Hot-melt 3D printer [Source: harbin.gov.cn]

A printed 3D airship model [Source: harbin.gov.cn]

A research team at the college of mechanical and electrical engineering in Harbin Engineering University recently developed a hot-melt 3D printer after a year of painstaking effort. The printer can print component samples of a car and some plastic components, which can be used directly.

3D printers work on the same fundamental principles as traditional ones. When a traditional printer prints, a digital document is transferred to the ink-jet printer, and ink is then poured onto paper to form images and characters. Similarly, when 3D printers work, the software “scans and cuts off” the three-dimensional model with the help of CAD technology. Then, the information is transferred to the 3D printer, and the printer forms a 3D image. What distinguishes a 3D printer from the traditional printer is that a 3D printer adopts solid raw materials rather than ink.

The two main materials adopted by the research team are PLA and ABS. The printer costs only 15,800 yuan  ($2,611), quite cheap in comparison with the 29,800 yuan - 200,000 yuan printers imported from abroad. In addition, the objects printed by the printer can be eight times as large as those printed by foreign printers. Raw materials are also very cheap, only 0.1 yuan to 0.2 yuan per gram.

An agricultural machinery company in Shuangcheng city has already purchased one of the printers.