Why can’t someone make a low cost, high performance, desktop 3D printer for a reasonable cost? That’s the question of 2012 and a number of entrepreneurs and start-ups are working on an answer. The latest possible answer to this question comes from Natan Linder, Maxim Lobovsky, and David Cranor, who, because of their MIT connection, are causing a buzz in the 3D printing industry. These gentlemen have created Formlabs, a spinoff from the MIT Media Lab. The mention of MIT is enough to make a lot of 3D printing enthusiasts sit up and take notice. Frustrated with the options for 3D printing, these gentlemen are creating the Form 1, which they say “marries high end stereolithography (SL) technology and a seamless user experience at a price affordable to the professional designer, engineer and maker.”
They are now in the venture development phase and are using Kickstarter to raise funding for manufacturing. As of this posting, they have more than reached their pledge goal of $100,000. If all goes well, they hope to start shipping units in February 2013.
The Form 1, which weighs 18 lb, uses a photopolymer-based process. A high precision system directs a laser across a tray of liquid resin and causes a thin layer to solidify. The build platform then rises in preparation for the next layer, and the next until your part is build. One of the benefits of SL is the detail you can have on a printed part.
The material is an acrylate photopolymer resin. It has a long shelf life when not exposed to light. Included with the Form 1 will be a Form Finish rinse solution, which will make it easy to remove supports or extra resin from parts. The material has low environmental impact with proper disposal. It is best for printed parts that have fine details, require a high quality finish, and have complex geometries.
Most desktop 3D printers at this price level (less than $2,500) are based on fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology (the non-trademark term for fused deposition modeling—FDM). This is the first SL printer at this price. FFF or FDM uses plastic extrusion, which melts plastic and uses an extruder to lay down each layer of the molten plastic. High-end FDM machines from companies like Stratasys have higher quality prints, but the majority of personal plastic extrusion machines lack the finish and resolution for professional-grade output. (MakerBot’s Replicator 2, an FFF-based 3D printer, is said to deliver a good finish, and it’s priced at $2,199.)
SL can often outperform the print quality of even high-end FDM machines. Until now, a professional SL printer has been far out of reach for the individual designer.
The build envelope volume is 125 x 125 x 160 mm (4.9 x 4.9 x 6.5 in). If you need something bigger, you can print multiple segments of a larger structure, essentially allowing you to print as big as you want. Minimum layer thickness is 25 microns.
Print time depends on how big and dense you make your creation, the layer thickness, speed settings, and desired quality. The rook piece shown on Formlabs’ website, took around 2 hours to print, while the base of the Eiffel Tower took around 8 hours. This speed is comparable to high-end machines.
Special software is required for the 3D printer, but the software will simplify print job setup, automatically generate support structures, determine the optimal layout for parts on the print bed prior to printing, offer manual tools for rotation, scaling, and duplication, and analyze individual print layers with 3D stage viewer.
The price of the Form 1 said to be $2,299, which includes a liter of resin. Individual purchases of the resin will be around $149 per liter. So how did this group manage to offer SL technology for so much less than other companies? Part of the answer is that they are not offering a lot of “bells and whistles,” but no specific details were given.
Right now, the only way to obtain one is through Kickstarter, which gives you a number of selection options. The standard Formlabs package comes with a fully assembled Form 1 and FormFinish Kit, Form software, and 1 liter of resin.
The Form software imports .STL files. To create those .STL files, you can design on professional CAD programs like Solidworks and Rhino, or simpler programs like SketchUp and TinkerCAD.
Formlabs
www.formlabs.com
