From a practitioner's point of view to try to answer this question
The question:
3D printing with the general public how to connect?When can 3D printing into life?
I'm guessing the questioner means that the general public will have direct access to 3D printing in their daily lives. It's not really that popular at the moment.
But if you change your perspective and include the indirect ones, then the scope becomes quite wide, and you'll realize that 3D printing has slowly begun to penetrate all corners of our lives.
Accordingly, the process from direct to indirect is also a gradual process from 3D printing from desktop consumer to industrial level. From simple to complex, so to speak.
Direct:
1, the use of FDM technology to manufacture some of the board,
Because a few years ago the FDM open source, so the market spread very quickly in the past few years, general news inside the hype are basically this type of relatively simple and intuitive. Specifically you can go to the search, the machine, however, the starting price of two or three thousand are there, many enthusiasts will purchase a back to print their favorite models or some of the dolls (dolls need to post-processing coloring, etc.). The vast majority of them are also limited to the appearance of it. Because of the material and process limitations can not realize some functional verification, so mainly for education. At present, many friends in the industry who are doing platforms have started to do some popularization and promotion in the education industry, which is still very helpful for the development of the industry. The more optimistic are those who have packaged their own profit model in the inside of the friend.
Now there are manufacturers to launch some two-color or even multi-color printing, this is a better direction. With personalized features to attract the public.
2, the use of 3DP spray glue way to bond ceramics and other powder molding of the portrait.
There are fewer people doing this. The competition is not so fierce. But now this kind of portrait of the reproduction of realism, fineness and there is a lot of room for improvement. If the future can be in the cost and process to get a lot of improvement, it is estimated that the portrait of the 3D photo studio and other business models, will not be as short-lived as before, to solve the process and cost of the two aspects of the problem should be more easily accepted by the general public. Especially the cost, after all, this is not just a need.
3, the use of similar FDM process of some pancake printers, chocolate printers, coffee pulling machine. These processes are similar in principle. The specifics of their own Baidu to go to it, here will not expand.
4, the use of SLA and SLS process to print out some of the crafts and so on. Especially now the SLS process using nylon powder to produce a lot of beautiful crafts, fashion jewelry and cultural creations, especially in the internal hollowing and other complex structural design, because there is no limitations on the process, so it is also particularly popular. There may be a fashion weekend event where many of the furnishings are 3D printed. In addition, since the beginning of this year, a lot of celebrity weddings, gifts and decorations are also 3D printed, hidden trend. However, when it comes to fashion and incidentally say clothing, this aspect because of the limitations of flexible materials, there is no mature solution.
5, the use of SLM, EBDM and other metal 3D printing out of the bone
This is more specialized, may be less contact with the people. But this should be one of the hottest applications in the last few years: the medical industry, bone implants. The use of 3D printed titanium bone implants. Previously, because of the CFDA certification did not pass the reason, can only use some volunteers to clinically verify the way, but since last year, the three hospitals of Beihang team using the EBDM process to make 3D printed hip joints become China's first 3D printed implants. This year, they made further efforts and successfully launched the CFDA-approved 3D-printed artificial vertebrae, and the world's first 3D-printed artificial vertebrae implantation surgery was successful at the Third Hospital of Peking University. This is a typical case of direct application for the general public. Compared with the traditional process of implantation, from the quality, precision, cost and other aspects have been essentially improved.
But the proportion of people who have to have metal implants replaced is so small that it's not well known or understood in everyday life.
Next said some of the indirect, where the indirect not only refers to the general public's daily life does not directly contact, but also includes some of the day-to-day will not come into contact with the industry, such as:
1, the military industry, such as the J-20, C919 and other projects on the use of 3D printing one-piece molding technology, these aspects of the media before the report to there are also a lot of it. You can search for yourself, there are many people on the know-how has been introduced. I'm not going to repeat myself here. The main reason for this is that the defense industry is not as cost-sensitive as the medical industry, which is also included in the above.
Cost is a fairly important constraint on the popularization of a new process. It can be said that metal 3D printing process has been relatively mature in the country, the popularization of the difficulties are mainly stuck in the price. For example, the most commonly used molds in the manufacturing industry, generally using the 3D printing process to do some built-in cooling waterway to improve production efficiency (commonly known as with the shape of the cooling waterway). But because the cost is too high, so generally used to produce some built-in modules or inserts. Of course, price is not the only constraint, there are also service life and other limitations, but these can be improved through some post-processing such as hot pressing and other processes.
2, 3D printing wax mold to make the mother mold to achieve the mold casting
This is mainly divided into two categories, one is the use of SLA and DLP curing liquid photosensitive resin to make the mother mold, there is also a type of wax spraying to make the mother of the wax mold. The principle is the same, the ultimate goal is to turn the mold to create a die casting mold, just use different materials, a photosensitive resin, a wax. The former is a little cheaper, the latter a little more expensive. The wax material has basically no impurities left in the mold when it is cast. The photosensitive resin is a little less effective. These two kinds of industries are now used more is the jewelry industry. It is also used in precision casting, personalized jewelry customization using this method is now more and more common.
Because later will mention another sand casting mold, so here is a brief introduction to investment casting: investment casting, also known as lost wax casting, including wax pressure, wax repair, group tree, dip, molten wax, casting metal liquid and post-processing and other processes. Lost wax casting is made of wax to cast parts of the wax mold, and then wax mold coated with mud, which is the mud mold. The clay mold is dried and then baked into a ceramic mold. Once baked, all the wax molds are melted and lost, leaving only the clay molds. Generally, when the clay mold is made, a pouring port is left, and then the molten metal is poured into the mold from the pouring port, and when it cools, the desired part is made.
The wax mold made of blue wax in investment casting has a good surface roughness and high precision. So it is generally used for precision casting. Next to introduce some of the surface roughness and precision requirements are not so high sand casting
3, 3D printing out of the sand mold.
Sand casting is mainly made of bonded sand to produce a sand mold. The traditional process to first make the mother mold (wooden mother mold), and then design a good parting surface, the mother mold into the box, filled with binder sand pressure, curing and molding good after taking out the mother mold, get the cured sand mold can go to the dip coating and then casting the finished product. This is mainly used in some large castings, the size requirements are not so strict some industries. Of course, there are also some more stringent precision requirements can be processed through the later machining to get the finished product required.
The main application of 3D printing sand mold principle is simply through the spray glue way to the sand layer by layer bonding up curing molding. Printing out the sand mold directly eliminates the need to make master molds, re-mold, and split the molds in traditional processes, and provides a high degree of design freedom without having to consider too many process constraints. This is especially important for product design engineers.
Because this segment is currently engaged in the industry, I understand more in-depth so I will say a few more words. The main application of the direction of many, covering a variety of industries such as aerospace, automotive, heavy industry, pumps and valves in various fields. Although the casting industry is called the sunset industry, but this industry is one of the foundation of the manufacturing industry, China is also the world's foundry power (unfortunately can not be called a foundry power). So the demand in this area is particularly hit. Coupled with the new product development cycle is getting shorter and shorter, more and more time-sensitive, so the popularization of this technology more and more quickly. For example, several domestic OEMs, now the new engine block cylinder head, intake and exhaust pipe, basically this way to quickly manufacture samples and functional verification.
Additionally, several large domestic casting leading enterprises, have begun to apply this technology for some small batch production. For example, some heavy industry, large lathe enterprises, some of the castings inside the output is not high, the use of traditional technology costs too high, too long, so the use of 3D printing technology to produce a few dozen pieces of hundreds of pieces, quite an advantage, can be used as a very good means of production support.
Additionally, from the point of view of my own understanding of the industry, in the industrial 3D printing market, this indirect molding technology, compared to direct metal molding 3D printing technology, in terms of cost and efficiency has nearly a hundred times the level of advantage, but also happens to be for the size of the precision requirements of the industry characteristics are not high, so steal the thought that this is the closest to the popularity of 3D printing technology industrialization of an application.
Temporarily thought of so much, later if there is thought of adding
.