Printing what does 40 mean

There are so many other factors that affect the finished output, these include but aren't limited to! In the case of the coupling above, one of the main reasons that printing at 20 micron layer height produced a worse finish was mainly due to the small surfaces in the main section.

When printing at lesser microns, you are putting more layers down. You can see this heat transfer effect reduces as you move up the micron ladder.

So at 60 microns, there is some minor distortion and at microns there is none, and we see a good quality print. In our experience, the best practice is to select your layer height according to the model shape and your desired output. For example, the model such as the 3D Hubs Marvin keyring pictured, due to its size and the fine detail is best 3D printed at a lower layer height, in this case 80 microns part source: 3D Hubs Thingiverse Thing However, printing the same Marvin model in ColorFabb woodFill needs to be printed at a increase layer height, in this case around microns because of the material properties.

Both outputs produce a good quality print, but are from opposite ends of the micron scale. Think about microns in the same was as you would think about mega-pixels in cameras - more doesn't always mean better! There is a whole load of other factors that will impact on your output. The key is to find the printer that is designed to do the job you need, rather than hunting for the theoretical "best of everything". If you already have a 3D printer, then it is a case of learning!

In addition to the part's geometry and size, you also need to consider your printer's capabilities and set-up, as well as the properties of the material you are using. You also need to balance the required output versus time, as printing at a lower microns takes longer and as we have shown you above, doesn't necessarily give better results. View all. Download our Professional Engineering app.

A weekly round-up of the most popular and topical stories featured on our website, so you won't miss anything. Subscribe to Professional Engineering newsletter. Opt into your industry sector newsletter. Homepage News News article. Articles 3D printing turns 40 — but which process is best suited to your requirements? Knowing which 3D printing process is best suited to a particular application is not always straightforward Credit: Shutterstock This year, 3D printing technology turns 40 — and industry is only just beginning to explore its potential.

Powder bed fusion In the world of manufacturing, material extrusion can be used to make non-functional prototypes, as the resulting objects are brittle and not suitable for mechanical parts. Read more related articles Manufacturing. Professional Engineering magazine. In , IBM began using impact printers to create hard copy output from computers. These daisy wheel and dot-matrix printers were noisy and slow. Pages were not measured in minutes, but in how many characters it could produce in seconds.

This standard for printing speed provides a way to test how fast a printer is when it is printing and allows it to be compared to other printers. However, the ISO did not base the standard on how many text pages per minute a printer could produce, but how many images per minute a printer can produce.

This allows for more uniform testing of printers and is easier for a consumer to compare the printers since the standard is uniform. She is an educator and writer who spent over 13 years teaching and creating documentation at the University of Missouri. By Anni Martin.