A large misnomer about 3-d printing is its ability to produce anything flawlessly and at a level which supersedes any other manufacturing process in every way. This sadly is just not true, 3D printing is not a miracle solution. It has both advantages and disadvantages like every other process.
Advantages Rapid Design to Product Moving from a model to a physical product in some cases can be achieved by just printing the full part. In others the part may need to be changed or printed in pieces to achieve more complex geometry or larger parts. Light weight parts Parts printed in PLA are extremely lightweight compared to their strength especially when an infill pattern is used Inexpensive The other advantages that 3D printing offers such as rapid setup and autonomous production allow parts to be priced cheaper than hand made prototypes. Also much cheaper on a low count scale compared to mass production techniques such as molds. Additive 3D printing is additive it bonds plastic together to make parts, unlike cnc milling this allows less waste to be created which is better for the environment and cheaper for the customer. Complex Geometry's Some geometries just cannot be made with other processes at the same efficiency as 3D printing. You would be very surprised just to find out how much tooling goes into making the products you use every day. Disadvantages High Accuracy Most 3D printers including the types that we use can only get accuracy's up to about 0.2 mm. .2mm at first glance may seem like a lot but in perspective a piece of paper is about .1mm thick thus its about two sheets pressed together for potential error. High Speed 3D printers are not nearly as fast as injection molds as some parts can take multiple hours to print. A way to combat this is to have multiple printers running in conjunction creating a 3D printing farm. Mass Scale Cost When making a simple part at mass scale upwards of 500 parts usually injection molding or form pressing can make sense.
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