The concept of 3D printing is multidimensional and poses a lot of pros and cons for the users and companies. Let’s go through the advantages and disadvantages of 3D printing education base.
Advantages of 3D printing
Flexibility
3D printing has the ability of any particular printer to form anything that fits within its build volume. It can be noticed that in any manufacturing process, each new part designs requires a new tool. With the aid of 3D printing, the model can be used into a slicer software with any needed support and post that, it can be printed with a minor change in the physical equipment.
One more advantage in the ambit of flexibility is that 3D printing is the ability to form “impossible” geometries that could not previously be manufactured as a single part. Examples of such things can be, print-in-place mechanisms, parts within parts or even hollow cavities within solid pieces. One more benefit is the ability for any user, even with minimal CAD experience to edit forms according to their preference and creating entirely new components.
Speedy prototyping
With the advent of 3D printing, prototypes can be brought into life within a few hours. This speeds up the design process since parts can be in hand within a few hours and work on the next design iteration can be started. Adding more to this, each design modification can result in a new prototype inexpensively with the help of 3D printing.
Waste reduction
3D printing can be understood as an additive manufacturing process. It means only that material is used which needs to produce the part. 3D printing delivers less waste compared to the machine which uses non-recyclable material. Hence, you only pay for the content which you use as part of the material cost of production. The said kind of advantageous material can be found in parts of Delhi as part of 3D printing companies in India.
Freedom in designing
3D printing helps you to produce significant complex geometry that the machines and injection moulding are not able to come up with. It has been observed that sometimes, complex geometry cannot be made with traditional methods as some parts are impossible for the machine to work on. But, with the help of 3D printing, additive process and use of support material, it is doable to come up with any form of geometry.
Disadvantages of 3D printing
Large volumes
If the parts you need are exceeding in number, maybe more than a couple of hundred units, then 3D printing is not very recommended. If you need to produce large volumes, then it will be cost-effective to injection mould the part. The cost of 3D printing remains more or less static. It has been observed that the initial investment for injection moulding is much higher than 3D printing, but the cost per unit becomes cheaper when producing volumes at large.
Limited material
3D printing has not become very versatile as of now to work with most materials. 3D printing mostly works on a limited selection of plastics of different mechanical properties. Some of the 3D printers can work with metal, but that is limited as not all metal or plastic can be temperature controlled for printing.