I'll be needing one of these!

Is that a Stereolithography machine?

I'd love to have one of those. They have come a long way over the years. I remember when they were just basically a part made out of cornmeal. :lol:

Now they're progressing to where they may be able to even do metal parts that have the same strength as cast parts. Amazing.
 
there is a joke somewhere here about a blonde one of these machines and some play douh...I just cant quite put my hands on it....
 
Blaze said:
Is that a Stereolithography machine?
Click to expand...

Don't think so. IIRC, they involve the use of a laser to "solidify" layers (.020"-.035" thick) within a block of gel to make a "rapid prototype" of a previously virtual design. An engineer bud I've done some work for used to have it done to "rough out" replacement vertebrae, joints, etc. for medical customers. The layers gave it a very "lego" like texture (not smooth) so they only used it to insure dimensional specs before being CNC'd out of some spaceage alloy.

That machine appears to build ("print") the part bay adding layers (appears to be very precise) of ABS plastic.

Edit: Yeap, a bit different
 
It is all SLA, just different types. I've done several types before, and got to know the owner of a rapid prototyping place pretty well a few years back.

The stuff they could do was awesome, they even had one that had a thin nickel coating that looked like metal. I even powdercoated a few pieces for them.

They even opened an online ordering service: http://www.printapart.com/
 
ECU has a printer very similar to that one. We made some parts for the mini baja buggy a couple years ago with it.

very cool
 
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