New design gives 3D printers a 10x speed boost
Rich Haridy for New Atlas: Despite the 3D printing revolution shaking up the design and manufacturing industries, one thing has been holding it back from fully infiltrating more commercial day-to-day situations – it's slow. Most desktop printers take well over an hour to generate a small object, but a new design from engineers at MIT could completely change the 3D printing game, performing up to 10 times faster than currently available devices and printing complete objects in just minutes.
Associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, Anastasios John Hart, and former graduate researcher Jamison Go, focused on three fundamental factors that limited the speed of a conventional desktop extrusion 3D printer: the speed a printhead can be moved, the force pushing the printing material through the nozzle, and the rate the material can be melted to make it flow.
"Given our understanding of what limits those three variables, we asked how do we design a new printer ourselves that can improve all three in one system," says Hart. "And now we've built it, and it works quite well." Full Article:
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