3D Model Replicator

3D Model Replicator

Unlike the Replicator in the fictional Star Trek universe, today’s Additive Manufacturing (AM) machines can’t produce foods, drinks or electronic gizmos. But some of today’s machines can produce parts out of plastics, resins and even metals with little more than the press of a button.

Conventional manufacturing processes are typically subtractive and start with a piece of material that’s bigger than the desired part and then remove the excess to reveal the finished part. The waste, the bits and pieces removed, can often be recycled, but at some expense. AM processes start with nothing and build the finished part with little or no waste.

AM encompasses a number of manufacturing processes including:
* Fused deposition modeling (FDM)
* Electron beam melting (EBM)
* Selective laser sintering (SLS)
* Stereolithograpghy (SL)
* 3D printing (3DP)
As some of the names imply, some of the processes require expensive high tech equipment and highly trained technicians. But some of the processes, like 3D printing, are becoming simple enough to be used in high school classrooms. Relatively inexpensive kits are available that allow building a personal 3D printer today much like kits of the 1970’s allowed building personal computers.

To print a part, two things are required; a 3D printer and a computer 3D model of the part to be printed, usually in STL format. The STL file is loaded into the printer’s software, the software ‘cuts’ the 3D model into thin slices and directs the print head to deposit each slice in sequence. Just like Star Trek, the user pushes a button and a part appears, albeit much more slowly than in the movies. With ever continuing advances in AM technology, the time may not, in fact, be too far distant when, rather than go to a store to buy a widget, we simply download a 3D model file for a widget and print it on our version of a Replicator.