• Question: how big is a 3D printer?

    Asked by draw021cup to Anthony, Connor, Aruna on 2 Mar 2020. This question was also asked by Girlpowerforstem.
    • Photo: Anthony Newell

      Anthony Newell answered on 2 Mar 2020:

      3D printers can be all sorts of different sizes depending on what material you’re making parts with and how big you need your parts to be. A plastic 3D printer using wire for building parts up to 20 cm in size will be about the size of a microwave. For building parts of the same size (20 cm) made of metal we have printers the size of a very big fridge. This is because the metal powder we use is a lot more difficult to handle safely than plastic when melted so we need other systems to make it safe which add to its size. These systems are used for holding the metal powder and circulating argon gas which doesn’t dangerously react with the metal like oxygen in the air does. There are also printers that are bigger than houses and can even print houses! They use a crane to pour concrete layer by layer to build the walls.

Comments

  • Photo: Girlpowerforstem

    Girlpowerforstem commented on :

    Do you have a 3D printer already

  • Photo: ring021den

    ring021den commented on :

    Do u think 3D printers have along way to go terms of speed or are pretty fast already?

    • Photo: Anthony

      Anthony commented on :

      The build time can be significantly slower than older methods of making parts like milling, injection moulding and casting, there is a lot of work being done into making 3D printers faster as it can be a big problem when building lots of the same part. For metal 3D printers which use lasers to melt the metal, adding more lasers or increasing the powder size and laser power increases the speed. For 3D printing plastics, using thicker layers increases the speed.

      Though it is slower to build a part with 3D printing, there are lots of other steps in older manufacturing methods that 3D printing skips which can speed up the product development process overall using 3D printing. For example, if you want to use injection moulding you need to design and build a mould for the parts which can take weeks and be very expensive whereas with 3D printing, designing the part and setting up the machine and building can take just a few days.