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  • Essay / The advantages and disadvantages of 3D printing - 1372

    3D printing: The weapon to save or kill? Nowadays, people might feel that 3D printing technology is a relatively new concept in our daily lives. However, 3D printing technology is being invented and used in many fields, such as creating human organs in healthcare, building architectural models in engineering, and even forming components that can be used there. has been in the aeronautical field for a long time. Ever since Charles W. Hull invented 3D printing technology in the 1980s, scientists, engineers, and even normal people were and are still trying to discover more uses and changes in this technology. Like any new technology invention, with its undeniable beneficial effects, 3D printing also faces many limitations. In order to analyze its advantages and disadvantages, we must first know the technology. As one of the ads states: “3D Printing: Create Anything You Want.” Of course, with the current maturity of this technology, this line exaggerates its effects, but it is certainly right. 3D printing is “a mechanical process by which solid objects are created by “printing” successive layers of material to reproduce a shape modeled in a computer. “To put it more vividly, the printing process of a 3D printer is like making a melaleuca cake with various materials. And "materials," as the technology's inventor Charles W. Hull wrote, "include polymers, metals, ceramics, composites, foods, and probably other things as well." So imagine that these materials could be melted like cream and stretched as thin as the hairline. The printer first uses these lines to draw the outline of the object based on the captured or scanned plan, then overlaps the lines on the previous frame, just like decorating the cake. These requirements may seem obvious at first, but it is exactly demand and supply. on each of them results in the limitation and control of this technology. The 3D printer is no longer a piece of equipment only found in a science laboratory, but people can buy it on Amazon for $600 to $2000. In addition, many companies are starting to invest new functions in the 3D printer, such as the three types of 3D printers that were announced in the video “Top 3 Best 3D Printers You Must Have”: “the Tiko, the Palette and the moonbeam.” For example, the Tiko printer is a new type of “one-body” 3D printer that avoids the unstable printing problem caused by the traditional “three-piece split rail frame”. Additionally, its large “internal filling” in 1kg rolls and “closed chamber” also promise that the project will be more “reliable and precise”. What matters most to the consumer should be their “wireless connectivity”. In this way, any consumer can print anything wherever they want, as long as they have downloaded the Tiko application on their cell phone or laptop. As for the Palette 3D printer, it focused on developing “controllable multicolor functionality” because most previous 3D printer settings only allow the consumer to print with one color at a time. Therefore, the