FAQs

How fast are 3D printers?

February 19, 2016 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

The answer is it depends. Build speed, as it is used in this blog, refers to how long it can take to build a part as opposed to how fast do the mechanical axes supporting the material deposition nozzle, lasers, DLP system or build plate move. … [Read more...]

Electron Beam Melting: What Is It?

May 18, 2015 By Mike Santora Leave a Comment

Electron beam melting (EBM) is a type of additive manufacturing technique that uses a cathode ray as its heat source. EBM is a proprietary powder bed fusion technique developed by Arcam. Metal powder is melted in a high vacuum, layer by layer until … [Read more...]

What is direct metal sintering?

May 11, 2015 By Mike Santora Leave a Comment

Direct Metal Sintering is a name coined by 3D Systems to describe a process similar to Direct Metal Laser Sintering. 3D Systems’ printers, like other metal laser sintering printers, create pure, fully dense metal parts with EN ISO (fine) machining … [Read more...]

What is DMLS (Direct Metal Laser Sintering)?

May 4, 2015 By Mike Santora Leave a Comment

Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) is an additive manufacturing process specifically using metals as the material. Most alloys can be used in the DMLS process but 17-4 Precipitation Hardened (PH) and 15-5 PH stainless steel are the most common. The … [Read more...]

What is Laser Sintering?

April 20, 2015 By Mike Santora Leave a Comment

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) is a type of additive manufacturing process that uses a laser as a thermal source for fusing ceramic, glass, plastic, metal powder and others into a 3-dimensional object. Many consider SLS to have the most diverse list … [Read more...]

What is a DLP 3D Printer?

April 13, 2015 By Mike Santora 1 Comment

A DLP 3D printer is used in the additive manufacturing process where objects are created by a 3D printer that uses a digital light projector (DLP) as the light source for curing photo-reactive polymers. There are advantages and disadvantages to a DLP … [Read more...]

What is FFF?

April 6, 2015 By Mike Santora Leave a Comment

The term Fused Filament Fabrication or FFF was created by members of the Reprap project to avoid litigation over the previously trademarked term Fused Deposition Modeling coined by Stratasys, LTD. Both terms describe a nearly identical additive … [Read more...]

What is FDM?

March 30, 2015 By Mike Santora Leave a Comment

What is FDM? Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is a type of additive manufacturing process used for creating tangible 3-dimensional objects from CAD-designed digital files. Invented by S. Scott Crump in 1989, this trademarked 3D printing method uses … [Read more...]

Laser Melting: What Is It?

March 27, 2015 By Mike Santora Leave a Comment

Laser melting is an additive manufacturing method that uses a laser to heat a material into a fully melted liquid form. This is essentially the same process used in laser sintering with a few technical differences. Laser sintering uses heat to … [Read more...]

What is Stereolithography?

March 23, 2015 By Mike Santora 1 Comment

Stereolithography (SLA) is a type of additive manufacturing process used for creating tangible 3-dimensional objects from CAD designs or 3D scanned digital files. The process, invented and named by Chuck Hull in 1986, uses photo-reactive (usually … [Read more...]