SeeMeCNC Droplit SLA kit



  • Would it be possible to increase the build size of this kit? Not worried about projector resolution or focusing from a further distance.

    Considering I'd probably only use very few pieces of the framing kit since I want to go a bit bigger, should I just piece out some of the smaller bits? Coming from a kossel printer I built from open source guides, I know a bunch about firmwares and boards, driver motors, etc for FDM printing. But I know nearly nothing for SLA mechanical parts, boards, and so on.


    Is there a good source for open source SLA builds like the google deltabots group?





  • I think if you want to go bigger I think it would be easier to either find a different kit, or build a machine from scratch. There's no easy way to expand the frame on the Droplit like you can on a RepRap. You might be able to gain a centimeter or two by cutting a larger aperture and using a big vat. The frame is most of the kit, so if you are not going to use it there's not much point in buying it.

    There's not a lot of information out there on DIY resin printers. If you find a good community, let me know. Mechanically, they are much simpler than FDM printers. The only moving part is the Z axis. They generally use a similar motor/leadscrew setup to cartesian machines. In the Droplit's case, the firmware is Grbl and the electronics consist of an Arduino Uno and the Grbl Shield. There's no reason you couldn't get it to run Marlin, though. As far as control software, the only option I've seen is Creation Workshop, which sucks. The B9 software is pretty good, and older versions of it are open source. Maybe someone could hack it to work with other machines.

    A while ago I backed the kickstarter for the Peachy Printer, which is kind of an ingenious little $100 SLA printer kit. Theoretically you could expand the build volume simply by using a larger bucket. Not sure how well that will work in practice, though. Also, we'll see if I ever even get the thing.

    Lastly, awesome avatar.


  • MatterHackers

    We were at CES last week and saw these guys: http://www.photocentricgroup.com/

    They appear to be a chemical compounding company that is using their resin as the technology. The machine is super simple. That said - simple is very easily scalable. They are using visible light (460 nm wavelength) to cure the resin and the lightsource is any LCD screen. The genius of this is that the screen - and therefore the technology platform - is very scalable and cheap. Nothing stopping you from having a simple Z axis and mounting a 52 in TV as the light source.

    Unproven as of yet - but could be interesting to keep an eye on. A liter of the resin is priced at about $65 per liter.


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