In the field of 3D printing, 3D printing materials play a crucial role in 3D printers, and the emergence of finished products is approximately equivalent to the ordered stacking of 3D printing materials. The importance of 3D printing materials to 3D printers is similar to the importance of blood to the human body. 3D printing materials promote or restrict the development of 3D printing technology. At present, there are more than 200 types of 3D printing materials in total, and materials are born every once in a while. However, for the development of 3D printing, these materials are far from enough. The types of 3D printing materials vary depending on the 3D printing molding technology.
3D printing consumables are a type of 3D printing material mainly used in FDM models, which are also models with melt layer deposition technology. Due to extrusion molding, the material used to produce this model needs to be made into linear consumables, which are referred to as wires both domestically and internationally.
There are many types of wires, such as PLA, ABS, wood, PC, etc. These different wires exhibit different properties when printed. In addition, the compatibility of wires varies among different models. The FDM model can also use food or concrete materials, which are relatively special and are formed by extrusion. The PI in molding technology, commonly known as polymer jet technology, uses photosensitive polymers as the most commonly used material.
SLA/DLP models, also known as light curing molding models, generally use resin materials. These types of models often use irradiation focusing to cure the materials, so resin materials are generally in a liquid state. Other forming techniques such as selective laser sintering (SLS), direct metal laser sintering (DMLS), and electron beam melting (SHS) generally use metallic materials.
It is worth noting that 3D printers using technologies such as SLS, DMLS, and SHS are generally industrial models. Unlike desktop models, industrial level 3D printing equipment has higher performance and is generally used to produce high-performance components. There are still many technologies in the field of 3D printing, such as PP mainly using gypsum as the 3D printing material, and HP's new 3D printing technology is a layer by layer manufacturing technology. Of course, 3D printers using different molding techniques may use the same material.
Of course, when it comes to the field of 3D printing materials, a new type of material is generated every once in a while, some are brand new, while others are added to the original material to give it other properties.