Additive Manufacturing (3D printing)

This was the technology that inspired the birth of You3Dit.com  "Why can't I just go pay this guy to print my part for me on his Stratasys Dimension Elite?  I've made a revision and I want to see if it works..."

Primary Additive Manufacturing Methods / Processes

The primary methods of additive manufacturing--broken down and segmented by their process physics--are as follows:

1. Extrusion

   1. Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF)

   2. Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)

   3. Bound Metal Deposition

2. Photopolymerization

   1. Point-wise laser photopolymerization

   2. Digital Light Projection (DLP)

   3. CLIP or continuous layer interface polymerization

3. Powder-bed Fusion

   1. Polymers (Plastics) > Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)

      1. Multi-jet Fusion (MJF)
      2. SAF

   2. Metals > Selective Laser Melting (SLM)

4. Binder Jetting

5. Material Jetting

   1. Stratasys Polyjet

6. Direct Energy Deposition

7. Sheet Lamination

You3Dit Trends

Of these primary additive manufacturing methods, the You3Dit network most commonly uses Extrusion.  This is due to the lower barriers to entry in accessing the technology; growing ubiquity, access and lower cost.  The most commonly utilized materials with these machines are: 1) PLA 2) PETG 3) ASA among others.  

Another workhorse additive manufacturing process that has shown tremendous promise for closing the gap between prototyping and production is Powder Bed Fusion of polymers; specifically with HP's Multi-jet Fusion or MJF.  These parts are attractive not only for their approachable costs, but also the output part quality and potential for high throughput.  These parts are monolithic, functional and engineering-grade parts from Nylon PA12 (as the most common material), and are cost (and quality) competitive up to ~50K parts with plastic injection molding.

Why Additive Manufacturing?

Bottom line, for anyone who has used Computer Aided Design or CAD to create a model to address a physical, mechanical need, additive manufacturing or 3D printing is the fastest and lowest-cost way to transform that CAD model into a physical part or prototype.  Yes, we can go into our garages and hack something down to size, put some holes in it and in many cases, address our mechanical issue.  But with Additive Manufacturing, complexity "is free" and whether the design has multiple curved surfaces, a littany of holes, or has any other complex geometry, there's likely a 3D printer that can turn that design into a physical part quickly; unlocking many other learnings and opportunities that are simply not accessible in the digital CAD domain.

What are you waiting for?

Kick off a new project with You3Dit today and explore how additive manufacturing can unlock your latent hardware creativity.  https://www.you3dit.com/projects/new