Welcome for 3D Printing Era

Using a 3D printer, they create a design and, with just a few clicks, produce a physical model. Many 3D printers can be used to generate hundreds of these models, and some companies even let you design and print your own models on the Web.
One reason 3D printing is becoming more popular is that the alternatives are still so expensive. Injection molding machines, which are used to create everything from pens to fenders, cost millions. It’s still true that, if you want to go to a design shop and have them create an injection mold of a plastic part, the design and production costs will be around $10,000 for just one part. Meanwhile, a 3D printer can produce the same part for only $2 or $3 – and many 3D software programs are free.
“3D printing provides an object with which the designer or customer gains a sense of reality,” says Steve Beaudet, a training specialist with SolidWorks, a company that makes 3D design software. “On the manufacturing side, 3D printing can be used to test how parts fit together to check clearances and mechanical motion. People create prototypes because the scale is often hard to envision on a computer screen. Holding a 3D printing piece in your hand tells exactly how big it is and how it feels.”
There are several options when it comes to 3D printing kits. Pollack offers the MakerGear and Makerbot kits. The RepRap.org kit is another low-cost way to build your own 3D printer, and once you have assembled the 3D printer at home, you can then use the printer to create a second model.
“The best software suites out there for designing are probably Solidworks and Autodesk Inventor, which are used by engineers and usually run about $3,000 per license,” says Enrique Muyshondt, the president

of desktopFab (www.desktopfab.com), a 3D printer company based in Texas. “There are other options, though, including the recently released Autodesk 123D Software (www.123dapp.com) that provide a good, easy-to-use, and fairly intuitive design interface for free.”

A commercial product from 2Bot called the ModelMaker (www.2bot.com) costs between $9,000 and $12,000 and comes with all the modeling software, called 2Bot Studio, and video training you need. One key difference between a commercial 3D printer and one you assemble yourself is that the kit is typically designed for the non-expert to get started right away. For example, the software can load models from Thingiverse (www.thingiverse.com) and the Google 3DWarehouse (http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse ).
one of the most common uses for a 3D printer today is creating toy models. For example, hobbyists will create a new design for a miniature train as part of a complete set, then print out all of the parts required, assemble them by hand, and the main point 3d printing is low cost solution for small shop and individual consumer for doing their own prototype. its also saving more budget than traditional manufacturing methods.