How fast can a 3D printer be?
Recently, I heard a manufacturer proposing the goal of obtaining parts “in seconds”. Obviously, that’s not possible at all, but the intent of the statement was clear: the faster printing occurs, the better.
We all want faster 3D printing; it just takes too long today. While there have been significant speed improvements in the past couple of years, I wondered about the problem itself: how fast can 3D printing really be? And how fast should it be?
With today’s technology, there are physical limits to the processes used that simply cannot be overcome.
In FFF 3D printing, speeds have been increased recently with advances in the motion systems. However, we’ve now seen that extrusion rates are dependent on material properties. You can melt and push only so much material per second, regardless of how fast the motion system can be.
The fastest FFF device I’ve used so far is the FLSUN S1, which can literally 3D print at 1200mm/s — this device can complete a very nice #3DBenchy in only eight minutes. At top you can see this machine printing (not traveling, printing) at 1200mm/s.
But can even faster speeds be achieved in FFF? I’m sure some improvements are possible, but it’s likely there is a ceiling towards which devices will converge.
To achieve more material flow, bigger and more powerful heaters and extruders are required, but that extra weight will compromise the rapid movements. You can see that there will be an end to speedups in FFF at some point.
What about resin 3D printing? Resin 3D print speeds have dramatically increased also in the past two years, mostly due to tweaks in the resin mixes and more powerful light engines. It’s now possible to print full build volumes in only an hour or so, much faster than FFF devices.
In a resin 3D printer, the solidification occurs when photoreactive molecules curl up in the presence of certain light frequencies. This occurs at a certain rate, and the only way to speed it up is to send more photons and increase the ratio of photoreactive molecules.
But that may compromise the properties of the parts, as cracking may occur, to say nothing of the added toxicity.
My opinion is that today’s desktop resin 3D printers — or at least certain models — are getting close to the fastest possible speed for that technology approach. If a machine can complete any print in less than an hour, that’s pretty good.
But it’s not seconds. For truly fast 3D prints, new technologies must be developed.
Volumetric 3D printing approaches do promise ultra-fast 3D printing. One example is from Xolo, which can complete a resin 3D print in only a minute. However, there are a number of constraints on their process, not the least of which is a very, very small build volume.
There is no known 3D print technology that can produce larger parts in only seconds, and we are going to have to wait until someone develops an entirely new process.
That might take many years to achieve, but it’s also possible that someone at this very moment is secretly working on a radically new 3D print process that is much faster than today’s technology.
