Formlabs: High Resolution 3D Printer

http://www.formlabs.com/

by samwillis • 14 years ago

191 111 14 years ago

jws4• 14 years ago

The call to action link says: "Pre-Order on Kickstarter"

They must have not gotten the "Kickstarter is not a store" memo. They appear to be ready to pull the trigger on their manufacturing partners, so this is sort of a "how big should we make the first run?" type of kickstarter rather than a "let's create something awesome".

Details…

• Stereolithography printer (laser, not extruder)

• Much nicer than extruder style printers

• $2300-2700 for the machine depending on your precedence

• $140/liter for liquid resin

epicbuddy2• 14 years ago

I think it was a smart way to do it... they are using Kickstarter to take pre-orders and to encourage small contributions from those who want to support the effort but don’t necessarily need to buy a printer (by buying a t-shirt, a part printed from their machine, etc.)

VBprogrammer• 14 years ago

It might be a good idea, but Kickstarter have recently made it very clear that per-orders aren't why they exist. By accepting these per-order style Kickstarters they risk having people think of it as a store, which is bound to cause frustration when projects are delayed or cancelled and money is lost.

robbiep• 14 years ago

Yes first thing I noticed too.. How long will the cognitive dissonance last? Until toda when I backed a documentary I had only 'backed' things that I expected to receive goods from (including $120 on a product running 6 months late)

Saying one thing and acting another way can only last for so long... It would be a different thing if you could purchase an actual 'stake' in the company for your fee, however unfortunately US law doesnt allow this at the moment (or so I am told)- however it seems like the only way to make this fantastic concept (crowd sourced funding) a viable long term solution to a glaring problem is by making it more accountable and transparent in that sort of manner

jws4• 14 years ago

I've got no beef against the people using Kickstarter as a store to handle their initial production sizing. I think the branding and curation are valuable to me for locating these sorts of projects.

There is always a risk of unforeseen delays or even failure of the project, but that isn't unique to Kickstarter. Any tiny company that funds purchasing with pre-orders is offering the same dynamic, except they will go bankrupt instead of just sort of dissolve.

Eventually someone may have a large fraudulent project and flee with the money, but again, that isn't special. It happens in traditional companies too.

Perhaps eventually Kickstarter will need to have graduated oversight. If your project goes over six figures you must convince someone at Kickstarter that you aren't blowing smoke. If it goes over seven figures you have to pay for a Kickstarter supplied auditor to whom you must show progress for incremental payment releases.

mtgx• 14 years ago

The layers seem to be 25 micron vs 100 micron for the Replicator 2, although I'm not sure what they mean by the 300 micron resolution:

http://formlabs.com/pages/our-printer

http://store.makerbot.com/replicator2.html

bradleysmith2• 14 years ago

I operate an Objet Connex260 that also has separate resolutions for the X/Y Axis, and the Z-axis 'layer thickness'. Objet specs it at '600 dpi' in the X/Y axes, and '1600 dpi' in the Z axis. http://objet.com/sites/default/files/C260_A4_il_en_lowres.pd...

As it was explained to me by objet, the X/Y resolution is the size of the individual droplets of resin that can be laid down by the Connex's digital print heads. They are larger than the thickness of each layer, therefore the resolution is better in the Z-axis than in the X & Y.

In Formlabs case, I would imagine this is the 'width' or diameter of their laser. The way I read it, the smallest cured point they can produce in a layer is 300 microns, or 0.3mm.

The Formlabs printer does look well polished, but I don't think it is 'disrupting 3D printing'. the B9 Creator* is in the same price range with higher resolution, and may have the ability to include multi-material printing eventually. I believe resin may be cheaper for the B9, too. *http://shop.b9creator.com/?pn=B9Creator+-+KIT&p=621&...

[EDIT] include link to B9

gavanwoolery• 14 years ago

This might be a kind of dumb idea, but I would love it if somebody created a Kickstarter project to create a manufacturing and distribution plant for Kickstarter projects...(obviously, would require a huge investment for all of the machining equipment).

chime• 14 years ago

I don't think it would work in exactly the same way you are describing but there may be alternatives. Manufacturing equipment is very expensive and the only way to justify the cost is to keep it running daily, sometimes 24/7/365. The change parts for each unique product are also quite expensive (easily $10k+). If I want to open a KickManufacturing plant, I have to buy/maintain/service hundreds of different kinds of equipment which includes the cost of the hardware, software, and technicians. On top of that, each new product will barely have 10k - 100k units ordered if I'm lucky. After that the change parts are useless. The other problem with this is the manufacturing equipment that can do lots of different configurations is slower, error-prone, and more expensive than specialized equipment that does just one thing. So if one of the Kickstarter products does become a success and they want 100m units, you need to buy new equipment or source a better large-scale manufacturer. And worst of all, most of the equipment will be collecting dust 95% of the time unless someone has just the right Kickstarter project for them.

What most entrepreneurs spend their time between getting funded and beginning shipment is finding the right manufacturer who can allocate runtime on their lines. The manufacturers lose money when the lines aren't running. The entrepreneurs get delayed when the lines are busy. This is a very complex B2B market that has no current solution. If someone solves this problem, we can have significantly better fulfillment of Kickstarter orders.

Such a site would have manufacturers periodically uploading capacities and capabilities of their equipment, warehouse/distribution resources, and costs associated with each line/product-type by time/quality. The entrepreneurs would be able to book the best-fit manufacturer (be it in US, China, or Norway) and pay a reservation-fee to the manufacturer which sits in escrow pending successful contract. The reservation-fee would be high enough to deter fake orders and be credited towards the actual product order. The site could fund itself by collecting interest on the escrow or charging per new B2B relation.

michaelbuckbee• 14 years ago

I think a first step would be a service (maybe even just run by Kickstarter) that would handle the printing and shipping of T-Shirts.

In every post-mortem of a Kickstarter project I hear the project owners lamenting how much more time and effort it took to handle sending rewards out than they had anticipated.

HeyLaughingBoy2• 14 years ago

Actually, I'm waiting for someone to create the Kickstarter that people seem to think Kickstarter is: a way to get pre orders for a new product.

I mean seriously, there are a lot of people using Kickstarter for this and now they've explicitly said that's not what it's for. So, Entrepreneurial Opportunity. There's obviously a lot of people who need this kind of "pre-order aggregator" service. So when will a motivated HN'er build it and rake in the bucks :-)

bbbertie• 14 years ago

Related, but a different aspect of product design: http://www.quirky.com/

brennannovak• 14 years ago

There was a really great project called Maker Factory that was geared towards this http://makerfactory.com seemed to never quite get the community it needed to take off

mibbitier• 14 years ago

First thing I noticed as well. "pre-Order on kickstarter" screams out "This is a scam!!!! You'll never get anything".

I've never understood why anyone would give anything via kickstarter. A "donate now" paypal button would probably be less scammy.

jws4• 14 years ago

Fully funded in under 12 hours. 708 hours to go.

For something that is ready to enter manufacturing I think a pre-order model is appropriate. I'd be alarmed if someone used those words on an idea or something in the middle of the prototyping process.

A "donate now" button for a commercial venture is an instant and permanent red flag for me.

mapster• 14 years ago

I think you actually pre-order one, so you are getting something for your investment.

pranjalv123• 14 years ago

However, the build volume (5"x5") is significantly smaller than most FDM printers, and it's significantly slower, as I understand.

alesman2• 14 years ago

It is much faster to position a laser spot than it is to move an extruder head. As you would expect though there is a trade-off between resolution and layer thickness vs. print speed since more layers/raster lines need to be used.

sowhata• 14 years ago

"Pre-Order on Kickstarter"

While this may not be within the stated KS rules, as an idea this sounds useful.

The main obstacle with many overseas factory-made cheap electronics projects is indeed "how big should we make the first run?"

Is this not a problem we need to solve? Look at the Raspberry Pi.

For the entrepreneur, maybe "let's manufacture something awesome" requires pre-orders. Maybe it requires committments.

We need some better way to connect consumers, entrepreneurs and factories.

Maybe KS is not it, but isn't it something we should look toward?

epicbuddy2• 14 years ago

This looks amazing. I have been waiting for this... the quality is top notch! What a deal too :)

curtin• 14 years ago

In the comparison photos, is the poor quality one from something like a MakerBot? Maybe I've never seen a close-up photo before, but I always thought they created higher quality than that.

nervous_jessica• 14 years ago

it's an issue of the size. makerbots can print nice looking things but not that small. the objects being compared are the size of a quarter.

jws4• 14 years ago

Yes it is. Extruded pieces can be pretty gnarly. This is exacerbated at small feature sizes, which is what you see here, especially on the birdcage which is about 3cm tall. To be fair, most people would clean that birdcage up a bit before showing it to anyone.

Most of the objects you see on the page have been cleaned up. For instance, over the "Accessories - Form Finish kit:" heading you see a part that hasn't had its temporary supports removed. The bracelet is a little furry on the bottom. It looks much better near the top of the page where it shows in a montage after cleaning.

replicatorblog6• 14 years ago

That birdcage was actually pre-cleaned to make it look as good as possible.

replicatorblog6• 14 years ago

The "Coil Pot" look is the norm for any device using fused filament fabrication.

samwillis• 14 years ago

It will be interesting to watch 3D Systems share price today. JP Morgan issued a statement yesterday that they thought Formlabs might pose a significant risk to them.

https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:DDD

Down 2% already in just 5 min!

debacle• 14 years ago

Everything's down >1% this morning. Stocks that are less proven will be more volatile. I'm not sure you can put any credence to that price change and blame it on Formlabs' new announcement.

zzzeek• 14 years ago

maybe DDD will just buy them out.

briguy• 14 years ago

DDD is in a great position in a exploding market. They spend a lot of money on R&D...they could acquire this company in a heartbeat as they did Z-Corp and Huntsman in the past. Innovative companies like this help the overall Rapid Prototyping market move forward....DDD and SSYS are the big fish with distribution, service, infrastructure and the the capital ready to make sensible acquisitions. It would be a different story if this was a mature market with slowing growth and new uses were not being found for the technology everyday. It is conceivable that the way this technology is moving forward, we will be printing Clothing, Houses, Body Parts, etc. So there is a lot of room in this market....this is just the very beginning (OR I should say, the "end of the beginning" as the tech has been around for 20 years and now finally hitting the mainstream).

confluence2• 14 years ago

I don't think you get how the stock market works - short term linear news announcements do not indicate market translations. The stock market is the instantaneous auction price of ~100 market participants at any point in time - it can go in any direction for any reason.

For the vast majority of the time the stock market is stable until such a time as a whale moves markets and the feedback loop begins.

guiambros• 14 years ago

While I understand the gist your comment, you probably didn't read the link. This is exactly how the market works: traders don't have time to follow closely all the markets of all companies they are trading, so they will eat whatever canned news they get -- provided it came from a reputable source.

So when JP Morgan issues a memo saying "Formlabs ... could be a threat to incumbent 3D printer solutions at the low-end of the market in the near-term... First take: potential negative for DDD" - and in the exact same week that Wired published a cover page with Bre Pettis and his good-looking MakerBot Replicator 2... well, maybe it's time to lock in the 110% gains you had this year with DDD and move on...

cottonseed• 14 years ago

Can an expert in 3D printing compare this with, say, the MakerBot Replicator 2? How does the extruder technology compare with SL on resolution, hardness, speed of printing, etc?

tibbon2• 14 years ago

Lithography printing from what I've seen so far is significantly better than extruder tech. We have a Projet 1500 and an original Makerbot at my hackerspace (Columbus Idea Foundry). The Projet absolutely kills the makerbot for resolution and jitter. If you made a sphere on the projet, it will be pretty damn smooth. On the Makerbot (original) it will have a strong texture to it. No experience with Replicator 2.

Yet, its also around 10x as expensive to run (ABS is cheap, whereas the liquid stuff is expensive). It also takes a lot more room (there's separate machines for a drying/curing thing). The resolution on the Projet 1500 (which isnt the best one in the world, just what we have) is pretty limited at like 1024x768 since it uses a projector instead of a laser. I'm thinking the laser might allow for finer resolution, but I'm not sure.

Also, our Projet machine won't operate (like, at all) if its above 75F. Most of our hackerspace is un-airconditioned in a warehouse, so that just doesn't work. We had to get an AC and put it in an office. Extruder machines just don't care.

I haven't used the Replicator 2, but the replicator looks promising. At the same time, if the Formlabs ones does as it says, then its a HUGE move forward as its around 1/10th the price of something like our Projet 1500.

This looks pretty exciting initially. If I had the money- I'd consider buying one.

silasb• 14 years ago

I've been putting off going to Columbus Idea Foundry, but with all the cool tech there I might just have to get my membership.

replicatorblog6• 14 years ago

I put together a small comparison chart in this post: http://www.wired.com/design/2012/09/formlabs-creates-a-low-c...

slrelevant• 14 years ago

Looking at the Replicator2 specs vs Formlabs. I see that Makerbot lists layer height and XY resolution as 100 microns, while Formlabs has layer height as 25 microns, but XY as 300 microns. Does the improvement in layer height matter much when the XY resolution isn't as accurate? What I'm basically wondering is are you only as good your least accurate spec?

palebluedot• 14 years ago

I've seen some answers to your questions with regards to resolution, etc., but none to the part that is of interest to me: how does the PLA/ABS plastic of the Replicator 2/2X compare to the SLA, once printed, in terms of durability?

I've had SLA models professionally made, and they came with a warning to handle them gently, because they were brittle and not very strong (and, they were expensive).

Does anyone know, if you were to use the Form 1 for something like hobby robotics (i.e., outside of just design prototyping, but as a printer for parts), would it hold up well?

HeyLaughingBoy2• 14 years ago

There's an interesting discussion about the MakerBot 2 going on at Practical Machinist by people with considerably more manufacturing experience/knowledge than the average HN'er.

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general/3d-printing-mak...

BitMastro• 14 years ago

Similar price and technology of B9creator http://b9creator.com/ (also funded on kickstarter a few months ago), more info on the technology here https://code.google.com/p/lemoncurry/wiki/main

knowaveragejoe• 14 years ago

It seems the B9 is a tad more expensive and also requires self assembly. I'm not sure why but their site is also incredibly slow and a pain to use in some cases. With that said it does appear to have a higher resolution in the Z plane than the Form 1.

tocomment8• 14 years ago

Does anyone know how a photopolymer works chemically/molecularly? What is it about the UV light that makes it solidify?

sp3322• 14 years ago

OK this literally is quantum physics and the discovery was Nobel-prize material but it's not that hard to grasp so here's how it works :)

If you have a chemical reaction that requires a certain energy level, shining lots of light on it won't help much if each individual photon is below that energy level. Even if you have a really bright reddish light, each photon still only has a relatively low energy. On the other hand each UV photon has more energy than a red one, so they can add enough energy to cause a chemical reaction.

tocomment8• 14 years ago

So it just needs energy to solidify? Would heat also work?

So the molecules that it's made of up combine into new molecules that are solid? Do you know what the chemical reaction is?

tocomment8• 14 years ago

So has the FDM process hit it's resolution limits in something like Makerbot or is there still room for improvement? (I'm curious which process to bet on)

regularfry4• 14 years ago

With FDM, the fundamental limit (right now) is the viscosity and surface tension of the molten plastic. From memory, the Replicator 2 and the Ultimaker are hovering around that limit - you can make smaller motions with the print head, but the feature size you get won't really benefit.

With optical cure systems, in theory I think the limit is optical. In practice, there'll be unavoidable scattering at the focal point which will blur things a little, but I don't know exactly how much of a problem that is.

tocomment8• 14 years ago

Would you guys say this is a game changer?

replicatorblog6• 14 years ago

Yep - My company bought a $50K printer 6 years ago - this one is much better performance wise. The annual service contract for that one is $10K, so I could burn through a Form 1 per quarter and come out ahead.

This will change product development the way CMSs changed publishing.

tisme5• 14 years ago

You've been telling people to hold off buying a 3D printer from other manufacturers until this one was unveiled. But I don't get the impression this is in the product phase yet. There are some slick pictures and a nice presentation but nothing at all that indicates the thing actually exists in an about to ship state.

What exactly is the state of development of the formlabs product?

cdk• 14 years ago

Good job guys! The results look amazing and the device itself looks beautiful.

zafka• 14 years ago

I found this about 2 months ago: http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Laser-3D-Printer-Ste...

It looks to be the same technology without the refinements.

I got pretty excited and bought several of the components, but have yet to assemble them.

illinx• 14 years ago

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone know anything about the 3D printing tech used by http://www.shapeways.com/ ? Limited materials are the one thing holding me back from picking up a desktop 3D printer, so I'd like to learn more about their tech and what might be holding it back on the desktop. Their material selection is seriously impressive.

The Formlabs one looks promising and I love the design, but I just don't have any interest in printing PLA/resin.

maxerickson• 14 years ago

The materials pages discuss the various processes they use:

http://www.shapeways.com/materials

A lot of the processes involve replacing a temporary binder.

srlake• 14 years ago

This makes the Dimension 768 SST we just bought look like a dinosaur. Can't wait to get one of these on my desk.

podperson• 14 years ago

About what I paid for my first inkjet printer (because I couldn't afford a LaserWriter). Or another way of thinking about it -- rather than upgrading to an FX digital camera this generation, I can skip a generation, live with my insanely-good-but-not-that-insanely-good DX camera and get one of these.

Obviously, the whole "giving $3000 to someone and trusting them to deliver" thing is a bit of an issue, but presumably this means something like this is viable at something like the price of a good printer in 1992.

Hmmm.

uncoder0• 14 years ago

I wonder if calling it a 'Pre-order', on their site, gives customers a better case if they don't deliver.

benphelps• 14 years ago

http://3dhomemade.blogspot.com/

Any relation between the two projects? The design is quite similar.

ajross• 14 years ago

UV resin printers have been a popular research area in the DIY 3D printing community for the last year or two. There are a few more too. Most are based on DLP projectors with some hackery to remove the color filters (e.g. carefully snap off a hundred little pieces of glass from a rotating wheel) as I understand it, which makes them expensive and fragile for a individual. This is a situation where volume assembly of a complete device makes more sense than garage experimentation, so Formlabs' work looks promising to me.

tocomment8• 14 years ago

Any chance the resin/polymer will come down in price if this catches on?

Vivtek3• 14 years ago

I'd say that's almost inevitable.

patrickod2• 14 years ago

Or are we facing into another printer ink situation?

sbierwagen• 14 years ago

Why do programmers always assume every field is just like computing? Not everything gets cheaper.

Chemistry is a mature industry. Photopolymers are 50+ years old, and unpatented. There's no real reason to believe UV-cure resin will ever get much below $100/litre, which is a solid 10 times more expensive than ABS.

tocomment8• 14 years ago

It looks like it fills up a tray to do the print. Does it reuse what it doesn't solidify for future prints? (It would seem like a waste otherwise)

regularfry4• 14 years ago

It looks to me like it fills up enough to do a few layers, then refills, so any wastage should be minimal.

alesman2• 14 years ago

The tray is large enough to contain enough resin for roughly 12 hours of printing and all of the uncured resin can be reused for the next print.

mcantelon2• 14 years ago

Sad prediction: the future of 3D printing will be cheap printers [that require/are subsidized by] proprietary resins.

rm999• 14 years ago

I actually think it could be more extreme. The printer industry is the way it is because most people don't really need one, so customers skimp instead of optimizing for long-term usage. I predict even fewer people will need devoted 3D printers in their homes - especially if there are local versions at a place like staples/kinkos.

zemo• 14 years ago

that is, until we're printing food. The French Culinary Institute has been working on 3D food printers for years.

bduerst• 14 years ago

There are still some of us who remember HP :)

iamwil• 14 years ago

There are people working on machines that recycle plastics that you find around the house into filament you can use in an FDM printer.

rorrr• 14 years ago

That would be amazing. The amount of non-recyclable plastic that I throw away every day is insane. I feel horrible for the environment.

Mizza• 14 years ago

You might like this, then, a 'Lyman Extruder':

Instructions and Pictures: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:30642

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JebhbxgjBgA

Pellets, 3$ a pound on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p3984.m570.l1313&...

and to be sold commercially by LulzBot.

Plastic, not resin based, but people are still looking into doing cool stuff to solve the challenge you mention.

mcantelon2• 14 years ago

Inspiration? http://3dhomemade.blogspot.ca/

Open hardware kit for similar:

http://b9creator.com/

tocomment8• 14 years ago

I think it would be cool if future models included a FDM head too. That way you could build in circuits or use ABS as a cheap filler.

tocomment8• 14 years ago

After watching the video that may not be feasible. It looks like it's building the model top down, so extruded plastic would just fall? I was picturing it building from the bottom up so extruded plastic could rest on the previous layer.

Is there a chance that conductive resin could be used in the future for circuits?

31reasons• 14 years ago

What types of small businesses can be created using portable 3D printers ?

few comes to mind: 1. Custom toys

2. 3D self sculptures

3. Invention classes for kids

blhack• 14 years ago

I know of at least two groups doing custom sex toys with 3D printers.

brador• 14 years ago

Anyone know the state of 3d printing tech in China?

Is it popular among hackers there? Any cheap clones at market? Are they up to speed with US consumer 3d printing tech?

tisme5• 14 years ago

It would be really nice if they laid out how far they are on the road to making this 3D printer into an actual product.

When you pre-order something the money that you spend should go to manufacturing, the bill of materials, shipping, handling, warranty and so on. It should definitely not go into product development and process development. The reason for that is that those are very long phases with plenty of opportunity for trouble which may cause delays, price increases, large changes to the product and even aborted runs.

Pre-ordering a device from a company without a history of shipping product is a risky business.

Luc• 14 years ago

What 'regulatory approval' does it take to ship a printer to e.g. Europe? Is this to do with CE marks, or shipping chemicals or something? $300 per customer extra seems rather a lot.

ReadEvalPost• 14 years ago

I'm guessing has to do with the laser. From their FAQ: "Unfortunately, it is not safe to run the laser without the enclosure." Presumably it's powerful enough to fall under differing regulation in each country.

dragnink• 14 years ago

Great looking printer. I'm an owner of a B9, it seems the only disadvantage of the Formlabs if you can call it that is that the feature size can't be smaller than 300 microns. For any square, structural shapes the B9 has an advantage here as it can render x/y pixels down to 50 microns at the smaller build size and 100 micron pixels at the 4"x3"x8" envelope. In every other situation however, the laser of the Formlabs I'd think would have the ability to trace around any curved features with a higher level of precision as it's not limited by pixel density. SLA is a slower process as the laser has to fill in each layer until it can transfer to the next layer, whereas DLP projector-based tech cures an entire layer with each projection cycle. I think the B9 can do about an inch per hour depending on the properties of the resin formulation. Great to see you guys giving the monopolies some competition, don't sell out!

philippK• 14 years ago

There is also this project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/b9creations/b9creator-a-...

they also seem to make an optical 3d printer and seem to have actually shipped some of them already.

chromejs10• 14 years ago

I don't know about you but I'm extremely excited about this printer. I currently have a RepRap Prusa but it really is hard to match the quality of these kinds of printers. The only problem I see is that it sounds like they are also selling the resin for it and somehow figured out a way to make it cheaper than most. I'd worry about how long they'd be able to keep up with selling enough resin for everyone.

snogglethorpe• 14 years ago

"Windows or Mac"

No thanks.

Formlabs: High Resolution 3D Printer

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