Are you right at the beggining of your journey with 3D printing? You are an amateur who is looking for indispensable informations of how to start? Here is the complex dose of knowledge for beginners!
3D printing is profesionally called an incremental technology – as you may have guessed, named after a method of objects manufacture, that consist in succesive, thin layers of material overbuilt. Along with technological progress, diversified 3D printing techniques evolved. One of the most recognizable and disseminated is the FDM (FFF) technology, at which amolst everyone's journey with 3D printing begins.
Fused Filament Fabrication
The name of FFF technology is a short for Fused Filament Fabrication, what in translation means printing in fiber of a ductile, thermoplastic meterial. 3D printer head overbuilts the filament, creating a multilayer structure composed of thin filaments. The final effect is the obtain of previously designed element.
Fused Deposition Modeling
The FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) technology means extruding a thermoplastic material through a tip holder, what in pratice consists in the same action as the FFF technology. Why then two appelations for 3D printing, not differing from one another techniques?
Saturn 3D printer, ATMAT
In 80's, when the very first 3D printers started to appear on the marker, FDM technology was developed and reserved by an american company Strata INC and is treated as its trademark up to this day. That is the reason why an alternative appelation, that can be commonly used, was created.
One of the biggest FDM (FFF) technology advantages is most of all a possibility of printing in easily accessible filaments with diverese properties. That's why it is most often used to prototypes of elements or small gadgets printing . Additionally, it gives great opportunities of finishing and enables quick creation of individual elements. It would be worthwhile to draw attention to wide range of filaments available in this technology – these are both strong and durable as well as elastic materials, and in case of supports usage also soluble under the influence of specific substances.