Tantillus resolution and comparison to other printers

I'm scoping out the latest generation of high-res 3D printers - I've been looking at the form1 and B9Creator as well. I'm mostly planning on printing for jewelry-scale lost wax casting, so printing size isn't really an issue. I hear that people have gotten 10-micron resolution out of the Tantillus - is this typical?

Since this is a Tantillus forum, I'm pretty sure nobody's going to give me cons, but if anyone could give me the pros of Tantillus compared to form1 and B9Creator, I'd love to hear them

-Menandore

... you can get some ten microns resolution in layer height, but the resolution/accuracy in XY wouldn't be much better than 0.1mm for the inhomogenity of extrusion volume while moving or when bridging gaps and holes ...

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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]

Yeah at the scale you want to print you will really need to go with a resin printer. For really low layer using FFF or FDM it is kind of a crap shoot. Every model needs different settings and can't have to tiny of details because the volume of plastic requested ends up being far less than one step from the extruder. Then you have the issue of the plastics properties not allowing it to go that thin and it just tears.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Aww, disappointing Not that I'm expecting to get 10 microns on a resin printer *either*, but I was hoping all 100 micron resolutions were equal.

Thanks for the honesty, though.

At 100 microns Tantillus will happily print all day. It also has a high X/Y repeatability below 100 micron but it may still be hard to get items the size of rings to turn out really well every time. One of the issues with FFF and small items is they do not have enough time to cool so all you end up with is a puddle of molten plastic. The fans on Tantillus help with this and you you can usually print a small gear or pulley without to much heat build up but it is still a bit of an art and printing multiple is usually easier as it gives more time for each item to cool between layers.

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

... attached a sample of mikro-resin-printing with a simple DIY-setup of an UV-modified beamer equipped with a reducing lens from a friend in a German CNC-forum - the footprint of the Eiffel-tower is 5x5mm!

This was his first try, so could be done with better smoothing and accuracy

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2013 04:51AM 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]

VDX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ... attached a sample of mikro-resin-printing with
> a simple DIY-setup of an UV-modified beamer
> equipped with a reducing lens from a freind in a
> German CNC-forum - the footprint of the
> Eiffel-tower is 5x5mm!
>
> This was his first try, so could be done with
> better smoothing and accuracy

Wow.... how big small are those layers?

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FFF Settings Calculator	Gcode post processors	Geometric Object Deposition Tool Blog
Tantillus.org	Mini Printable Lathe	How NOT to install a Pololu driver

Wow that Eiffel Tower is impressive.

Menandore - Here's another DLP style printer that might be good for jewelry, though I don't know much about it: [3dmicroprinter.com]

Also, you probably know this, but some resins don't have the best burnout properties for lost wax castings. I read the B9C resin is good for burnout, haven't heard about the others though.



Have you guys seen this '2PP' printer? It's unreal: [amt.tuwien.ac.at]

Makes me wonder if anyone is trying the 2PP printers with a moving linear array of lasers that can be turned on/off accordingly for the planar shape of each layer.

... this print was made with 0.1mm layer height with 10 seconds illuminating time per layer (the Eiffel-tower has 121 layers) - he is testing the sensitivity and opacity of the resin/colour-mixture

Others were successfull with layer heights down to 0.03mm ...

The printing time is directly related to the curing time per layer and overall leayer-count - the possible size is related to the XY-dimension of the beamer-image and/or the vat-size.

The achievabe accuracy is a factor of the beamer resolution - until recently the beamers have DMD-chips with 800x600 micro-mirrors, now some with higher resolutions get common ... I've got salvaged (for the 24 pcs. blue 445nm-laserdiodes) Casio-beamers with 1024x786 and 1200x800 pixels ... and a friend tries to align 4 of them to get even higher pixel resolutions per layer ...

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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]

Our resin burns out, pretty sure no one else can claim that at a price anywhere close.

[b9creator.com]

[blog.garydawsondesigns.com]

MikeJ

... some more accuracy testing - the Eiffel-tower printed with 0.05mm layer height:




... more in detail:




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... with higher accuracy of 0.01mm layer height and 'open frames':





... and too more in detail:




The possible resolutions are now better than achievable with common UV-printers, so the next steps would be experimenting with resins/additives and UV-light-sources, higher energies and shorter exposure times for faster printing in spite of higher resolutions

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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]

That's just amazing. From the pic it looks like warping is an issue at all scales.

Viktor maybe you know this, but there are some people (who seem very knowledgeable to me) playing with light-curing resin formulations and cure times in this group, which is mainly focused on DLP style printing. :

[tech.groups.yahoo.com]

Hi Eric,

this shouldn't be warping, as with UV-curing you won't receive this amount of mechanical stress -- maybe an artefact from the removing procedure? ... can ask him tomorrow.

There are many individuals and groups, testing and/or discussing UV-printing and some others designing or selling resins - the German CNC-forum, where the posted pics come from and most other forums with active groups, where I'm active, needs login/register to participate, the only 'free' discussion was here ( [forums.reprap.org] ) - but not very active in the last months

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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]

Answered my own question

>> the German CNC-forum, where the posted pics come from <<

Viktor - exactly which forum are you referring to?