“Why you want to write something about 3D printing technology?”
“To be honest, I have no idea.”
This is the first conversation we had at the very beginning. I simply think 3D printing sounds like a cool technology, which can improve, save or even totally change people’s life. Why people usually get interested in something they are not familiar with? well, this is a big topic for future discussion. But for right now, let’s skip this question and continue what I have learned from this 3d-printing technology specialist.
Rather than reading a lot of online materials, I prefer to know more about what people in the front line are doing. So I searched online and got in touch with a PhD student who is majoring in Mechanical Engineering (ME) at Lehigh University. In order to know more details about this new technology, I interviewed him for around 40 minutes. I also have received his permission to write down our discussion.
He is one of the members in the Lehigh Bio-nanomechanics Lab. This is his PhD’s fourth year at Lehigh. He has been working on designing and testing innovative, cost effective, and energy-efficient 3D additive manufacturing devices. The device they have been working on can enable rapid fabrication, high resolution, complex shapes and selectable building volume .
We discussed many related questions. I transcribed and edited most of our discussions below.
“Why do you want to research on 3-D printing or what makes you feel so interested in this topic?
“3D printing represents the future. It opens a new window for us, so we can create more complicated structures and more functional materials. I think 3 d printing can do a lot more than other things can do, like the CNC, injection molding, which are normally expensive and time-consuming. However, 3D printing can print parts in few hours or even in few minutes. The parts can be very complicated and dedicated, which means 3D printing is incapable of doing more things than other manufacturing methods can do.
“Thanks for sharing! I wonder why you personally feel so interested in it?”
“Personally, I feel 3D printing is something cool at beginning, but after I really work on this project, I feel like this is something which can present the future. Even though now 3D printing has some limitations, such as the fact that the material range is not the end product. It also has difficulties printing metal parts. However, in the future, once all the functional materials catch up with the 3d printing technologies, then we can print some medal parts that can be used as an end product, like aircraft engines. Also, we then can print many ceramic parts, plastic materials, which are very useful.”
“What is your field of work now?”
“The 3D printing work that I am doing is based on the SALA approach. We use a special material, which is a liquid form at the beginning and then getting polymerized under the exposure of UV light. Actually, this is not a brand-new technology because many other companies and research institutes have already developed this technology. So the one we have is some innovative approaches that can faster the speed, also allowing the printing resolution to be higher, as well as achieving better surface finish. We have some people working on the materials in the lab as well.”
“Wow, sounds interesting! It is a shame that I am not familiar with so many terms you mentioned just then.”
“Well, you are not in the mechanical engineering department and you are not in this field. It happens. But for the 3D printing, everybody is familiar with it. At least people all have heard of it.”
“Yes, how do you think its future?”
“Well, as we all know that all areas need manufacturing. If you are walking around in a store, all things that you see are manufactured. 3D printing is a new method of manufacturing. In the future, only if the materials could catch up, we can print some functional materials, we can also just immediately print those things without any help of other machine, like CNC machine or injection molding or casting process. Those processes are considered to be very time-consuming. So the future of 3D printing is the material and the printing speed. Now we have to admit that the printing speed is relatively slow.”
“What are the challenges right now and in the future?”
“Well, one of the biggest challenges is about the material. The other biggest challenges are how to combine the materials in the machines and then making the end product as a functional product.”
“What about just printing an end product right away?”
“Well, that is the issue. If you take a look at these little parts we printed in the lab, they look like toys. This toy maybe be used for people who play chess and for fun. There are a lot of areas in 3D printing. Some people focus on metal printing while others are doing fabric or plastic materials printing. But if you really want to make something like cup, you know people want this cup to be compatible, but not all the plastics are compatible, we also have to make sure the material is safe and functional. If you want to print a bag chain, it requires the materials to be strong enough and endurable. So if you use plastic materials to print it, it is not going to work with that way. So the end product means something really functional and durable in daily life. This is one of the challenges for now. For the multi-materials, I know some companies are doing that, they have object printer, which can print something with some parts flexible but some other parts rigid. However, those are not functional materials. Actually, your questions talk about two things. One is medal printing while the other is plastic printing. These two are different technologies. So if you want to print complex materials, we are still facing challenges. Actually, for all the 3D printing products, they are not as good as the products that made by traditional fabricating way of method.”
“To sum up, the challenges include materials issues, which means the materials should be served as end products. The second issue is the printing speed. Well, compared with the traditional manufacturing method, 3D printing is faster enough, but there is still space to make progress. The third issue is the machine cost. If you want to print a simple project like this little one, the cost of 3d printing is fine. If you want to print 10 of them, it is still fine. However, normally people want to do mass production, the current cost of 3D printing work is much higher than the casting injection molding. So there is a gap between certain numbers of production. Beyond that number, 3D printing is not that efficient. That is to say, there is a long way to go for 3D printing to start mass production. Above are the three aspects. ”
“But I heard that 3D printing improves efficiency of manufacturing.”
“Well, it does improve efficiency to some extent. For example, if the company has a new idea, like iPhone has a new design, they do not know how exactly it is going to be look like, they don’t know whether or not this is going to be the end product. Let’s say they want to design an iPhone cover, they want to see how it looks like, how it works. They can use 3D printer to create a quick one because it is not expensive anyway, which is around 2–3 dollar. But if you want to make more, with traditional manufacturing method, it is going to be hundreds of dollar. ”
“I also have heard that people are printing kidney for medical purpose. Do you want to talk more about that?”
“Yes, you are talking about dental application and medical application, right? That could be a very good approach and that also could be a good way to go. Actually 3D printing is getting very popular in dental application. For those dentists, they normally have a 3D scanner. After having scanned patient’s teeth, they could have a 3D model. Before doing the surgery, they have a dental guide and try to practice on that model, which can guarantee the success of the surgery. Also, I know some people print dental crone, once your teeth have some missing parts, they put the crone on the top of it in order to fix the teeth. People have been doing these kinds of things.”
“Those are one-on-one service, right?”
“Yes, those are customized service. I think 3D printing catches people’s eyes because of the Makerbot machines. Actually, 3D printing got started around 20 years ago. It was not popular at that time. There are many other kinds of machine, such as the laser-based machine. In this case, we could have some liquid forms of materials, but we still need to do it layer by layer. The carbon 3D machine can print something very cool, because it can directly drag the material out of a liquid form. Actually, when you ask 3d printing, there are many other technologies getting involved. I am more familiar with polymerized materials.
“Is there any potential problem for 3D printing?”
“I agree, 3d printing now is getting more involved with industry market. It has been getting popular and hot in the consumer market, like us. But a few years later, people will realized a question like how can I use this? Because it is just something look cool, but when and how I can use it. So they will be less interested in 3D printing. 3D printing is a manufacturing method, which will eventually enter into industry market. So one of the issue is that 3D printing is losing its consumer market. Moreover, for some materials, there is a safety test for different materials. It is fine if you print it in the lab, but if you do it at home, especially for the liquid material, how can you know whether or not it is safety in the long term. If the plastic material gets burned, there is a lot toxic products. For the industry market, like what I have mentioned, people are seeking for functional end materials. We are all working on it. For things that may prevent 3D printing from development are the use of the materials, the number of people will use it in terms of the safety.
“What about organ printing?”
“Well, that is a very useful approach. There is another material, called tissue printing, they can grow cells on it.”
“How long it takes to print a kidney?”
“Unfortunately, it is not going to be working because they have to figure out how to keep the cells alive first. This is the direction people want to go. For the organs, looking for functional materials will take a long time. But for organs and artificial parts, that will take 10–20 years. It is hard to say when it will be used in clinical area. I think the good thing about 3D printing is that many complicated products can be done very fast. ”
“If 3D printing is that fast, once it enters into industry market, more people may loss their job. How do you think of it?”
“Well, the labor cost will probably be higher. I think there might be more jobs because more designers will be needed.”
“What about 3D-printing labs at Lehigh University?”
“As far as I know, less than 3 labs are working on the 3D printing. Our lab is one of them. Our Lehigh University Additive Manufacturing Lab is located in the center of Lehigh’s Asa Packer campus inside the Wilbur Powerhouse. This lab doesn’t do innovation, but it have a lot of printers. The printers that Lehigh has include Stratasys Objet 30 Pro, Stratasys Dimension 768, 3D Systems ProJet 650, FormLabs Form1+, MakerBot Replicator 2, 2x, and Gen 5 and so on. You can get more information in our website. Lehigh University just spent 1.2 million purchasing a very huge mental printer. It is coming soon. But we students work on technology. We are at different stages.
“Thank you so much for your time! I’d like to talk more about it in the future.”
I really have enjoyed our conversation. I believe some of my questions are also what you want to ask if you get the chance. Hope our discussion above could also clear some of your puzzles. Finally, let’s looking forward to the new world with 3D printing!
