A fully automated resin 3D printing system has been set up.
In a LinkedIn post from Dimitar Hristakiev, he described an automated setup that can not only run a Formlabs 3D printer, but also all required post processing.
The design of the system is centred around a cobot that replaces human effort. Build plates are removed from the Formlabs 4BL when complete, and placed into the wash unit. After washing, the plate is taken over to another station where the prints are removed and dropped into a basket. The basket then moves to the UV curing unit for completion. Along the way, the cobot opens and closes doors, starts activity by pressing buttons and more.
Hristakiev explains:
“We designed custom baskets for part handling and built a gripper that works seamlessly across the entire process – from printer to washer to curing and storing.”
Evidently they were able to produce “728 complete dental sets” in a single day of operation of these two 3D printers and accessories.
This is quite an achievement, as it effectively reduces the human effort to picking up the completed parts and resupplying consumables like resin and IPA. The productivity gains must be enormous.
Imagine if this concept were scaled up to involve, say, a hundred 3D printers rather than just two. With the same metrics, those one hundred machines could produce 36,400 dental sets in a single day — or a million per month.
That is no longer low volume manufacturing; that’s mass manufacturing done by 3D print technology.
I’m wondering if companies like Formlabs might consider putting together a complete system like this that could be purchasable? Their competitor, Photocentric seems to be doing something similar with their JENI system. Could this be the way forward to take resin printing to mass manufacturing?
Via LinkedIn
