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).

Filament

Plastic material made into (often 3mm) string to be used in 3D printers.

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.

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.