Are Tubes the Future of 3D Printing?
As an additive manufacturing process, 3D printing is always a balance between volume and time. The bigger something is, the longer it takes to print — that is obvious. But thanks to the square-cube law, the volume of a part (and therefore print time) increases exponentially with any single linear dimension. In an attempt to circumvent that reality, Roetz 4.0 is doing some very interesting experiments with 3D printing tubes.
The normal solution to the volume versus print time headache is to increase extrusion width and layer height. To go above pretty modest sizes, you’ll need a larger nozzle. Even on desktop 3D printers, it isn’t unusual for people to use nozzles over 1mm in order to achieve maximum volumetric extrusion rates.
However, there are problems with that approach. Most obviously, it results in thick layers that are very visible. It also doesn’t do anything about the total volume...
Copyright of this story solely belongs to hackster.io. To see the full text click HERE
