Glossary
Glossary
ABS
- Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene
A thermoplastic material which is used in plastic printers from which objects are made from.
Often ABS is used as a short form, actually referring to filament made of ABS: do you use ABS in your Mendel?
FDM
- Fused Deposition Method
Where a droplet of one material (plastic, wax, metal, etc.) is deposited on top or alongside the same material making a joint (by heat or adhesion).
Extrude
The act of placing the build material on the build platform. Normally by heating plastic to a liquid state and pushing it through a small nozzle.
Extruder
A group of parts which handles feeding and extruding of the build material.
Filament
Plastic material made into (often 3mm) string to be used in 3D printers.
PEEK
Polyether ether ketone
Heat resisting thermoplastic used as a thermal barrier in the extruder.
PLA
- Polylactic acid
A biodegradable polymer which is used as a 3D printer material.
Often PLA is used as a short form, actually referring to filament made of PLA: I use PLA in my Mendel.
PTFE
Polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon)
A slippery thermoplastic often used as a barrel in the extruder to minimize friction with the filament.
RP
- Rapid Prototyping
Creating an object in a matter of hours on a "3D printer" as opposed to sending out a job to a modelling shop that can take days or weeks.
STL
- Stereo Lithographic
A file format used to describe 3D objects. A design program (e.g. AoI) can produce an STL file which can then be fed to a 3D printer or 3D rendering graphics package.