Overview
- Three Truths of Additive Manufacturing (technique)
- Complexity is Free (but is it really?).
- (almost) Every print will be anisotropic: having different values in different directions
- If there is no price on the website, you can't afford it.
- "Never print with supports"
Types of Additive Manufacturing
Resources
- Mechanosynthesis Group
- A. John Hart - Department Head; Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Director, Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity; Director, Center for Advanced Production Technologies
- "Mechanosynthesis" is a term for hypothetical chemical syntheses in which reaction outcomes are determined by the use of mechanical constraints to direct reactive molecules to specific molecular sites. There are presently no non-biological chemical syntheses which achieve this aim. Some atomic placement has been achieved with scanning tunnelling microscopes. - Wikipedia
- Introduction to AM - John Hart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICjQ0UzE2Ao)
- Hubs Starting Considerations
- Starting guid to 3D printing
Term / Acronym Sheet
In 3D printing, there are quite a few terms that have significant overlap with very minute differences. Here is a quick reference of terms with some definitions and/or spelled out acronyms. These terms appear throughout this website and the authors of this page figured it was good to have a quick reference since there is so much proprietary technology.
The overlapping terms are generally a result of processes that are similar but slightly different compared to the utility patents that other techniques are built off of. Additionally, techniques and terms have come into fruition after a company has coined it and/or their respective patents have expired. In order to get a better understanding of how processes have evolved, please refer to the history section. The entire industry has repeatedly indexed heavily on 3-4 letter acronyms. These terms are roughly ordered in the way they appear in sequence on this website.
- AM - Additive Manufacturing aka "3D Printing"
- STL - Stereolithography File Format (generally expressed as an ".stl" file extension)
- FFF - Fused Filament Fabrication - RepRap coined term for FDM
- FDM - Fused Deposition Material - material-extrusion type of printing; term coined by Stratasys
- BMD - Bound Metal Deposition - a metal-based FFF process coined by Desktop Metal
- MIM - Metal Injection Molding
- SLA - Stereolithography - a type of vat-photopolymerization printing method
- DLP - Digital Light Processing - vat-photopolymerization(sometimes seen also as cDLP)
- ETEC - EnvisionTEC - Michigan-based company
- cDLP - continuous Digital Light Processing - ETEC's version of DLP that allows for semi-continuous printing
- CDLM - Continuous Digital Light Manufacturing - ETECs (newer) version of CLIP with a permeable layer.
- CLIP - Continuous Liquid Interface Production - Carbon3D's version of DLP with a oxygen-permeable layer.
- HARP - High Area Rapid Printing
- SLATE - Stereolithography Apparatus for Tissue Engineering
- CAL - Computed Axial Lithography - sometimes referred to as Xolography
- CT - Computed Tomography (i.e. CT scans)
- CAT - Computed Axial Tomography (i.e. CAT scans) - note: archaic terminology for now referred to as CT.
- DOD - Droplet on Demand
- MJF - MultiJet Fusion
- CIJ - Continuous Injket
- PBF - Powder Bed Fusion
- LPBF - Laser Powder Bed Fusion
- SLS - Selective Laser Sintering
- FDR - Fine Detail Resolution - a term coined by EOS for an extremely detailed printing method that is nearly identical to SLS.
- SLM - Selective Laser Melting
- EOS - just a German company name - no acronym significance found.
- DMLS - "Direkt Metall Laser Schmelzen" (German) coined by EOS; it is often mis-acronymized as Direct Metal Laser Sintering
- EBM - Electron Beam Melting
- EBAM - Electron Beam Additive Manufacturing
- PAW - Plasma Arc Welding
- GTAW - Gas Tungsten Arc Welding
- MIG - Metal Inert Gas
- DED - Directed Energy Deposition
Below is a snapshot from Stratasys's website with respect to their trademarks. This is the reason why we have so many terms in the industry:
