Ten Advantages and Five Limitations of 3D Printing

Unlike traditional manufacturing machines, 3D printers create objects by cutting or molding. The method of forming physical objects by stacking layers expands the scope of digital concepts from a physical perspective. 3D printer is the preferred processing equipment for shape design requiring precise internal concave or interlocking parts, which can be realized in the physical world. The following is a similar description of people from various industries with different backgrounds and professional skills. 3D printing helps them reduce major cost, time and complexity barriers. Let’s take a look at the advantages of 3D printing.

The advantages of 3D printing cannot be matched by traditional manufacturing

Advantage 1: 

Manufacturing complex items does not increase costs

As far as traditional manufacturing is concerned, the more complex the object shape is, the higher the manufacturing cost is. For 3D printers, the cost of manufacturing complex shaped items does not increase. Creating a gorgeous complex shaped item does not consume more time, skills or costs than printing a simple box. Manufacturing complex goods without increasing costs will break the traditional pricing model and change the way we calculate manufacturing costs.

Advantage 2: Product diversification does not increase costs

A 3D printer can print many shapes. It can make objects of different shapes every time like a craftsman. Traditional manufacturing equipment has less functions and limited types of shapes. 3D printing saves the cost of training machinists or purchasing new equipment. A 3D printer only needs different digital design blueprints and a batch of new raw materials.

Advantage 3: No assembly required

3D printing can integrate components. Traditional mass production is based on assembly lines. In modern factories, machines produce the same parts and components, which are then assembled by robots or workers (even across continents). The more components a product has, the more time and cost it takes to assemble it. The 3D printer can print a door and its supporting hinges simultaneously through layered manufacturing, without assembly. Omitting assembly shortens the supply chain and saves labor and transportation costs. The shorter the supply chain, the less pollution.

Advantage 4: Zero time delivery

The 3D printer can print on demand. Real time production reduces the physical inventory of enterprises. Enterprises can use 3D printers to manufacture special or customized products to meet customer needs according to customer orders, so a new business model will become possible. If the goods people need are produced nearby on demand, zero time delivery production can minimize the cost of long-distance transportation.

Advantage 5: unlimited design space

Traditional manufacturing technology and craftsmen have limited product shapes, and the ability to create shapes is limited by the tools used. For example, traditional wooden lathes can only produce round objects, rolling mills can only process components assembled with milling cutters, and mold making machines can only produce molded shapes. 3D printers can break through these limitations, open up huge design space, and even make shapes that may only exist in nature at present.

Advantage 6: zero skill manufacturing

Traditional craftsmen need to be apprentices for several years to master the required skills. Mass production and computer controlled manufacturing machines reduce the requirements for skills. However, traditional manufacturing machines still require skilled professionals to adjust and calibrate the machines. The 3D printer obtains various instructions from the design documents to make the same complex items. The 3D printer requires less operating skills than the injection molding machine. Non skilled manufacturing has opened up new business models and can provide people with new production methods in remote environments or extreme circumstances.

Advantage 7: space saving, portable manufacturing

In terms of unit production space, compared with traditional manufacturing machines, 3D printers have stronger manufacturing capacity. For example, injection molding machines can only make items much smaller than themselves. On the contrary, 3D printers can make items as big as their printing tables. After the 3D printer is debugged, the printing equipment can move freely, and the printer can make items larger than itself. High productivity per unit space makes 3D printers suitable for home or office use because they require small physical space.

Advantage 8: reduce waste by-products

Compared with traditional metal manufacturing technology, 3D printers produce fewer by-products when manufacturing metal. The waste of traditional metal processing is amazing. 90% of the metal raw materials are discarded in the factory workshops. 3D printing reduces the amount of waste when making metal. With the development of printing materials, “net forming” manufacturing may become a more environmentally friendly processing method.

Advantage 9: unlimited combination of materials

For today’s manufacturing machines, it is difficult to combine different raw materials into a single product, because traditional manufacturing machines cannot easily integrate multiple raw materials in the cutting or mold forming process. With the development of multi material 3D printing technology, we have the ability to integrate different raw materials. Raw materials that cannot be mixed before will form new materials after mixing. These materials have a wide range of colors and unique properties or functions.

Advantage 10: Accurate solid copy

Digital music files can be copied endlessly without degrading the audio quality. In the future, 3D printing will extend digital precision to the physical world. Scanning technology and 3D printing technology will jointly improve the resolution of morphological transformation between the physical world and the digital world. We can scan, edit and copy solid objects to create accurate copies or optimize the original.

Some of the above advantages have been confirmed, and others will become reality in the next ten or twenty years (or thirty years). 3D printing has broken through the old familiar traditional manufacturing restrictions and provided a stage for future innovation.

The challenge of 3D printing becomes the bottleneck of industrial development

Like all new technologies, 3D printing technology also has its own shortcomings. They will become a stumbling block in the development of 3D printing technology, thus affecting its growth speed.

3D printing may really bring some changes to the world, but if you want to become the mainstream of the market, you must overcome all kinds of concerns and possible negative effects.

1. Material limitations

Carefully observe some objects and equipment around you, and you will find that the first stumbling block of 3D printing is the limitation of required materials. Although high-end industrial printing can realize printing of plastics, some metals or ceramics, the materials that cannot be printed at present are relatively expensive and scarce.

In addition, the current printers have not reached a mature level, which cannot support the various materials we are exposed to in daily life.

Researchers have made some progress in multi material printing, but unless these advances are mature and effective, materials will still be a major obstacle to 3D printing.

2. Machine limitations

As we all know, if 3D printing is to become a mainstream technology (as a high consumption technology), its requirements for machines are not low, and its complexity can be imagined.

The current 3D printing technology has achieved a certain level in reconstructing the geometric shape and function of objects. Almost any static shape can be printed, but the moving objects and their sharpness are difficult to achieve.

This difficulty may be solvable for manufacturers, but if 3D printing technology wants to enter ordinary families, and everyone can print what they want at will, then the limitation of the machine must be solved.

3. Concerns about intellectual property

In the past few decades, more and more attention has been paid to intellectual property in the music, film and television industries. 3D printing technology will undoubtedly involve this problem, because many things in reality will be more widely disseminated.

People can copy anything at will and in unlimited quantities. How to formulate laws and regulations on 3D printing to protect intellectual property rights is also one of the problems we are facing, otherwise there will be a flood.

4. Moral challenges

Morality is the bottom line. It is difficult to define what would violate the moral law. If someone prints out a biological organ or living tissue, is it against morality? How can we deal with it? If we cannot find a solution as soon as possible, we believe that we will face great moral challenges in the near future.

5. Assumption of expenses

The cost of 3D printing technology is expensive, especially for the general public. For example, the price of the first 3D printer on the shelves of JD mentioned above is 15 thousand. How many people are willing to spend this price to try this new technology? Maybe only fans.

If you want to popularize to the public, price reduction is necessary, but it will conflict with the cost. How to solve this problem will be a headache for manufacturers.

Each new technology will face these similar obstacles at the beginning of its birth, but it is believed that 3D printing technology will develop more rapidly by finding a reasonable solution. Just like any rendering software, it can only be improved by continuous updating.