I added SLA (UV Resin) Printing to My Duplicator for $125. Sweet!

Ok, I'm sure i'm not the first one to do this but i'm pretty pleased with myself.

I Just bought my 3rd 3D Printer, the Wanhao Duplicator 4 with Dual heads. Just for grins I removed one of the extruder heads and added a UV Laser I got from Muve3d.net. I disassembled the print bed, did some modifications and made it removable via magnetics so I could pop it in and out quickly.

That left me with an open space in the middle of the table. For simplicity I opted for a top down printing approach. gotta tell you it works slick as heck!

I'm using Simplify 3D software to drive it and after experimenting with some offsets, got it to print at Zero plus 120mm. the printer thinks it's printing in the air but I have it dialed in so that the laser hits the top of the resin. It prints a layer, drops the z axis by .2MM and prints the next one. Prints VERY high detail and I haven't even tweaked the settings yet! The resin tank is just a simple black plastic project box from Radioshack. I also printed a print arm that attaches via magnetics too, so I can swap out from FDM to SLA printing in about 30 seconds.

The only thing I haven't figure out how to do is turn the laser on and off but as it turns out it isn't all that necessary. I programmed in a custom start gcode that homes the X, Y and Z axis, then waits for 10 seconds. I then pop on the SLA Magnetic print arm with a build plate just slightly under the resin surface. I can do that in less than 10 seconds, then I just switch on the laser and it goes to work. I'm using Makerjuice G which cures incredibly fast under the uv laser. Prints WAY faster than FDM.

total cost about $125 bucks (Not including the resin).

This could be even slicker than I have it, just thought i'd throw it out there for all you experimenters that would like an inexpensive dual purpose machine.

Check out the pics

mUVe3D releases improved Marlin firmware for all 3D printers
[forums.reprap.org]

mUVe3D added laser support to Marlin firmware.

Thats pretty cool! Do you have any pictures of the rook that show more detail?

Also, 0.2 mm layer height is pretty standard with FDM printers.

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I'm printing a mechwarrior model now.. still tweaking settings. anybody have any idea on the optimal layer height or nozzle paramaters for a laser? How "Wide" is a laser dot anyway?

How does the strength of prints made with makerjuice g compare with abs, nylon, et. a.? Do you get better layer adhesion with the laser-cured-together layers in prints than with the got-hot-and-(almost)-melted-together layers? Are these prints equally strong in all 3 axes, as a molded part would be?

What laser do you use? mUVe3D sells two - 50mw and 150mw