For years, 3D printing has been quietly growing in popularity among engineers, tinkerers and artists. From its beginning in the late 1980s in the form of fairly unreliable resin-based SLA printers, to the surge in public consciousness in the 2010s with the rise of more popular and user-friendly models which first truly brought 3D printing to the consumer level, the concept has long existed in the periphery of technology culture as a promising but poorly-understood idea. For as long as the technology has existed, though, 3D printers have had the reputation of being temperamental machines that take up more time and effort than they return in value to the user. This reputation is not unearned. Most printers throughout the 2010s, especially those with quality and pricing aimed towards consumers, were extremely unreliable, with a tendency towards frequent print failures, technical glitches, component wear and “plastic spaghetti.” More recently, though, a new generation of consistent, cheap and high-quality 3D printers has begun to gain attention and has begun to beg the question, “Is 3D printing good now?”
To understand what sets these new printers apart from their less reliable predecessors, it is first helpful to have a basic understanding of how 3D printers work and how previous generations often failed to work. The main idea behind 3D printing is the creation of three-dimensional objects by printing layers of certain materials on top of each other to create the desired shape. There are several methods for this, but the most popular is FDM, where a string of plastic material called filament is pushed through a heated nozzle where it is melted and then deposited onto a build plate. The heated nozzle draws these layers repeatedly until the specified shape is achieved. This process, though conceptually simple, proved difficult to perfect for older printers. Complex factors like structural vibrations, material quality, filament flow rate and others contributed to these difficulties and often necessitated hours of tinkering and experimenting to get a printer to produce a workable result. These complicating factors were made worse by the fact that many of these consumer grade printers were manufactured with cheap materials and often had hardware and software defects from poor quality control. These difficulty factors were the result of an effort to bring down production cost to a level that consumers could afford and combined to produce an experience that dissuaded new users from delving further into the hobby and exploring the full range of capabilities these devices had to offer. In fact, I was one of those users. I got my first 3D printer when I was around 12 years old, and though I was eventually able to print some fun models and projects, the overall experience filled with technical issues and print failures caused me to abandon the hobby until recently.
With few exceptions, these technical issues seemed as much an inherent part of the 3D printing experience as any other. That was until the recent rise of Shenzhen’s Bambu Lab and the 2022 release of their X1 series. These printers quickly gained massive popularity in the 3D printing community for their high-quality construction, ease of use and printing consistency at a price point below any previous printer of comparable specs. Many of the seemingly insurmountable limitations that plagued previous printers were no longer present in Bambu’s new suite of devices, with fine-tuned and intuitive software and tight quality control serving to nearly eliminate them from the printing experience. Beyond this, they achieved something previously considered near impossible, bringing 3D printing into the mainstream. Bambu had created an experience seamless and intuitive enough that everyday people who didn’t consider themselves enthusiasts like users of the past could feel comfortable and confident enough to take up 3D printing. But Bambu didn’t stop there. From 2022 onward, they continued releasing new printers with different capabilities at price ranges, filling market gaps. Through all this, though, they maintained their main advantage of consistent and seamless printing. This trend of increasingly cheap and user-friendly printers came to a head with their release of the A1 series of printers. These entry level printers looked to be an easy and cheap entry point for new and aspiring users and succeeded massively.
This new generation of high-quality printers has created a perfect environment for anyone looking to get into 3D printing, and having recently acquired a printer myself, I can confidently recommend taking advantage of it. The best part is that you don’t even need to buy a printer yourself to experience all the world of 3D printing has to offer! The Storrs campus has printers available in makerspaces that are free for students to use. Innovation Zone in Werth, Innovate Labs in the business building and Maker Studio in the library are open to all students regardless of major. IShop in Castleman is available to students in the College of Engineering. Now is a great time to explore the opportunities of additive manufacturing, so my advice: Get printing!