3D Printers

3D Printers are traditionally only use to produce prototypes of designs for design meetings and design verification. But currently as the 3D Printers develop you can get functional parts from plastic , in ranges of accuracy and surface finish, and also in metals in the exact material you would machine or cast a part. The focus is now to get 3D Printing at the level where they compete with normal manufacturing. Places where 3D Printing is even better than normal machining is where conformal cooling channels are designed into the tool.