They're not your granddad's daisy wheel printer or your mom's dot matrix. In fact, they bear little resemblance to today's document or photo printers, which can only print in boring old two dimensions. As their name suggests, 3D printers can build three-dimensional objects out of a variety of materials. They have gone mainstream, showing up at retailers such as Staples, Best Buy, and Home Depot, and you can buy numerous 3D printers and their supplies from Amazon and other online outlets. Once relegated to shop floors, design studios, schools, and community centers, 3D printers are increasingly found on garage workbenches, in rec rooms, and kitchen tables'perhaps even your own.
If you've recently bought one or are in the market, read on for a 3D printing primer that's based on our extensive experience testing these extremely capable and surprisingly affordable machines.
At its most basic, 3D printing is a manufacturing process in which material is laid down, layer by layer, to form a three-dimensional object. (This is deemed an additive process because the object is built from scratch, as opposed to subtractive processes in which material is cut, drilled, milled, or machined off.) Although 3D printers employ a variety of materials (such as plastic or metal) and techniques (see "How Does 3D Printing Work?" below), they share the ability to turn digital files containing three-dimensional data'whether created on a computer-aided design (CAD) or computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) program, or from a 3D scanner'into physical objects.
Yes, 3D printing is a form of printing, although it is not the sort of printing most people associate with the term. Merriam-Webster has defined 3D printing as "...the manufacturing of solid objects by the deposition of layers of material (such as plastic) in accordance with specifications that are stored and displayed in electronic form as a digital model...." From a technological perspective, 3D printing is an outgrowth of traditional printing, in which a layer of material (usually ink) is applied. Usually it's so thin that there is no noticeable height (though with solid ink 2D printers, it is somewhat thicker). What 3D printing does is greatly extend that height through the application of multiple layers.
Much like traditional printers, 3D printers use a variety of technologies. The most commonly known is fused deposition modeling (FDM), also known as fused filament fabrication (FFF). In it, a filament'composed of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polylactic acid (PLA), or another thermoplastic'is melted and deposited through a heated extrusion nozzle in layers. The first 3D printers to come to market, made in the s by Stratasys with help from IBM, used FDM (a term trademarked by Stratasys), as do most 3D printers geared to consumers, hobbyists, and schools.
Multi-jet modeling is an inkjet-like 3D printing system that sprays a colored, glue-like binder onto successive layers of powder where the object is to be formed. This is among the fastest methods, and one of the few that supports multicolor printing.
Some 3D printers can print in multiple colors. (Credit: PCMag)It's possible to modify a standard inkjet to print with materials other than ink. Enterprising do-it-yourselfers have built or modded print heads, generally piezoelectric heads, to work with various materials'in some cases printing out the print heads themselves on other 3D printers! Companies like MicroFab Technologies sell 3D-capable print heads (as well as complete printing systems).
Selective laser sintering (SLS) uses a high-powered laser to fuse plastic, metal, ceramic, or glass particles. At the end of the job, the remaining material is recycled. Electron beam melting (EBM) uses'you guessed it'an electron beam to melt metal powder layer by layer. Titanium is often used with EBM to synthesize medical implants, as well as aircraft parts.
Depending on the technique, 3D printers can use a variety of materials, including but not limited to metals (stainless steel, solder, aluminum, and titanium among them); plastics and polymers (including composites that combine plastics with metals, wood, and other materials); ceramics; plaster; glass; and even foodstuffs like cheese, icing, and chocolate! (See our primer on 3D printer filament types.)
Another technology used in 3D printing is stereolithography, commonly abbreviated as SLA, in which the print medium is resin. In it, a UV laser is shined into a vat of ultraviolet-sensitive photopolymer resin, tracing the object to be created on its surface. The polymer solidifies wherever the beam touches it, and the beam "prints" the object layer by layer per the instructions in the CAD or CAM file it's working from.
The resin-based Formlabs Form 3+ (Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Digital light projector (DLP) 3D printing uses a similar technique. This method exposes a liquid polymer to light from a digital light processing projector. This hardens the polymer layer by layer until the object is built, and the remaining liquid polymer is drained off.
The first 3D printer, which used the stereolithography technique, was created by Charles W. Hull in the mid-s. Stereolithography has traditionally been an expensive commercial technique, with many machines costing in the five figures, but recent years have seen the advent of desktop professional SLA printers, generally costing a few thousand dollars, as well as consumer systems that start at just a couple hundred dollars.
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With 3D printing, designers have the ability to quickly turn concepts into 3D models or prototypes (a.k.a. "rapid prototyping") and implement rapid design changes. It lets manufacturers produce products on demand rather than in large runs, improving inventory management and reducing warehouse space. People in remote locations can fabricate objects that would otherwise be inaccessible to them. And it permits the production of intricate objects with interior structures that would not be possible with traditional injection molding.
From a practical standpoint, 3D printing can save money and material versus subtractive techniques, as very little raw material is wasted. It has also changed the nature of manufacturing by letting consumers download files for printing even complex 3D objects'including, for example, electronic devices'in their own homes.
Designers use 3D printers to quickly create product models and prototypes, but they're increasingly being used to make final products, as well. Among the items made with 3D printers are shoe designs, furniture, wax castings for making jewelry, tools, tripods, gift and novelty items, and toys. Artists can create sculptures, and architects can fabricate models of their projects. Archaeologists are using 3D printers to reconstruct models of fragile artifacts, including some of the antiquities that ISIS destroyed in Syria. Likewise, paleontologists and their students can duplicate dinosaur skeletons and other fossils.
You could also use a 3D printer to make everyday household objects, like bag clips or desktop organizers. For more ideas, check out our gallery of simple and practical 3D printer objects.
Desktop Organizer (Credit: Tony Hoffman)Physicians and medical technicians can use 3D printing to make prosthetics, hearing aids, artificial teeth, and bone grafts, as well as replicate models of organs, tumors, and other internal bodily structures from CT scans in preparation for surgery. A good example is Project Daniel, which 3D-prints prosthetic arms and hands for victims of violence in Sudan. Also, 3D printers that can lay down layers of cells to create artificial organs (such as kidneys and blood vessels) are already in the R&D phase. There's even a place for 3D printing in forensics, for example, to replicate a bullet lodged inside a victim.
(Credit: Project Daniel)Printed electronics is a set of printing methods that enable electronic devices or circuitry to be printed on flexible material, such as labels, fabrics, and cardboard, by application of electronic or optical inks. It provides very low-cost fabrication of low-performance devices. Printed electronics can be combined with 3D printing, allowing for layered circuitry or devices to be printed. A natural outgrowth of this potent combo is that someday, you may be able to print out gadgets from 3D plans rather than buying them.
As for 3D printing in food preparation, in , researchers at Cornell University developed the Fab@Home open-source 3D printer, which they used to print food, chiefly from chocolate, cheese, and cookie dough. Other ingredients that can be 3D printed include pasta, icing, and even meat. A small number of restaurants are testing food-printer prototypes.
In , the US Department of Agriculture authorized the sale of 3D-printed meat, which is grown from animal cells and extruded through a nozzle, layer by layer. The agency gave regulatory approval to Upside Foods and Good Meat to produce and sell cultivated chicken products.
(Credit: Good Meat)But 3D printed meat is not yet available in major grocery stores, and it faces headwinds in some states: Florida and Alabama have banned its sale, and other states are considering similar bans. Legislators have cited the concern that these cultivated meat products could hurt the sale of meat from animals grown and slaughtered for food. So 3D meat printing remains in its infancy, a world away from competing with traditional meat in price or quantity.
You don't have to own a 3D printer to benefit from one. Many 3D printing services, such as Shapeways and Sculpteo, print gifts and other small items on order on their own 3D printers, then ship them to the customer. Customers can either submit their own 3D object files or choose items, most of them designed by other users of the service, from an online catalog.
But 3D printing services are no longer solely the domain of specialists. Large companies such as UPS have introduced them, and some traditional print shops have added on-demand 3D printing to their repertoire.
Most 3D printer manufacturers sell their products directly online. Many e-tailers now stock them, including online-only companies such as Amazon, and others that also have brick-and-mortar stores. Some of the latter, such as Walmart, Best Buy, and Staples, offer them in stores and online, but be sure to check for store availability on their websites as not all locations carry them. Several 3D printer showrooms have opened in major cities. For instance, iMakr has locations in the US and Europe.
A few online retailers specialize in 3D printers, such as Dynamism, which sells a range of 3D printers from different brands and also provides customer support.
Nearly all 3D printers accept files in what's called STL format (named for stereolithography), as well as OBJ files. These types of files can be produced by almost any CAD software, from expensive commercial packages like AutoCAD to free or open-source products such as Google SketchUp and Blender.
(Credit: Robo)Most consumer 3D printers come with printing software'either supplied on a USB thumb drive or SD card, or available for download'that includes everything you need to get printing. Although some companies have their own proprietary software, many manufacturers use variants of Cura, an open-source 3D printing program maintained by 3D printer maker UltiMaker. Similarly, PrusaSlicer is an open-source program, designed for Prusa Research printers, that has been adapted for use with other brands of printers as well. The software typically integrates a program for controlling the printer with a slicer, which, in preparation for printing, formats the object file into layers based on the selected resolution and other factors. The programs originally came out of the RepRap open-source movement, out of which hobbyist 3D printing developed.
For those not inclined to make their own 3D files, 3D object databases offer numerous 3D object files that can be downloaded and printed out.
The best-known site is MakerBot's Thingiverse, which offers more than 2,000,000 free files created by users. Other sites whose 3D files are all free include MakerWorld, NIH 3D (which specializes in biomedical and scientific models), Autodesk's Instructables, and NASA, which has its own page of 3D-printable spacecraft models and other cosmic delights. The Smithsonian also offers files for various objects based on items in the collections of ita museums. Many other sites offer combinations of free and for-sale files. Yeggi is a search engine that crawls various 3D printing model sites in search of the files you request.
A variety of 3D printers for homes and small businesses is readily available'PCMag has reviewed more than 50 of them'and they are becoming more commonplace in houses'to be found on workbenches, in studios, in home offices, and even in the kitchen. For the most part, items made with 3D printers have had homogenous interiors, but you can make more complex creations combining multiple materials and composites, as well as printable electronics. With today's 3D printers, if you lose your TV remote's battery cover, it may be possible to print a replacement cover. With tomorrow's (who knows?), if you lose your remote, perhaps you'll be able to print a whole new remote.
In the past few years, we have seen an explosion in the variety and uses of 3D printers. It's similar to where personal computing was circa . Though it's easy enough to see some of the areas the field of 3D printing will branch into, others are beyond our ability to predict, just as no one around in could have imagined much of what the personal computer would turn into.
Some promising areas include space research, where 3D printing is gaining a foothold. NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and other companies involved in space exploration have been using 3D printing to make tools, models, prototypes, and even rocket parts. Lightweight, strong, and heat-resistant components, often made from aluminum alloys, are used in engine nozzles and elsewhere. The five legs of the SLIM lunar lander were made from 3D-printed aluminum with a lattice structure and were designed to collapse on landing, absorbing the impact and rolling the spacecraft onto its side.
(Credit: Redwire)NASA has also been using a 3D printer aboard the International Space Station to determine whether the lunar regolith'Moon rocks'can be used as raw material for 3D printing strong and durable structures for a future Moon base. Eventually, 3D printers could help create habitats on Mars and other worlds.
It's possible that 3D printing may not have the same impact as the PC on a consumer, everyday-life level. Still, it does have the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and, perhaps more important, bring it into the hands of everyday consumers. One thing's for sure, though: 3D printing is here to stay.
Below are some quick picks to check out. For deeper coverage of individual printers and how to buy one, check out our guide to the best 3D printers.
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