Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. It is an alternative to "conventional" waste disposal that can save material and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling can prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, thereby reducing: energy usage, air pollution, and water pollution.
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) (chemical formula (C8H8)x·(C4H6)y·(C3H3N)z) is a common thermoplastic polymer. Its glass transition temperature is approximately 105 °C (221 °F). ABS is amorphous and therefore has no true melting point.
Polyethylene terephthalate, commonly abbreviated PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P, is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in fibres for clothing, containers for liquids and foods, thermoforming for manufacturing, and in combination with glass fibre for engineering resins.
A fab lab is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication.
The 3D printing process builds a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design (CAD) model, usually by successively adding material layer by layer, which is why it is also called additive manufacturing. The term "3D printing" covers a variety of processes in which material is joined or solidified under computer control to create a three-dimensional object, with material being added together, typically layer by layer. In the 1990s, 3D-printing techniques were considered suitable only for the production of functional or aesthetic prototypes and a more appropriate term for it was rapid prototyping. As of 2019, the precision, repeatability, and material range have increased to the point that some 3D-printing processes are considered viable as an industrial-production technology, whereby the term additive manufacturing can be used synonymously with "3D printing". One of the key advantages of 3D printing is the ability to produce very complex shapes or geometries, and a prerequisite for producing any 3D printed part is a digital 3D model or a CAD file.
The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators world wide. RepRap is short for replicatingrapid prototyper.
Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastic and reprocessing the material into useful products. Since the majority of plastic is non-biodegradable, recycling is a part of global efforts to reduce plastic in the waste stream, especially the approximately 8 million metric tonnes of waste plastic that enters the Earth's ocean every year.
Recycling codes are used to identify the material from which an item is made, to facilitate easier recycling or other reprocessing. Having a recycling code, the chasing arrows logo or a resin code on an item is not an automatic indicator that a material is recyclable but rather an explanation of what the item is. Such symbols have been defined for batteries, biomatter/organic material, glass, metals, paper, and plastics. Various countries have adopted different codes. For example, the table below shows the polymer resin codes (plastic) for a country. In the United States there are fewer, as ABS is grouped in with others in group 7. Other countries have a more granular recycling code system. For example, China's polymer identification system has seven different classifications of plastic, five different symbols for post-consumer paths, and 140 identification codes. The lack of codes in some countries has encouraged those who can fabricate their own plastic products, such as RepRap and other prosumer 3-D printer users, to adopt a voluntary recycling code based on the more comprehensive Chinese system.
MakerBot Industries, LLC is an American desktop 3D printer manufacturer company headquartered in New York City. It was founded in January 2009 by Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, and Zach "Hoeken" Smith to build on the early progress of the RepRap Project. It was acquired by Stratasys in June 2013. As of April 2016, MakerBot has sold over 100,000 desktop 3D printers worldwide. Since 2009, the company has released 6 generations of 3D printers, with the latest being the Replicator+ and Replicator Mini+. It was the leader of the desktop market with an important presence in the media but its market share is in decline. MakerBot also founded and operates Thingiverse, the largest online 3D printing community and file repository.
Printrbot was a 3D printer company created by Brook Drumm and originally funded through Kickstarter. It was aimed at beginner home users through its small size factor, lower cost and ease of assembly. Printrbot printers used fused deposition modelling to produce plastic models of 3D objects. As of April 2012, Printrbot was the most funded technology project on Kickstarter after receiving US$830,827 in December 2011. Printrbot closed shop on July 18, 2018, with a note on the website citing the cause as "low sales.".. However, as of Februari 2020, Brook Drumm announced he is in the process of restarting operations.. He also published all his older designs on "Github".
Joshua M. Pearce is an academic engineer at Michigan Tech known for his work on protocrystallinity, photovoltaic technology, open-source-appropriate technology, and open-source hardware including RepRap 3D printers.
The Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs by Joshua M. Pearce was published in 2014 by Elsevier.
A recyclebot is an open-source hardware device for converting waste plastic into filament for open-source 3D printers like the RepRap. Making DIY 3D printer filament at home is both less costly and better for the environment than purchasing conventional 3D printer filament. In following the RepRap tradition there are recyclebot designs that use most 3-D printable parts.
Fused filament fabrication (FFF), also known under the trademarked term fused deposition modeling (FDM), sometimes also called filament freeform fabrication, is a 3D printing process that uses a continuous filament of a thermoplastic material. Filament is fed from a large coil through a moving, heated printer extruder head, and is deposited on the growing work. The print head is moved under computer control to define the printed shape. Usually the head moves in two dimensions to deposit one horizontal plane, or layer, at a time; the work or the print head is then moved vertically by a small amount to begin a new layer. The speed of the extruder head may also be controlled to stop and start deposition and form an interrupted plane without stringing or dribbling between sections. "Fused filament fabrication" was coined by the members of the RepRap project to give a phrase that would be legally unconstrained in its use, given trademarks covering "fused deposition modeling".
Aleph Objects, Inc. is a small manufacturing company based in Loveland, Colorado. Their business model focuses around the development of Open-source hardware for 3D printing with full support for Free and open-source software.
The Prusa i3 is an open-source fused deposition modeling 3D printer, manufactured by Czech company Prusa Research. Part of the RepRap project, it is the most used desktop 3D printer for parts ordered through the 3D Hubs fee-for-service business, and in 2016 it was the most used 3D printer in the world. The Prusa i3 was designed by Josef Průša in 2012 with the Prusa i3 MK2 being released in 2016 and the MK2S being released in 2017. The Prusa i3 MK3 was released in September 2017 with significant improvements over the prior models. A subsequent model with additional refinements to the extruder body and filament sensor was released in February 2019 as the Prusa i3 MK3S. The Prusa i3's comparable low cost and ease of construction and modification has made it popular in education and with hobbyists and professionals. Due to the printer being open source there have been many variants produced by companies and individuals worldwide, and like many other RepRap printers the Prusa i3 is capable of printing some of its own parts.
In recent years, 3D printing has developed significantly and can now perform crucial roles in many applications, with the most important being manufacturing, medicine, architecture, custom art and design.
A variety of processes, equipment, and materials are used in the production of a three-dimensional object via additive manufacturing. 3D printing is also known as additive manufacturing, therefore the numerous available 3D printing process tend to be additive in nature with a few key differences in the technologies and the materials used in this process.
3D printing filament is the thermoplastic feedstock for fused deposition modeling 3D printers. There are many types of filament available with different properties, requiring different temperatures to print. Filament is available in two standard diameters; 1.75 and 2.85 mm/3 mm.
The slicer, also called slicing software, is a computer software used in the majority of 3D printing processes for the conversion of a 3D object model to specific instructions for the printer. In particular, the conversion from a model in STL format to printer commands in g-code format in fused filament fabrication and other similar processes.
