3 boyutlu yazıcılar nasıl çalışır? How 3D printer works?

3D Printer and Mechanics

3D printers are optional manufacturing system for plastic and other material can be used like wood, carbon fibre. There are lots of systems that can manufacture plastic but the cheapest and fastest one is 3D printers. 3D printing is a process of making 3D objects from digital designed files. Fused deposition modelling is an additive manufacturing. Although other modelling methods is using at 3D printers like selective laser sintering, generally fused deposition modelling is using. 2 types of 3D printers which are using fused deposition method are Cartesian and Delta. Cartesian printers are using Cartesian coordinate system X,Y,Z. In this system, extruder which is feeding material to nozzle and bed is movable. Delta 3D printers works like delta robot concepts. Delta printers has 3 hand connected with head. Each hand connected carriages and moves just upward and downward. 3 hand moves together to manufacture the designed object.

Cartesian                     Delta

 PLA (Polylactic acid) and ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) are commonly used materials with this technology, but other materials can be used.

1-      Nozzle is ejecting PLA or ABS. The material melts in there and the degree of temperature is changing with material properties. PLA: 190-210 Celsius ABS: 210-250 Celsius. If PLA is used, no need to use hot bed. There is a problem to paste ABS material to bed, so hot bed is used with 100 Celsius.

2-      Printed material. To make the design more detailed, the height and width should be very small.

How 3D printer works?

            Firstly, we need to have CAD (Computer Aided Design) files. Everyone can design their design by using SOLIDWORK, Blender, AutoCAD etc. These design programs can export STL (stereolithography file format) files. By using CURA or Repetier, these STL files can be opened. Thanks to CURA and Repetier, the model slicing into hundreds or thousands of horizontal layers. With the CURA firmware, printing settings like weight of material, support material, printing format can be changed by users. This firmware generates G-code that manages the motors. CURA or Repetier can send G-codes with USB. Generally 3D printers has SD card support. Saving G-code to SD card is other possible way. 3D printer reads G-code for every slice and design will be printed layer by layer.