3d Printing Advantages And Disadvantages

3D Printing is a "manufacturing process that creates a physical object from a digital design". There are endless possibilities to what you can print from a 3D Printer, you can print anything from prosthetics to chocolate to cars. It is helping to make great advances in the medical field by printing prosthetics as well as certain implants; they are doctors are working to become able to print a functioning heart. They have made several 3D Printed hearts, but none of which are able to function.

The history of 3D printing is fairly short due to how modern it is. The first 3D Printers did not go by the name of 3D Printer, but they were called Rapid Prototyping technologies and were made in the 80s. The first request for a patent of this type was made in Japan, but the first successful patent was by Charles Hull. Charles Hull is known as the inventor of the 3D Printer, the first item that he printed was a small cup in

This includes the price, as they can be extremely costly to purchase. They can also take a while to print the object; it can take many hours to print, sometimes even days. If the patients cells aren't used to print the heart then there can be a high chance of rejection since it is a foreign material. Recently doctors in Chicago have been working on printing 3D Printed Hearts using the patients cells, if their idea works, this would make the heart a perfect match, and drastically decrease the risk of transplant rejection.

As mentioned earlier, purchasing a 3D printer is a costly investment. For a smaller, lower quality printer it can cost around two hundred dollars and for a top of the line printer it can cost as much as four thousand dollars. The materials used to print the models usually cost about twenty five dollars for a kilogram. In the long run, this investment can be worth it if you use it often, so you do not have to purchase the item and can print it whenever you need