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.

Comments

everything has a tradeoff

[SuperBanana]

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.

Re:everything has a tradeoff

[iammaxus]

There are trade-offs with every 3D printing process and stereolithography is no exception. But, some of the points you mentioned are not true about modern stereolithography or the Form 1. In our case, the resin has almost zero smell (you've got to put your nose right up to it to smell anything) and is similar in toxicity to handling many household chemicals (think glues and paints). Our pricing on the material is on the order of half of what high end 3D printer companies charge ($150/liter vs $300/liter). -Max co-founder, Formlabs

Re:Stereolithography has some caveats

[Rob Riggs]

It's been over 20 years since I worked in a rapid prototyping shop. That's exactly what we did with most of the models. We made a latex mold and cast parts using various resins, typically polyurethane. The chemicals used in stereolithography, including the cleaning agents, were pretty nasty. I would not want that in my house. The urethane resin had to be degassed and the molds cured under pressure to prevent bubbling as the exothermic reaction took place. The commercial vacuum pumps, degassing chamber, compressors and pressure tanks were pretty expensive. Though that cost was nothing compared to the 3D Systems stereolithography machines. Those were upwards of USD500,000 and about USD80,000/yr in maintenance costs.

Re:3d systems buys competition

[joss]

Thing is, 3D Systems (specifically the companies founder, Chuck Hull), invented stereolithography and they have tons of patents in this area (I'm named as inventor on 22 of them.. I used to work for 3D Systems). So, if Formlabs can get out of this one as it's close to expiration date, there's more pain in the pipeline.