Tablet Based LCD Printer

Hey all,

Looking into getting a resin printer to print some reasonably structural prototypes. In my research it looks like a lot of the more budget printers are opting to use LCD screens to cure resin, with a few DIY versions using iPad screens.

This got me thinking, rather than hacking a tablet LCD into a 3D printer, could you not just use a tablet with a slicer app clamped underneath the resin vat? The closest I found was a failed Kickstarter (OMO) based on a phone screen, but obviously tiny and terrible quality.

This seems like such a simple idea, and removes the major cost of an LCD printer, is there some issue I'm missing? Bluetooth or similar control of the Z axis should be no issue, the only issue I can think of is the extra layers on top of the LCD interfere with the resin curing?

I'd appreciate any input from someone more knowledgeable whether this is a bad idea or not.

Cheers.

... are you aware of the cheap Resin-printers like Elegoo Mars? - [www.elegoo.com]

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX
... are you aware of the cheap Resin-printers like Elegoo Mars? - [www.elegoo.com]

Not that one specifically, but have been looking at others similar. They are well within my price range, although most of them have far too small of a print area for me. Phrozen Shuffle XL is okay sized.

This question was to satisfy my curiosity more than anything else. If you could use a larger tablet (which many of us already own) you could have a decent print area at quiet a modest cost.

I have enough projects on the go so no intention to build one myself!

My understanding of SLA is that the Z resolution is the thickness of the layer of resin on top of the screen. So you want as thin a layer as possible. The resin is cured by the light emitted by the screen (I guess there's some film on the screen to stop the curing resin from sticking to it) so if you clamp the screen to the bottom of the tank, *all* the resin above the screen will get cured, with the resin closest to the screen absorbing most of the light.

The UV screen is an expensive part of the printer, but I think comparable to a tablet in price. There's obviously some benefit of UV- as opposed to visible-light-cured resins... presumably UV cures the resin faster and the resin is cheaper and is easier to store, since it doesn't need to be protected from visible light.

The ONO/OLO Kickstarter, by the way, was a success in that apparently the printer works. It has been demonstrated at trade shows and sold in Spain, for example. However, the people behind the KickStarter decided to screw the backers out of their rewards.