Plastics and 3D printing are closely related, the most popular materials, including PLA materials, with a relatively low print challenge. Other composites can be used for more advanced applications and have better mechanical properties.

    One of the leading 3D printing industry solutions is large 3D printing. Large 3D printers for plastic products are based on melt-extrusion technology, process reliability, ease of use and maintenance.

    Now there is a clear topic: the application of large-scale 3D printing Where is the use of large-scale 3D printing What are the benefits?

    Design and conceptual modeling

    For the design world, the size often limits the rapid manufacture of design products, with the feasibility of fast 3D printing of large parts, which allows design ideas to be quickly translated into reality and applied to a wide range of products. Post-processing can make the final model closer to the product.

    Benefits: Shorten the time to full-size prototype. The use of technologies that make models through traditional methods, including wood, foam, and fiberglass, is both time-consuming and expensive. Large 3D printing technology not only saves costs, but also enables the unique geometry of free-form surfaces and accelerates the process of designing iterations.

    Suitable form: can be a one-time 3D printing to complete, or print into several parts, and then assembled.

    Entertainment and Advertising

    Create unique marketing and promotional elements with large 3D printing technology. Almost all parts and displays in the industry are hand-made without 3D printing. Compared with the traditional process, large-scale 3D printing greatly reduces the manual labor, saving time and costs. And, 3D printing has also spawned freelance ideas for entertainment and advertising design products.

    Industrial Manufacturing

    Large-scale 3D printing technology is also being introduced in the field of industrial manufacturing. The combination of large-scale 3D printing and industrial manufacturing is not only possible but also may solve unique challenges.

    Mold and Production

    3D printing provides an efficient way to produce one or more custom designed products. To make the final part, a large mold can be obtained by 3D printing and used as a final tool for the composite structure. Once the resin is injected into the mold, the final part is formed. After processing and finishing installed in the car.

    Advantages: Compared with traditional non-3D printing methods, large-scale 3D printing technology can greatly shorten the production time of end-use components, and save a considerable cost compared with the same parts produced by CNC machine tools.

    Another good example is the creation of a new lighting panel design using a similar large 3D printing process. Compared with the use of CNC, shorten the production time of 50%, and reduce costs.

    Indeed, 3D printing technology has brought a new entry point for large-scale mold making. As early as 2014, LocalMotors Company, a global sensation, at IMTS site 3D printed full electric car Strati, used 3D printing equipment BAAM is a high-speed large-scale 3D printing equipment developed by the DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

    Not only that, BAAM technology is also being used in 3D printed submarines developed by the Destructive Technology Laboratory (DTL) team at the NSWC and Carderock divisions. The team started work in August 2016 to produce six carbon fiber sub-assemblies using a large industrial 3D printer, BAAM, which is then assembled into a 30-foot-long submarine. Submarines of similar size cost as much as 800,000 U.S. dollars and take about 3 to 5 months to finish production. And by 3D printing, manufacturing costs cheaper by 90%, not only that, but also saves production time.

    Even traditional industries like the construction machinery industry like Volvo Construction, Caterpillar and others are exploring the "beauty" 3D printing can bring to their production and business, and how to develop new products faster and at lower cost.

    Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed the world's first 3D printer with the National Association of Equipment Manufacturers and the National Fluid Association. Included in this excavator are three components that are directly manufactured by 3D printing equipment: cabs, booms and heat exchangers. Excavator boom length of about 2.1 meters, weighs about 181 kg, is the new metal parts by the development of ORNL 3D printing equipment, printing materials for low-cost metal, the boom has been designed for hydraulic parts reserved Built-in channel. The cab of the excavator was designed by a student engineering team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The cab was designed with a bionic design inspired by curving branches in nature. The cab weighs about 68 kg and the design The team says the cab weighs 25% less than a cab with a traditional design, and the strength is guaranteed. The cab is made of ORNL's BAAM (Large Format Additive Manufacturing) 3D printing equipment and carbon fiber reinforced composite materials.

    Those who design and develop new products that the manufacturing industry would have spent billions of dollars on startup will take years to fully market their products. The cost of 3D printing now is only a fraction of the cost, and time is fine Get greatly shortened.

    Recently, a joint team of Purdue composite manufacturing and simulation centers, Thermwood Corporation, Applied Composites Engineering (ACE) and TechmerPM enabled the manufacture of helicopter components through the 3D printing of PSU composite molds.

    It is understood that this may be the first successful application of carbon fiber reinforced PSU plastic to 3D printing process. A one-time 3D printing and machining of helicopter molds was conducted through Thermwood's LSAM-Large Additive Manufacturing system. The LSAM system developed by Thermwood is an ingenious combination of additive manufacturing and machining cutting. 3D roughing out the contours of the model. Machining the parts to exact dimensions using a CNC milling machine synchronizes the machine with 3D printing. Machining and cutting, the large 3D printer used to make helicopter part molds has a construction volume of 10x20 feet.

    In general, the machine is indispensable for large-scale 3D printing. 3D printing with robots In addition to Thermwood, there are BAAM, MX3D, Thermwood, BranchTechnology, 3DSystems, LittleArm, ArevoLabs, and Stratasys.

    The BAAM system was used by the Office of Wind Energy and Water Technology under the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the United States in 2016 to create a huge wind turbine blade mold. Leaf mold up to 13 meters by the BAAM system in batches print out. According to the 3D Science Valley market research, similar to Thermwood, the molds use carbon fiber composite 3D printing technology, except that the 3D printing of the BAAM system is completed and the blade is covered with a glass fiber laminate for smoothing The surface of Thermwood is machined to remove excess plastic material to obtain the exact mold surface.

    However, Thermwood is the industry pioneer in integrating 3D printing and cutting plastic materials into a single unit. However, market research in the 3D Science Valley, there are already more companies optimistic about the large plastic products mixed processing. Italian processing specialist CMS and September 2017 Announced a new partnership with the Fraunhofer Institute for Frauhofer IWU in Germany and jointly develop a hybrid system for 3D printing and 5-axis milling of thermoplastic composites.

FraunhoferIWU will work closely with the CMS to develop CMSKreator, a system that combines 3D printing and machining to create high-quality thermoplastic composite parts. CMSKreator will come in a range of configurations and sizes and will accommodate a wide range of thermoplastic-based materials. 3D Science Valley understands that this device can be applied in many fields and industries and will be targeted at manufacturing precision prototypes and even special parts.

    In addition to melt extrusion and the combination of melt extrusion and machining, Massivit, another Israeli company, has come up with its own big move. Its large new 3D printing device, called GDP, is GelDispensedPrinting Print), a technique that is somewhat similar to the compounding of FDM and SLA techniques, which prints extremely fast and can print very large objects.

    Unlike the liquid resins used in the photocuring process, GDP technology prints materials that are gel-like, because they print gels and are faster than liquids. In addition, the large thickness of the printed layer together with the self-support of the gel itself eliminates the need for support material during printing, which also reduces the amount of work required to post-process the support material and saves time for the 3D printer to print support material . As mentioned in the main text, large-scale 3D printing can be used in the entertainment and advertising industries. Massivit has been involved in large-scale project promotion for several major brands, including Sony's ads and ghostly death squads for Angry Birds. In the past these props and promotional items rely on manual processes, including carving foam block this way to complete, time-consuming and laborious. And 3D printing is a digital process that allows for a great deal of personalized and localized manufacturing, fitting in with the urgency and individuality of advertising and promotion.