To be fair, there's nothing new in that. Even 20-odd years ago stereolithography could produce things that could not be made by any other method. Where it's getting useful now is that we're not limited by material properties and the surface finish is good enough that often the laborious hand-finishing of old is largely unnecessary. And that's roughly the point at which it starts to get useful and interesting for modelmakers.I've seen some of the stuff a big one can do in the laser labs at Loughborough University, and it is TRULY amazing.
REAL 3-D with even interior detail.
One was of a rook chess-piece, about 7" high, with stone walls including ivy, stonework, and a door, but the best was that it was translucent, and the door led to a spiral staircase to the roof!
The standard B9 Red resin is directly lost wax castable, but I've found that it isn't suitable for the small details required for model work, so I'm using a different one that captures detail beautifully, but can't be directly cast. I figure that it isn't too much of a problem, though.Formlabs are working on a castable resin, The present resins have been cast but leave a small amount of residue. As these resins have the mechanical properties of ABS, I will only cast those items that need the mechanical strength of brass.
On something much bigger, such as a smokebox, the stepping would be less of a problem. Due to the size of that particular piece of the axlebox, about 3.5mm diameter, each pixel on the machine is a large proportion of the part. The steps you can see could be reduced by operating the machine on its most detailed setting, but it reduces the size of the build area significantly, so I don't tend to bother.The axlebox above looks great, but look at the lines around the circular part at the top. I'm sure they are not a problem on the axlebox, but if you were printing (say) a smokebox with all rivets and other detail, then these lines all around the circumferance would be unacceptable and almost impossible to remove without damaging the detail.
No we don't, but if it does, as long as the original file is still sound and compatible with the programs used in the future, you can just print another oneI also have concerns about the life of the material used for printing. Do we know for sure that it will not shrink, warp or deteriorate in 10, 20 or 50 years?
There has been an interesting thread on Form Users site where the jewelers have been experimenting with mixes of B9 resins in the Form 1. Initial enthusiasms have been blunted by the continuing issue of residue in the cavity in the investment. The B9 resin cures at a slightly different wavelength to the Form 1 laser. Formlabs are more than aware that the community wants a cast-able resin. I would prefer to see a ceramic metal resin to avoid casting altogether.The standard B9 Red resin is directly lost wax castable
With the resin that I'm using at the moment, it's excellent. Here's an example of the calibration model that I knocked up to see what kind of features it cope with.How is the B9 on flat surfaces with sharp corners?