3D Printing PA

Is this friend named Darb Noslohcin?

Post pictures if you ever get this printed man. I would love to see this beast come to life

Well from experience with the Form 1- the resin isn't a problem (it's labelled as a 'mild irritant' however I've had no issue with it at all- once model is finished you wash off any excess with surgical spirit then model is fine to handle).

The main issues with it are as you mentioned- limited build volume and the cost of the material (its about 5 to 6 times cost of using a spool of plastic filament).

It does however provide an order of magnitude more accuracy than a hot extrusion process due to the inherent problem of plastic moving as it cools.

The Form 1 I have access to is with one of my customers- they purchased it for me to use to develop injection moulded parts for them- and the accuracy of the Form 1 is so high that the parts it produces are dimensionally closer to my CAD models than the final production pieces (I've been testing 3-D printers for accuracy by printing a model of an in production part and comparing, the Form 1 beats the replicator, the ultimaker and the Cube X quite handily, the Ultimaker was the next best when printing in pla).

Print time is a little slower than a FDM based printer but there's not much in it tbh (at 100 micron, a good base level if you don't need very fine detail it took 5 hours to print the part on the Form 1, approx 4 hours on an Ultimaker).

People are put off the Form 1 due to it using resin, however the particular resin they use isn't bad (it doesn't smell, we're using it in an office with no special ventilation and you wouldn't know it was there) and as I mentioned above it isn't really much problem to handle, the finished parts just need a rinse in surgical spirits before you get your hands on them. The main issue for failed prints is them not adhering to the build platform- thanks to the very active forums at Formlabs I've established the best way to maintain the build platform is to sand it down once in a while to provide some grooves for the resin to adhere to.

My only concern really is for the longevity of the machine as a few people have had problems with theirs (although they have recently set up a European distribution / service centre so getting parts shouldn't be a problem moving forward). On the other hand the amount I'm going to be printing is pretty limited so hopefully it won't be an issue

Now I accept this might not be any use to you (for example if your models are going to be larger than the build volume) however I thought you might be interested with my hands on experience with this machine- another successful Kickstarter project!

I did an Industrial Design degree- can't beat a bit of Foam Modelling (and nice work btw!)...

In regards to the resin I was mostly thinking about it in terms of post-printing sanding and the like, Resin Dust and stuff like bondo is bad for your airways! xD

But yeah, Stereolithography is probably where I'll end up investing at some point, and even the build volume isn't that big of a deal(but bigger is always better! xD) for what I'd want to do with it but for the cost and given I wouldn't have a semi-guaranteed way to offset said cost in any way it's just not feasible for me yet, especially given the cost of the resin as well.

Mike

As for resin, it is very messy to post process and I believe the raw material is leagues above filament prices, and impossible to recycle?

Still probably wont stop me from eventually getting one haha

Price is high compared to filament (but Formlabs have produced a more reasonable resin than other systems) and it's actually not that messy really.

Formlabs includes a cleaning kit- just wash the model off in surgical spirit to disolve any un-cured resin and your good to go.

Price is $120 / Litre, compared to $30 - $40 / kg for a real of filament.

Here it is in all it's glory.

It's the first print, so it's standard instead of high quality, the guns should have had support (I forgot).

A dremel tool goes a long way to clean it up, primer fills all the small gaps.

Alas, T3 Cybran Wailer

Every good proxy base starts with some wall?

Current proxy base updated on first post!

Had a chance last year to play with a 3d metal printer.. They used this type printing method..



much better then plastics because resolution is higher, this is due to EMWs being used resolution depends on how fine they can disperse a powder layer. resolution on plastic models is based on plastic used and how fine you can move the motors that maneuver the printing head.

Ah I've seen that very video, I remember clearly people in the comments going, WHY DO THIS, MASS PRODUCTION DURRRRRRRRRRR

Yet another if I could afford it machine

It all looks awesome

I cant wait for mine <3

I don't want to Hijack zhraii's thread, so I'll be sharing my 3D Printing (Mis)adventures over in my Art/Unit Design thread! A Quick Preview;



Mike

What quality was that mike?

Hijack away, it's 3D printing PA, not Zhall's 3D printing PA

I explain it in some depth in my thread already ;p

Mike

Ah yes, I was reading that just now

Very interesting, reminds me of when I got my machine.

Too bad PA wasn't the first thing to go through it! lol

I'm now extracting metal from the wood of my desk! lol

The Dragonite and Leviathan models are currently being prepped.

Proxy Base updated!

Good thing I had you do the leviathan then, latest update removed the turrets.

Dang it Uber. Y U DO DIS

I would love to make a tabletop game.

That would be a lot of fun.