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.

3D打印技术：嵌入式发光二极管的优点和缺点

3D打印S中的工程当前世界的宠儿，并有很好的理由。现在每个人都可以在他们的实验室或车库的机修车间，让您转出原型或生产运行非常有限的在各种各样的塑料。 [更新：斯台普斯，办公室的供应链，已宣布将提供3D打印作为一种服务。就像你可以命令你的报告的短版印刷或小册子上，其全彩色，高速票据打印机，你就可以向您发送CAD文件到三维打印机。订书钉使用Mcor技术打印机，其中使用的纸张，一个切割刀片，和一个层压工艺来创建一个木质样纤维素系对象层。]（某些打印机也可以创建烧结金属物体。）

光学LED路灯是3D打印的可能应用。 （这里有一个最近的一篇文章，涵盖嵌入光管为对象的可能性。）的确，你可以去光学设计公司像LEDIL或冻结其拥有现成的现成的镜头目录。但是，如果你需要一个定制的镜头独特的LED封装或透镜功能，您可能必须去与一个自定义的镜头要求定制模具。

三维打印机的一大优势是，他们可以在CAD设计文件直接创建一个对象，规避无需任何模具或工具。 - 有没有必要去通过设计模具的投资。模具，除了他们的初始投资，带来的风险 - 如果有一个问题与模具，或者，如果该镜头不工作？你出的模具成本，不得不重新开始。 3D打印机消除了模具成本。

但有几个缺点三维打印：首先，它不能扩展在任成本或速度。它需要尽可能多的金钱和时间每个对象来打印一份作为打印万元。与模具型制造，则缓冲在产品的寿命的模具成本，以及模具允许大量生产形状：无的这个一在一次一东西。

另一个问题：在一般情况下，更严格的公差，两维地，并且在表面光滑度，较昂贵的打印机。虽然打印机爱好者可以有几百元，专业级打印机开始在$ 10K和直行与相应昂贵的材料。和光学要求高精度镜头公差：光不是一个宽容的媒体 - 想怎么连一个微小的波动是明显的，在一个玻璃。然而，因为3D打印机放下的材料的珠的时间，表面变形几乎是一个给定的。

而另一关注：让一个具有悬垂一个产品是一个三维打印机是一个挑战，因为它依赖于总是有一层的基础上。什么一些比较昂贵的打印机做的是把一种物质，它作为一个支撑结构，并且可以稍后通过溶剂溶解的向下的层。

但是尽管有这些缺点，3D打印似乎有可能找到一个家在照明设计和开发。也许最有趣的使用3D打印的LED灯是嵌入LED芯片 - 裸发射器，没有主镜头 - 并用塑料印制成任何形状的镜头，你需要它封装。这实际上是什么圣诞星封装RGB LED和控制逻辑在昨天的帖子覆盖。随着3D打印，你可以做装饰造型和电子封装一个软件包的所有部分，这是装饰性和透镜。难道省钱批量制造？可能不会。但它将使创意迭代和快速原型。