In our efforts to make 3D printing available to faculty, staff and students at IUSB we pre-ordered a SLA printer. Stereolithography printers offer MUCH higher resolution then a FDM(spools of plastic filament types like makerbots and seemecnc). They use UV lasers to draw layer at a time in UV sensitive resin, so they can have very fine details.
Oh so pretty!
Usually they are very expensive, but recently a company named FormLabs has shaken the SLA world up a bit and offers a nice machine for a lot cheaper then most. It is still a $3,500 machine mind you, but high end laser printers can cost that much to be fair so it’s somewhat affordable.
We pre-ordered there most recent Form 2 printer, which offers a number of improvements, and just got it set up and printing. So far I am very impressed. The build quality is very nice. They also did a good job with the interface, software and directions. We had it printing in no time. While it was not as much fun to watch as the Delta printer we have, it does look professional.
Close up of resin tray.
We have only printed a few things, but the quality is amazing. I will be sharing some prints very soon.
I\\’ve seen where someone will make a proportional replica of, say, a classic car… I still cannot intuit what\\’s exciting about 3d printers. My mind thinks of those plastic animals you could get at zoos from those machines that would mold them and they\\’d come out hot (seems like they could just have the toys in there and keep them warm, merely claiming that they were freshly molded, now I think back on it)