A few points to consider when building a commercial machine
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 7:23 pm
I think there is still room for good printers in the SLA printer market. I know of a few more machine that are going to be coming up this year, and I really believe that it is a matter of offering a good machine at a good price. There are several important factors to consider:
1) Good price point - The machine has to be inexpensive enough to attract lots of sales. It also must be inexpensive for the vendor (you) to manufacture and still have a good profit margin. Carefully going over each and every part and sub-assembly for price /quality is important. This ties heavily into the design. Laser systems are usually more inexpensive than a DLP or LCD system.
2) Print resolution - Laser based systems have a hard time comparing to DLP systems for print resolutions. An average target goal is 100 micron, or approximately 10 pixels per mm for DLP-based machines. Some machines coming into the market this year will be targeting 25-50 microns x/y.
3) Print size - For some applications like jewelry making or dental construction, a smaller build size of 100mm x 76mm is fine. Other applications require larger build size, but lower x/y resolution, that's fine too. What almost everyone wants is a larger build size and higher resolution.
4) Print speed - For some, this is an important factor in purchasing a machine, for others, this is secondary to x/y resolution or platform size. In my opinion, laser-based systems will always be slower than a mask-based system such as a DLP or LCD, because a mask-based system can expose an entire slice at a time, while lasers must go through a scanning process.
5) Extras - Will the machine print without a computer attached? Can it act as a print server? Touchscreen interface? Is the software user interface simple to use? Do you have a support forum and user based established for people to help each other? What sets your machine apart from others? Price? Speed? Resolution? Cost?
Note that based on the technology used, some of these points are mutually exclusive of each other. What I came up with (and I know at least 1 commercial machine is pursuing) is a pico-projector mounted on an x/y linear assembly. This allows the pico-projector to maintain a 25-100 micron x/y resolution. The pico-projector can move along the x/y linear system and expose different portions of the slice onto the vat. The vat can be arbitrarily large. This is a good trade-off between size and print speed. Additionally, a pic-projector may have a much lower price than a larger high-res DLP projector, but requires more modifications to work.
Also note that some laser systems can have higher resolution/speed that what I indicated here.
You should have an idea about which kind of market you're attempting to cater towards before building a machine.
1) Good price point - The machine has to be inexpensive enough to attract lots of sales. It also must be inexpensive for the vendor (you) to manufacture and still have a good profit margin. Carefully going over each and every part and sub-assembly for price /quality is important. This ties heavily into the design. Laser systems are usually more inexpensive than a DLP or LCD system.
2) Print resolution - Laser based systems have a hard time comparing to DLP systems for print resolutions. An average target goal is 100 micron, or approximately 10 pixels per mm for DLP-based machines. Some machines coming into the market this year will be targeting 25-50 microns x/y.
3) Print size - For some applications like jewelry making or dental construction, a smaller build size of 100mm x 76mm is fine. Other applications require larger build size, but lower x/y resolution, that's fine too. What almost everyone wants is a larger build size and higher resolution.
4) Print speed - For some, this is an important factor in purchasing a machine, for others, this is secondary to x/y resolution or platform size. In my opinion, laser-based systems will always be slower than a mask-based system such as a DLP or LCD, because a mask-based system can expose an entire slice at a time, while lasers must go through a scanning process.
5) Extras - Will the machine print without a computer attached? Can it act as a print server? Touchscreen interface? Is the software user interface simple to use? Do you have a support forum and user based established for people to help each other? What sets your machine apart from others? Price? Speed? Resolution? Cost?
Note that based on the technology used, some of these points are mutually exclusive of each other. What I came up with (and I know at least 1 commercial machine is pursuing) is a pico-projector mounted on an x/y linear assembly. This allows the pico-projector to maintain a 25-100 micron x/y resolution. The pico-projector can move along the x/y linear system and expose different portions of the slice onto the vat. The vat can be arbitrarily large. This is a good trade-off between size and print speed. Additionally, a pic-projector may have a much lower price than a larger high-res DLP projector, but requires more modifications to work.
Also note that some laser systems can have higher resolution/speed that what I indicated here.
You should have an idea about which kind of market you're attempting to cater towards before building a machine.