Carbon3D printer 25 to 100 times faster

Here is an article about a new printing process called CLIP (Continuous Liquid Interface Production). Anyone have anymore information about this CLIP process? Can we make an open hardware version?

Speechless... This is awesome. Will probably come with a hefty price tag, but am curious to see when it will become mainstream.

The resolution and speed are just incredible.
More here:
[carbon3d.com]

They are probably in the game to get rich, so open hardware versions might be difficult if they patent everything shut. No idea about their motives though, but seeing the list of people working at that company kind of tells they also need to be able to pay those people in the long run. Besides that it's still a great invention. The precision looks very high, imagine how the medical world can use this...

Will be so funny to see all those people that thought they could make millions with inventing an FDM or FFF printer suddenly realize the technique has caught up with theirs. I've always 'preached' that reprap-kind of printers are not the future, there will be something better soon and all the 3D-print shops that jump the bandwagon will eventually have to change to selling new kinds of printers. This has been the case for many years, where new technology defines new standards. Old techniques become obsolete, companies lose interest because old techniques make less money and eventually a technique dies out because the parts needed for the machines aren't produced anymore.

I remember having an old four-stroke motorcycle that didn't use a distribution belt yet. The parts that activate the valves didn't exist any more, not even in old stock so we had to manually produce them. Eventually we succeeded, it was the same for the electronics. It didn't have a digital combustion chip yet (CDI) but contact points that open and close with each rotation of the flywheel. Eventually we had to convert the system because the old parts could not be made anymore.

Imagine one day opening up an old locked barn to find a dusty MendelMax somewhere in between a laser cutter and a hoverboard and laugh about that old technology

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

I've been following a few projects to do DLP photopolymer prints. I really hope Carbon3d doesn't stifle the progress in the DIY community.

Slashdot had an article on this the other day and it looks impressive. I just wish it had more technical details on the process and got rid of all the marketing OMG-this-is-the-next-revolution fluff. For instance, it says it that it doesn't print in layers, but that it projects a series of images to continuously build the object. That's like saying a movie in the theater is live motion because you can't tell the individual frames apart. They are still printing in layers, it's just the layers are so small that they aren't easily distinguished.

The really thin layer of oxygen at the bottom I'm presuming solves the issue of the part sticking to the window and allowing a fresh supply of resin to replace the resin that gets drawn up, eliminating the rocking or raising and lowering between layers.

Never have worked with the photopolymer, I wasn't aware that oxygen inhibited the solidification when exposed to UV light. Do existing resins like MakerJuice and such have this same property? If I put a drop or a thin layer in an airtight container filled with oxygen and then shined a beam, it would delay the solidification? I wonder what the effect the oxygenation of that thin layer of resin has on the life of the resin.

Yes it's great! the media makes out like it's a new invention, but it isnt it's just the best iteration and illustration of epoxy stereolithography to date. Good presumption cdru. it sounds Sooooo cool and simple as a way of printing, if only the chemistry is worked out. This work will probably encourage alot of other work of a similar kind. You may find that there are so many patents in the domain that the company can't totally bar open use of it's idea. hopefully.

All the parts of the 3d printer are fairly simple, and can be sold seperately, and it's not illegal for home builders to build themselves anything, so i think that open source for this kind of thing will be fine

from online:
With a free radical system, polymerization stops as soon as the light is eliminated. Free radical systems are also subject to oxygen inhibition, which means that oxygen in the air prevents the molecules at the surface from polymerizing, leaving a wet or tacky surface.

Epoxy resit is cool because: it is useable until almost 200 degrees (same as FR4 PCB board) it's very strong, it can be bonded with nylon (kevlar) glass or carbon fibre.
Advances in this technique probably present the option of 4 micron accurate printing and is much simpler than abs printer to make.

full info: [justpaste.it]

This is what it uses to create an oxygen enriched layer... [www.professionalplastics.com]
Teflon AF 2400... it is highly permeable to gases and light. i don't know what thickness they use, i believe that it comes in resin form? max technically easy size is 250mm, perhaps the teflon layer is the limitation.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2015 08:00AM by skynetprinter.

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skynetprinter
max technically easy size is 250mm, perhaps the teflon layer is the limitation.

Just a wild guess, but I'd imagine it'd need to be fairly thin in order to have enough gas permeability, so you'd start to have deflection issues with larger sizes. Even with a low index of refraction, distortions in the bending plastic would likely have an adverse effect on accuracy and precision.

OK, here goes some musings from someone who knows nothing about SLA printing - I'm mostly trying to figure out how they work:

- I've seen different diagrams for how SLA printing works - 1) where the image is projected from above onto the surface of the resin and the object is dropped down into a vat of resin, or 2) where the image is projected from below through a transparent plate and the print is pulled upward from the vat of resin.

- In the first, it would seem that you run into problems getting a new layer of resin uniformly distributed across the top surface of the newly forming object.

- In the second, I gather there is a problem with the object sticking to the image plate and it must be broken free with each new layer. Or, like with the Orange Maker, you move the print continuously so that new resin is always being sucked in between the image plate and the object.

- It would seem that with configuration (1), however, you can easily get an oxygen rich dead zone without any fancy permeable membrane - you just regulate the concentration of O2 in the chamber above the print.

- Lastly, in config. (1) would it be possible to drag a continuous loop of fine screen material (I'm thinking of something like silk screen material), across the top surface of the vat. Essentially the screen would be floating on the top of the resin, but continuously dragging new resin over the print. The curing would take place at a level just below the screen and just below the oxygen-rich "no cure" zone. This is pretty similar to what I think Carbon3D is doing, but by inverting the whole thing and keeping the screen/membrane moving, you don't need a rigid membrane that won't deflect as it is getting sucked upwards (or in this case downwards) by the rising (or descending) object.

Please let me know if I've got this all wrong.

Awesome post CNC you are probably correct, the first method could indeed work continuously by using a an oxygen regulating method or silkscreen to cover the emerging model, however it would present the problem that the model would be irregularly covered, for example a line of print aligned with the movement of the silkscreen wouldnt wet so well.

The top of the vat could be covered by a screen to regulate the oxygen, i don't know how it could be regulated using only the surface of the epoxy as it's a fine balance and the epoxy would tend to absorb alot of oxygen, whereas the teflon barrier allows for micron thin layers of oxygen. In the future it may be possible to have advanced epoxy resins that hold oxygen containing particles that are activated by a different wavelenth of light, so that the printer can sit on a transparent glass surface, with one UV laser carving the 3d, and another laser of a different color activates the oxygen release from within the epoxy resin.

HI Guys,

I wonder if there is a photopolymer that inhibits at a certain temperature? Then you could warm the vat of liquid but have a piece of cooled glass as the bottom lens area. The the resin touching the glass would never cure. Seems easier than buying or building an oxygen permeable layer.

Re LoboCNC, the config 1 you mentioned does not need a rick oxygen environment as the top of the resin is the barrier, you cant build higher than the resing so the part sinks into the resin and you never have to worry about whats above the resin.

Dont think this will replace ffm units soon though because the parts are really weak compared to ABS or the new carbon filled plastics.

Nice work though, i want one.

Mike

Well, DLP or SLA looks always amazing to FDM users. The porous glass plate allows to print very fast. It's great. The machine is so clean, no resin drops... Did you noticed that on resin based printer's videos, you only see the part laid on the build plate or already handled out of the machine ? It looks so perfect. You will never see the part being pull out of the plate, with gloves because the part is still wet. Most of the time droplets jumps everywhere and the surroundings of the resin machine is always sticky. The part needs to be handled with gloves, then it needs to be hardened into a UV chamber for full hardening process, before you can handle it by hand. I asked a DLP user about the whole process. He told me parts are pretty expensive, and whatever you do, you spend a lot of unused resin. The bigger build plate you have the bigger the waste. You need a dust free room, a tiled workbench, a UV insulator with ventilation... Otherhand, the resolution is handsome and finish is perfect. Even with a fast print process, I don't think it's the future of 3D printing.

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

With resin printing you do lose a lot of product due to natural light curing the resin in the machine. I worked with an old SLA machine a long time ago, one of those with a UV laser that drew the part outline in the resin. If you left the build plate for too long then you ended up with an expensive brick. Hardening happens in regular daylight unless your in a hurry then you need the UV chamber. The whole build plate and the part would go straight into a sink to be washed after the build finishes. Any pool of resin you dont wash off the part will become a rock in normal light so it has to be washed quickly. Thats when the drops appear on the machine and the goo starts to build up. We used to line the machine with cling wrap to keep the other parts clean.
The dust issue isnt really a problem although the resin available 15 years ago was really brittle so maybe the new resin is sensitive to dust.

The guy told me that dust is shown inside the resin where it can catch bubles too, or makes unexpected bumps on the surface. Now he moved his printer out of the workshop to a clean tiled area.

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

Mike, The parts would be as strong as normal epoxy, alot stronger than traditional epoxy printed parts, because it isnt plrinted in layers but a continuois surface, so it has x y z maximum strength for the material it's in. They have done some elastomers which are pretty resilient and with 41 million of investment they probably can find a wide range of materials to print in.

Hey all,

There was a short article published in Science recently by the crew that worked on the Carbon3d printer. It explains a lot of the problems related to photopolymerization and how their "CLIP" process manages them to create consistent results.

Raises more questions than it answers - but then again all the best things do

[www.sciencemag.org]

And now an Australian company has tweaked a DLP printer to print even faster than CLIP.

...as long as you don't mind using exponentially more resin the larger you print (unless they are floating the resin). And only want to print thinwall materials.

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SheldonE
And now an Australian company has tweaked a DLP printer to print even faster than CLIP.

And you pay for that 'extra secret' option too. I'm waiting for open source solutions and then? Then I'll get excited!

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

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Ohmarinus
And you pay for that 'extra secret' option too. I'm waiting for open source solutions and then? Then I'll get excited!

I'm willing to bet an open source solution is not far away.