3D printing s the current darling of the engineering world， and with good reason. Now everyone can have a machine shop in their lab or garage， allowing you to turn out prototypes or very limited production runs in a wide variety of plastics. ［UPDATE： Staples， the office supply chain， has announced it will offer 3D printing as a service. Much like you can order a short-run printing of your report or pamphlet on on of its full-color， high-speed paper printers， you will be able to send you CAD files to a 3D printer. Staples is using Mcor Technologies printers， which use layers of paper， a cutting blade， and a lamination process to create a wood-like cellulose-based object.］ （Some printers can also create sintered-metal objects.）

Optics for LED lights are a possible applications for 3D printing. （Here’s a recent article that covered the possibility of embedding light pipes into objects.） True， you can go to a optics design company like LEDil or Fraen which have a catalog of readily available off-the shelf lenses. However， if you need a custom lens for a unique LED package or lensing capability， you might have to go with a custom lens requiring a custom mold.

A big advantage of 3D printers is that they can create an object directly from the CAD design files， circumventing the need for any molds or tooling. – there’s no need to go through the investment of designing molds. Molds， in addition to their initial capital investment， entail risk – what if there’s a problem with the mold， or， what if the the lens doesn’t work？ You’re out the tooling cost and have to start again. 3D printers eliminate tooling costs.

But there are several drawback to 3D printing： For one， it doesn’t scale in either costs or speed. It takes as much money and time per object to print one as to print a million. With mold-based manufacturing， you amortize the mold costs over the life of the product， and molds allows mass production of shapes： None of this one-at-a-time stuff.

Another problem： In general， the tighter the tolerances， both dimensionally， and in surface smoothness， the more expensive the printer. While hobbyist printers can be had for several hundred dollars， professional-level printers start at $10k and go straight up with correspondingly expensive materials. And optics require high-precision lenses with tight tolerance： Light is not a forgiving medium – think how even a slight ripple is noticeable in a glass. Yet， because 3D printers lay down the material a bead at a time， surface distortion is almost a given.

And another concern： Making a product that has an overhang is a challenge with a 3D printer because it relies on always having a layer to build on. What some of the more expensive printers do is to put down layers of a substance that acts as a support structure and can later be dissolved by a solvent.

But in spite of these drawbacks， 3D printing seems likely to find a home in lighting design and development. Perhaps the most intriguing use of 3D printing for LEDs is for embedding LED chips — the bare emitter with no primary lens — and encapsulating it with the printed plastic into whatever lens shape you need. That’s in effect what the Christmas-star-encapsulated RGB LEDs and control logic covered in yesterday’s post. With 3D printing you could make the decorative shape and the encapsulated electronics all parts of one package that was both decorative and lensing. Would it save money in volume manufacturing？ Probably not. But it would enable creative iterating and rapid

prototyping.

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3D打印技術：嵌入式發(fā)光二極管的優(yōu)點和缺點

3D打印S中的工程當前世界的寵兒，并有很好的理由?，F(xiàn)在每個人都可以在他們的實驗室或車庫的機修車間，讓您轉出原型或生產(chǎn)運行非常有限的在各種各樣的塑料。 ［更新：斯臺普斯，辦公室的供應鏈，已宣布將提供3D打印作為一種服務。就像你可以命令你的報告的短版印刷或小冊子上，其全彩色，高速票據(jù)打印機，你就可以向您發(fā)送CAD文件到三維打印機。訂書釘使用Mcor技術打印機，其中使用的紙張，一個切割刀片，和一個層壓工藝來創(chuàng)建一個木質樣纖維素系對象層。］（某些打印機也可以創(chuàng)建燒結金屬物體。）

光學LED路燈是3D打印的可能應用。 （這里有一個最近的一篇文章，涵蓋嵌入光管為對象的可能性。）的確，你可以去光學設計公司像LEDIL或凍結其擁有現(xiàn)成的現(xiàn)成的鏡頭目錄。但是，如果你需要一個定制的鏡頭獨特的LED封裝或透鏡功能，您可能必須去與一個自定義的鏡頭要求定制模具。

三維打印機的一大優(yōu)勢是，他們可以在CAD設計文件直接創(chuàng)建一個對象，規(guī)避無需任何模具或工具。 - 有沒有必要去通過設計模具的投資。模具，除了他們的初始投資，帶來的風險 - 如果有一個問題與模具，或者，如果該鏡頭不工作？你出的模具成本，不得不重新開始。 3D打印機消除了模具成本。

但有幾個缺點三維打?。菏紫?，它不能擴展在任成本或速度。它需要盡可能多的金錢和時間每個對象來打印一份作為打印萬元。與模具型制造，則緩沖在產(chǎn)品的壽命的模具成本，以及模具允許大量生產(chǎn)形狀：無的這個一在一次一東西。

另一個問題：在一般情況下，更嚴格的公差，兩維地，并且在表面光滑度，較昂貴的打印機。雖然打印機愛好者可以有幾百元，專業(yè)級打印機開始在$ 10K和直行與相應昂貴的材料。和光學要求高精度鏡頭公差：光不是一個寬容的媒體 - 想怎么連一個微小的波動是明顯的，在一個玻璃。然而，因為3D打印機放下的材料的珠的時間，表面變形幾乎是一個給定的。

而另一關注：讓一個具有懸垂一個產(chǎn)品是一個三維打印機是一個挑戰(zhàn)，因為它依賴于總是有一層的基礎上。什么一些比較昂貴的打印機做的是把一種物質，它作為一個支撐結構，并且可以稍后通過溶劑溶解的向下的層。

但是盡管有這些缺點，3D打印似乎有可能找到一個家在照明設計和開發(fā)。也許最有趣的使用3D打印的LED燈是嵌入LED芯片 - 裸發(fā)射器，沒有主鏡頭 - 并用塑料印制成任何形狀的鏡頭，你需要它封裝。這實際上是什么圣誕星封裝RGB LED和控制邏輯在昨天的帖子覆蓋。隨著3D打印，你可以做裝飾造型和電子封裝一個軟件包的所有部分，這是裝飾性和透鏡。難道省錢批量制造？可能不會。但它將使創(chuàng)意迭代和快速原型。