Rapid Prototyping & Additive Manufacturing, are they the same?
In short, no is the answer. Well I guess you wouldn't want to stop here, lets have a look on the differences between them.
RP (Rapid Prototyping) has been discussed in the earlier post, in case you need to have a quick refresh, click here
AM (Additive Manufacturing) is also known as 3D printing, it means producing end parts by converting computer data into solid 3-dimensional objects. Well it also goes layer by layer hence the name is called.
The size of AM machine is usually smaller compared to a RP machine. This means the end products are usually small in size for AM machine. But it is more versatile and can comfortably fit in an office environment or home desk without consuming huge space. Also, the price of an AM machine is relatively cheap and usually ranges from few hundreds to thousands dollars whereas a RP machine might cost you a couple of thousands dollars. From the huge price difference, one should expect to obtain a lower accuracy end product from AM. Also, the material availability for AM is quite limited, however massive R&D is being carried on, and it is believe that more variety of materials or even mix materials can be used in a single manufacturing process.
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