Oliver - an open source ultra precise MSLA 3D printer

Hello everyone,
The market is being flooded by cheap SLA printers offering better resolution than FFF printers. There's one problem, however. They're not open source!

I'm a high school student from Czech Republic and I've decided to change that. I've spent last 18 months developing a custom MSLA 3D printer that's comparable to similarly priced commercial machines (the printer costs roguhly 720 USD).

It uses Sharp LS055R1SX03 2K screen, which can be currently found on almost all cheap MSLA machines. This grants precision of 47.25 microns in XY plane. Z axis resolution is 25 microns. I've developed custom board that is connected to Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and also custom 24W LED array with active cooling (2x 40 mm fans). These boards should be manufacturable by almost any PCB vendor, although I've included the exact requirments in the manual. The printer can be controlled by either built-in 3.5" touchscreen (with Tibus interface[1]), or via browser-based NanoDLP interface [2]. The platform have a full 3-dimensional calibration.

Some pictures:





Regarding manufacturing, you'll need access to the following:

- FFF 3D printer (for printing plastic parts)
- laser cutter (to cut the metal and acrylic parts)
- NO CNC MACHINE REQUIRED

I've written over 100 pages long user's manual with detailed procedures and assembly instructions. You can find it on the website (link below). Whole project is published under CC-BY-NC licence. My hope is that this printer will become a truly competitive open source alternative to the already established commercial machines (Anycubic Photon etc.).

The website: [www.oliver3d.com]

PS: I'm sorry for any grammar mistakes - English is not my native language.

[1] - [github.com]
[2] - [www.nanodlp.com]

Best,
Adam Schuppler

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2019 09:52AM by Oliver3D.

Hi Adam,

That looks like a very nice printer and potentially an interesting project. I have started to download the big zip (2.7G file to look at. Although I am several months (or years) away from finishing my present project I will see if this is to be my next big one.

Mike

Hi Mike,
thanks for the praise. I appreciate it . The file is so big because it contains the SD card image and all the CAD files (created in Autodesk Inventor Educational edition - hence I had to publish it under the non-commercial license).

That's a very nice project and congratulations for the good print result.

I have avoided SLA so far because of the high costs of resin. Have you found cheap resin or can you produce it yourself?

Hi,
thanks . Regarding the operating costs, they're indeed higher compared to FFF machine. Resins are just one part and you have to account for all the other things, namely: isopropyl alcohol (depends - if you buy it in small quantity, then you can get as high as 1 USD per print), nitrile gloves - 1 USD per print, safety containers for the IPA + resin solution (prepared to safe disposal according to local laws). Personally, I buy resins from Anycubic (with price of roughly 40 USD/litre). I don't know whether there's a cheaper supplier with reasonable quality. Although I do remember that in January I bought one bottle at 65 USD/litre, so the price is coming down rather quickly.

I have never considered making my own resin, although I do have a question. Do you know about someone who tried to do so? Partly because you've just spurred my interest, but mainly because I'm going to write a sort of school thesis about my work and I have no idea how to describe the chemical composition of photopolymers. And I suspect that resin manufacturers will be very reluctant to share any non-trivial information about this subject.

Adam

I think your price is a good price already. I hope it will drop a bit into the direction of FFF filament in the future.

I don't know how to produce resin. The only thing I know is that a catalyst is necessary, which reacts to the UV light.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2019 05:32AM by JoergS5.

I would like to try your printer.

I am running my 3D printers with Duet hardware and so I know the firmware best and would prefer to use Duet instead of your controller.

Do you mind if I adapt your printer to this controller? If you have something against it, then I keep my own development to myself. But of course I would like to share it with others if they want to use Duet as well.
Of course I would always honor your development by mentioning where the idea comes from.

you need something with a display output to controller the lcd

A Duet would be a complete waste of a controller. You only need one axis.... no hotends or heated beds...

The idea is to use something I know. A waste is no problem. I am thinking about combining 3D and CNC (with some QM with cameras), so the Duet is not used for the SLA alone.

... for DIY-resin formulas - read though the old threads of user "spota" (Fernando) - he made some own resins and sent me the ingredients to make my own and some samples maybe ten years ago:

[reprap.org]


The fun thing - while commercial resins have a shelf-life time of maybe 1/4 to 1/2 year, Fernandos resin (stored dark in my basement) was still usable after 2 years !!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2019 06:21AM by VDX.

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

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

JoergS5: You're obviously free to modify it however you want, although if you publish it online, I'd be glad if you mention the original project (something like the sentence "adapted from Oliver MSLA printer" will definitely suffice ). The only real drawback of the licence is that you have to keep in mind that you can't sell the printer commercially. I have absolutely no objections against that personally, but as I said, Autodesk Inc. might had (due to their CAD software I used) and I don't want to be sued by them.

VDX: Thanks for the links.

Oliver3D: thanks for your permission. I have no commercial interests.

Thanks Victor for the information, the old threads are really interesting. I need more chemical know how to understand the matter.

It's a shame how often things like adhesives, silicone tubes and in this case resin become obsolete and useless: one uses 5 drops, and after half a year you can throw away the rest of 300ml because it acted with itself.

I agree that a Duet is overkill for a resin printer, however you are not the first person to ask for it. So recent versions of RepRapFirmware have additional support for nanoDLP. See [duet3d.dozuki.com].

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Thank you for the link!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2019 01:15AM by JoergS5.