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The Formlabs project is unlike the other projects you have mentioned. Most hobbyist level 3D printers rely on extrusion (also known as fused deposition modelin
by elliotanderson 14y ago
The Formlabs project is unlike the other projects you have mentioned.
Most hobbyist level 3D printers rely on extrusion (also known as fused deposition modeling) - heating up a spool of soft plastic (such as PLA) and extruding it out of a print head similar to how a desktop printer works. The Formlabs project is using a technique called stereolithography (1) where each layer is created by printing a layer of material (again, similar to a desktop printer) that is then cured by a laser (usually ultraviolet). It's a technique that allows for higher resolution objects to be created
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_deposition_modeling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_deposition_modeling
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereolithography
- shashashasha 14y agoI should have refreshed the page before stopping to write my comment, you've explained it much better :)
- robomartin 14y agoI understand the difference. We've used big-boy SLA a bunch to print mechanical prototypes. I was just pointing out that this is a displacement market (SLA or not) and that over three million dollars just left the market because of Kickstarter/Formlabs. At least that's what it probably looks like from 3D Systems' vantage point.