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CES: Formlabs Co-Founder Describes Their Stereolithographic 3D Printer (Video)
"It uses a totally different process called Stereolithography," says Max Lobovsky, while other low-cost 3D printers use a process called FDM (fused deposition modeling). Max explains the differences between the two processes in the video, but what it comes down to in the real world is that his process can "do features down to 0.3 mm," which, he says, is much finer than you can get with FDM. It also seems that structures made with Stereolithography can be made stronger and can be machined more accurately than those made by the FDM process. So this is another step toward fully-useful home fabrication of... almost anything. So Formlabs and the company's initial product, the Form 1, are interesting. And surely there will be other "consumer" Stereolithography machines in the market before long, and prices for both the machine and the chemicals they use as raw materials will come down. Meanwhile, a company called 3D Systems is suing Formlabs for patent infringement. This isn't a nickel and dime deal; Formlabs raised $2,945,885 through Kickstarter, says TechCrunch in a story about the suit. And since their 3D printer is an order of magnitude less expensive than earlier Stereolithography machines and the company's future looks bright, 3D Systems might be better off taking a stock settlement than going for cash. They've settled with other alleged infringers before, so there's a precedent for that idea. Suit or no suit, Formlabs is going forward, building and shipping 3D printers as fast as they can -- and President Obama mentioned 3D printing in his State of the Union speech last night, which will surely help boost the entire industry, including Formlabs.
I applaud there honesty, but this really isn't going to fly. Where is the EPA when you need them?
Stereolithography - A 3D printing process that uses a laser to solidify a pattern traced on pool of polymer resin.
are the guns it prints?
or sues them. or does both.
point is - there's no reason to expect that they would sell anything based on their patented tech for cheap. couple of the techniques are so simple(like this one) that litigation is what is keeping the competition at bay(also some aspects of fdm printing).
(also kickstarter had another similar machine already earlier though with much less fanfare.. afaik they managed to ship and not get sued)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The article mentions resolution down to .3mm... I'm sure he is incorrect here... the Form1 must be able to go much higher. Standard FDM printers like the Makerbot Replicator can easily do .1mm or even less. RepRaps get down below .02mm regularly.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
While you can get AMAZING resolution with stereolithography and stronger parts than FDM, there are some caveats.
Namely, due to the chemistry of the photopolymerization process, stereolithography parts degrade over time, even faster if left in direct sunlight. This is why you never see stereolithographed parts used in critical applications.
But this is probably good enough for consumers.
Oh and due to patents, you'd be better off making your own 3d printer than buying this one at this stage. This printer is using decades old tech.
The tradeoffs with stereolithography: it requires toxic, expensive, smelly resins and can't do very enclosed spaces because the uncured resin would be trapped. The parts have to be washed - again, smelly/toxic chemicals are involved. The resins also usually have a limited lifespan, with some of them practically melting over time.
By the way: "machining" is not the proper term for anything in the class of Additive Manufacturing, which is what both FDM and stereolithography are.
Please help metamoderate.
They seem to have managed to scale industrial-quality 3D printing down to a hobbyist level. What I find amazing in stereolithography is that it's precise enough to print fully assembled machinery that works out of the printer.
Long shelf life when not exposed to light (like vampires, it bursts into flame in direct sunlight?)
Safe to use in a controlled environment (a hermetically sealed laboratory?)
Low environmental impact with proper disposal (encased in lead and stored in an abandoned mine which is subsequently sealed with concrete?)
The qualifiers make it sound like a software EULA.
According to the linked wiki article, the low end is $80/L for the material. That's not as bad as ink; but it's still a bit pricey.
You do know that even when a decent 3D printer capable of producing anything of any quality comes out, the cost of the material to put into it will be prohibitive to a point where it is cheaper to go to Walmart and have it printed there...
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
So they say their process can reach 0.3 mm, and that's much finer than FDM ones can.
Reprap printers use FDM. Mine printed to a layer height of 0.1 mm right after calibration, with a 2-1 width-height ratio... when I get my broken Arduino replaced (it's been a month dammit), I'm going to check if I can get it down to 0.05 mm or so. Any lower is just insanely slow, but.. saying that 0.3 mm is special compared to FDM is just plain nonsense.
- Electronically/mechanically inexperienced, first-time Reprap builder
"It uses a totally different process called Stereolithography,"
I know all these terms like FDM and stereolithography are new here at Slashdot, but this tech isn't new at all. At my employer, the industrial designers engineers tell me how they replaced their stereolithography machines with FDM machines years ago.
"do features down to 0.3 mm," which, he says, is much finer than you can get with FDM
The Makerbot Replicator I have at home does 0.1mm out of the box. This is typical.
"Stereolithography can be made stronger and can be machined more accurately than those made by the FDM process."
Perhaps the technology has improved. But the whole reason companies replaced the stereolithographic machines with FDM is because of the benefits of using "real plastic." It was stronger and didn't photo-degrade like the resins do.
I am not knocking the Form1: it's a great device. But I caution anyone to treat it like some new big up-and-coming thing.
TFA says it can make objects up to 125mm X 125mm X165mm (4.9 X 4.9 X 6.5 inches), not very big.
Is Acrylate Photopolymer suitable for a lost wax style casting process?
And even that wouldn't really be news anymore.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
From the summary: "So this is another step toward fully-useful home fabrication of... almost anything."
Well, a very small step. The Form 1 machine cannot make the polymer it consumes, or the metal enclosure for it's base. For those you need a flexible chemical plant to supply various polymers, and a hydraulic press to roll-form the sheet metal.
The Seed Factory Project ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Danielravennest/papers/Seed_Factory_Project ), which will be starting soon, is aimed at a more complete collection of machines that *can* fabricate "almost anything", including it's own parts. It will not be home-sized though. More community-sized, where you submit your "print job" and pick up the finished parts/items later. One feature of the seed concept is it does not have to do everything "out of the box". It can produce parts for additional types of machines to expand the range of things it can do. A design that includes a starter set + CAD files for additional machines saves money compared to including all the machines at the start.
Getting down to home-sized is not practical with current technology, nor it is efficient. How often do you need to print a new couch? It makes more sense to share the equipment over a larger group of people, so it is not sitting idle most of the time and reduces the cost.
The patent is from 1997. Does anybod know how long such a patent is valid?
My spirit takes a journey through my mind...
what is the only point of reference for a technology that starts off crazy expensive and then gets cheap enough for consumers? Ink jet printing. Has the cost of ink cartridges dropped to almost free even as millions and millions of the things get manufactured and used? Nope.
Why would 3D printing chemistry (photo resins for STL) get cheap?
If you want 3D on the cheap, you need a plastic extruder and use ABS or PLA.
Formlabs is going forward, building and shipping 3D printers as fast as they can
I see a bunch of white & nerdy guys on the Formlab website impaled in front of computer screens.
I don't get the feeling that they are "building and shipping 3D printers as fast as they can".
Guy could totally be Michael Dell in a few years.
Making 3D printers out of his dorm room, selling them to uber nerdy geeks in a small town in Texas.
Never amount to much.. nah.