Acuity of 3d printing machines

Clarence3815

Western Thunderer
I was told some years ago that the McLaren F1 team had equipment that could print to 1 micron accuracy.

I thought I was having my leg pulled.

Anyone know what can be achieved?

Bernard
 

michael080

Western Thunderer
morning Bernard,

I guess 1 µm accuracy is achievable, but 1 µm resolution is not.

Accuracy basically means that a points can be set within 1µm of its true target point.
Resolution is the size of the smallest piece of material that can be placed. The laser focus point won't be much smaller than 5 µm, so the smallest possible volume of material is about that size.

Michael
 

Brian McKenzie

Western Thunderer
Exaddon, based in Glattbrugg, Switzerland printed these rather amazing 'David' statues in copper.

Product - CERES Print System | Exaddon AG
Their CERES system prints tiny objects with nanometer resolution, in sizes from 1 µm to up to 1000 µm

3D printed David statue1mm and 0.1mm tall.jpg

The 0.1mm tall example at right might be one way of illustrating Michael's point about the difference between accuracy and resolution.

-Brian M.
 
A

Arun

Guest
One of the problems is that what we call 3D printing actually isn't. It is actually 2.5D!
The reason is that whilst the print head/LED moves/scans continuously in the X & Y axes, the Z axis [vertical bed movement] is a finite step. What is currently under development is a continually moving bed for SLA printers. That doesn't exist yet but there is an interim halfway house [a sort of 2.6D printer] where the print bed rotates and that, in my experience, quite dramatically removes the stratification on models with spherical surfaces.
I've just had the 7mm Bedford RL cab printed on a Stratasys J55 agency printer and for a vehicle cab with multiple curved surfaces, there was almost no cleaning up of stratification to do.
These are very expensive machines and because of their being a 'work in progress', available only to commercial agencies. However, the quality of agency output continually improves and the true 3D SLA printer is (I am told) in sight.
 

Brian McKenzie

Western Thunderer
Another amazing example of 3D printing at the nano-end of the scale - but presumably mega in cost. The good thing is that it suggests there is still plenty of scope to improve the technology at our hobby level to the eventual satisfaction of all.

Skip to 1:10 of this short video if need be.
 
Top