What is the FDM process? What are the advantages over traditional molding?

Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is an industrial molding method, developed by American scholar Dr. Scott Crump in 1988. The well-known U.S. manufacturers of FDM equipment are Stratasys and 3Dsystems, and the main types of equipment are industrial grade and desktop grade.

FDM has the characteristics of low cost, high speed, easy to use, simple maintenance, small size and no pollution, which greatly shortens the product development cycle and reduces the cost, so that it can quickly respond to the market changes and meet the customer's personalized needs, and has been widely used in industrial manufacturing, medical care, construction, education, and mass consumption and other fields. The working principle of Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is that the filamentary thermoplastic material is heated and melted by a nozzle with a micro-nozzle at the bottom of the nozzle (generally 0.2-0.6mm in diameter). Under computer control, the nozzle is moved along the X-axis and the table is moved along the Y-axis, and according to the data of the 3D model, it is moved to the specified position, the liquid material in the molten state will be extruded and eventually solidified. After the deposition of a layer is completed, the table along the Z-axis direction according to a predetermined incremental decline in the thickness of a layer, the material is sprayed and deposited on the previous layer of solidified material, through the accumulation of materials layer by layer to form the final product.