Analysis of small plastic gears manufactured by SLS printing

Abstract

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is an additive manufacturing method. During the production, the equipment sinters powdered material and binds this material together to create a solid structure. SLS 3D printers use a laser as the power and heat source. During the manufacturing process, the laser is aimed automatically at points in space defined by the 3D model. Since in the past we have worked on the manufacturing of small plastic gears by other additive techniques (FDM, stereolithography) and on the determination of their accuracy, in this article we determined the same characteristics for the SLS process.