created when the liquid polymer is drained off. However, this method turned out to be quite expensive and less technically demanding techniques are used today.
There may one day be 3D printers that use nanotechnology to create products by depositing them atom by atom. Preliminary work with atomic tooltips suggests that this is scientifically feasible. Simple atomic-scale machinery has been created, such as little wheels, transistors, and “walking DNA.” These could be the forerunners of more advanced custom manufacturing systems.
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