Voxel 3d printers

Formlabs 3D printers @ Voxel Factory

Why SLA / LFS (Liquid resin)?

FINE DETAILS - SMOOTH SURFACE - HIGH TEMP

Why Formlabs?

Innovation is what really distinguishes Formlabs from the competition. With new resins, improved formulas, advanced and connected software, Formlabs always remains impressive. cULus certification is CSA compliant and is valid everywhere in Canada, Europe and USA.

Why Voxel Factory?

Voxel Factory is a Formlabs CERTIFIED SERVICE & SUPPORT PARTNER. Get a FREE 3-hour hands-on workshop in Vancouver, Montreal or online with any Formlabs 3D printer purchased at Voxel Factory. Formlabs being our favourite SLA 3D printing solution, all Formlabs 3D printers, materials and parts are in stock and ready to ship or pickup at any time. 

Request a quote at service@voxelfactory. com or 1-877-360-2159

or simply scroll below for more information about a Formlabs solution at Voxel Factory.

Formlabs 3D printers (Form 2, Form 3 and Form 3L)

Formlabs Form 3, Form 3L, Wash & Cure

The Form 3 & Form 3L delivers high-resolution parts at a fraction of the cost and footprint of industrial 3D printers. Scale your prototyping and production in-house with desktop stereolithography.

For the best results and mechanical properties, all SLA parts require IPA rinsing and post-curing. Form Wash and Form Cure streamline and automate post-processing of Form 3 prints. Consistently produces high-quality results with less time and effort.

The complete Formlabs SLA / LFS solution

Formlabs Form 3+ LFS 3D Printer

$5,138.00

Formlabs Form 3B+ Biocompatible LFS 3D Printer

$5,890. 00

Formlabs Form Wash for Form 2 & 3

$891.00

Formlabs Form Cure for Form 2 & 3

$1,028.00

Formlabs Form 3, Wash and Cure are in stock at Voxel Factory in Canada and shipping from the nearest office. No custom fees, no worries.

Shop Formlabs 3D printers and Post-processing Wash & Cure

Formlabs resins

Formlabs materials

With the best materials science team in the industry, Formlabs is constantly developing new additions to their library of advanced resins. Their materials are designed specifically for the Form 3 to deliver functional parts with a smooth surface finish that look like, feel like, and work like a final product.

An insight of the wide range of Formlabs materials

Sale

Formlabs Form 2 & 3 Flexible Resin 1L

$124. 00 $225.00

Formlabs Form 2 & 3 Clear Resin 1L

$204.00

Formlabs Form 2 & 3 Color Kit 800mL

$240.00

Formlabs Form 2 & 3 Durable Resin 1L

$273.00

Formlabs Form 2 & 3 High Temp Resin v2 1L

$273.00

Formlabs Tough 2000 Resin 1L

$273.00

Formlabs Form 2 & 3 Flexible 80A Resin 1L

$273.00

Formlabs ESD Resin 1L

$314.00

Standard resins, tough, durable, flexible, high temp, castable wax and rigid etc... Formlabs keeps adding more and more materials to its wide range of resins and Voxel Factory keeps them all in stock.

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Formlabs parts

Formlabs parts

When it comes to consumables, you want to deal with a local supplier that ships as fast as you order.

The essentials part to operate your Form 2 3D printer

Formlabs Form 2 & 3 Build Platform

$136.00

Formlabs Form 2 Resin Tank LT

$136.00

Formlabs Form 2 Resin Tank

$81.00

Voxel Factory carries all the parts available from Formlabs in Montréal and Vancouver.

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PreForm software

Formlabs PreForm software

PreForm prepares your 3D models for printing on your Formlabs printer, giving you the freedom to focus on creating. Get your model ready in minutes, upload to your printer, and let it build.

PreForm's One-Click Print offers an option for automatically orienting, supporting, and laying out your models. Sending your print is quick and convenient. You can select multiple printers and easily upload your print with PreForm's wireless connectivity feature.

Now supporting 5 languages: English, German, French, Japanese, and Chinese.

More about Formlabs preForm software

Service & support

Service & support

Formlabs 3D printers, Wash & Cure are covered by a 12-month warranty on parts and labour (extendable to 24 months)

A Voxel Factory certified technician will take care of warranty repair and maintenance

3D Printing service

SLA 3D printing services available at Voxel Factory

Contact us for more informations !

[email protected]

What is a voxel in 3D printing?

Home > Latest Articles > What is a voxel in 3D printing?

March 7, 2018 By Leslie Langnau Leave a Comment

New words, or words with new definitions, pop up regularly in the 3D printing industry. One of the latest words is Voxel.

According to Wikipedia, “a voxel represents a value on a regular grid in three-dimensional space. These values are frequently used in the visualization and analysis of medical and scientific data.”

According to the dictionary, the term voxel is “commonly used in computer-based modeling and graphic simulation. This voxel is an array of elements of volume that constitute a notional three-dimensional space, especially each of an array of discrete elements into which a representation of a three-dimensional object is divided.”

And, according to others, voxel is a takeoff of the word Pixel. Pixels are a common term in photography. Pixels are the dots that are printed (or emit light) at a specific number per inch (“dpi”), at a specific size, and with a specific color. The 3D analog of pixel is “voxel,” where a voxel has depth and a pixel is more of a two-dimensional reference.

Then HP introduced its first 3D printer—the Multi-Jet Fusion 3D printer. This printer enabled designers to individually address volume elements HP labeled “voxels. ”

What’s the importance of addressing individual bits of powder 3D printing build material? According to HP, it enables designers to control the physical properties of each voxel. Thus, designers can decide properties such as strength, look, feature detail, and so on at any and every voxel point.

According to HP, voxels form a thin layer that is a slice of a part’s cross-section, and many such layers are stacked to form an object.

Specifying the properties of each voxel defines a 3D-printed part point-by-point over its surfaces and within its volume.

With the HP printer, a voxel is either fused or not—this is a reference to agents HP adds to the print material during an object build. The agents give the built parts a range of physical and functional properties, and even color.

The added agents are known as Fusing and Detailing Agents. They control the fusing of selected voxels and the edges between fused and unfused regions in each layer.

Another agent is known as a Transforming Agent. It imparts mechanical and physical properties within and across a single part or among separate parts printed simultaneously in the build unit.

Transforming Agents control the interaction of the Fusing and Detailing Agents with each other as well as modify the properties of the fused material. By depositing Transforming Agents voxel-by-voxel, designers can produce parts that cannot be made by other methods.

The Transforming Agents can deliver:

–Dimensional accuracy and detail

–Control surface roughness, texture, and friction coefficient

–Deliver greater tensile strength, elasticity, hardness, and other material properties

–Add electrical and thermal conductivity properties to an object

–Control opacity or translucency in plastics

— Add color: embedded and at the surface

Filed Under: FAQs

3D printer comparison in 2020

A variety of 3D printing technologies are available on the market today. Getting to know the nuances of each helps you understand what you can expect from the final models and decide which technology is right for you.

Stereolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP) are the two most common 3D printing technologies using resins. 3D printers that use resin as consumables have become very popular due to their ability to produce highly accurate, isotropic and waterproof prototypes and models with high detail and smooth surfaces.

While these technologies used to be complex and prohibitively expensive, today's compact desktop SLA and DLP printers produce industrial quality parts at an affordable price and offer tremendous application flexibility through a wide range of materials.

Both of these processes selectively expose liquid polymer to a light source: an SLA laser, a DLP projector, forming very thin, hard layers of plastic that fold into a solid object. Although the principle of operation of these technologies is very similar, they can give significantly different results.

In this detailed guide, we will explain the features of these two 3D printing processes and see how they differ in terms of resolution, accuracy, print volume, speed, workflows, etc.

sample print

printing from my own experience. We will send a free sample of the Formlabs stereolithographic 3D printed model directly to your office.

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Desktop stereolithography 3D printers contain a resin tank with a transparent bottom and a non-adhesive surface that serves as a base for the liquid resin to solidify, allowing the newly formed layers to be gently peeled off.

The printing process begins with the platform lowered into the resin tank, leaving a free space corresponding to the height of the layer between the platform or the last finished layer and the bottom of the tank. The laser beam is fed to two mirror galvanometers, with the help of which it enters the desired coordinates on a series of mirrors. This allows a focused beam of light to be fed upwards through the bottom of the tank, under the influence of which the polymer layer hardens.

Then the hardened layer is separated from the bottom of the tank, and the platform rises higher, and liquid polymer enters the freed space. This process is repeated until printing is complete.

The Form 3 and Form 3L Low Force Lithography (LFS) stereolithography technology is a new step in the development of stereolithographic 3D printing.

In LFS-based 3D printers, the optical components are located in the Light Processing Unit (LPU). Inside the LPU, a galvanometer positions the high-density laser beam in the y-direction, passes it through a spatial filter, and directs it into a deflecting and parabolic mirror to ensure that the beam always remains perpendicular to the plane of the platform, ensuring print accuracy and reproducibility.

As the LPU moves in the X direction, the printed model is gently separated from the flexible bottom of the tank, which greatly reduces the forces on the models during the printing process.

LFS-based 3D printing greatly reduces the stress placed on parts during the printing process by using a flexible reservoir and linear illumination to deliver incredible surface quality and print accuracy.

This advanced stereo lithography technology features higher surface quality and print accuracy. The lower print tear force also allows the creation of lightweight support structures that can be detached without force, and the method itself opens up great opportunities for the further development of advanced production-ready materials. Learn more about stereolithographic 3D printing

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Download our in-depth white paper to learn how SLA printing works, why thousands of professionals use it today, and how this 3D printing technology can help your work.

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Desktop DLP printers use a resin tank with a transparent bottom and a platform that descends into the tank to layer upside down models. In this they are no different from stereolithographic 3D printers.

The difference between them is the light source. DLP-based 3D printers use a digital screen to project the image of the layer onto the entire platform, causing all the desired dots to solidify at the same time.

Light is reflected on a digital micromirror screen (DMD), a dynamic mask consisting of microscopic mirrors that are located in a matrix on a semiconductor chip. The rapid switching of these tiny mirrors between lenses that direct light to the bottom of a tank or radiator determines the coordinates at which the liquid polymer must solidify in order to form the current layer.

Because the projector is a digital screen, each layer's image is made up of square pixels, resulting in a three-dimensional layer of rectangular cubes called voxels.

When it comes to 3D printer specifications, resolution is the focus, but it often leads to confusion. The basic units of the SLA and DLP processes are different forms, making it difficult to compare printers by numbers alone.

In 3D printing, there are three dimensions to consider: two planar 2D dimensions (X and Y) and a third vertical Z dimension, which is used for 3D printing.

The resolution of the Z measurement is determined by the thickness of the layer that the 3D printer can print. Printers based on SLA and DLP technology have one of the best Z resolutions of any other process, allowing you to print layers with minimal thickness. Typically, users can set the layer height to between 25-300µm, allowing developers to trade-off between level of detail and speed.

In DLP printers, XY resolution is determined by the pixel size, the smallest detail that the projector can reproduce in a single layer. It depends on the resolution of the projector (the most common is Full HD (1080p)) and its distance from the optical glass. Therefore, most desktop DLP printers have a constant XY resolution of 35 to 100 microns.

In stereolithographic 3D printers, the XY resolution is determined based on the size of the laser spot and the number of steps that can be used to control the beam. For example, a Form 3 3D printer based on LFS technology has a laser with a spot size of 85 μm, but due to the constant line scanning process, the laser can move at a smaller step, and the printer can consistently print models with an XY resolution of 25 μm.

Resolution itself is often only an indicator of vanity. It gives some idea of ​​the performance, but does not necessarily directly correspond to the accuracy and quality of the print.

Learn more about resolution in 3D printing in our detailed guide.

Since 3D printing is an additive process, violations can potentially occur in every layer. The process of forming layers affects the level of accuracy and correctness of each layer. Accuracy and accuracy depend on many factors: 3D printing process, materials, software settings, post-processing, etc.

In general, SLA and DLP printers are among the most accurate. Differences in print accuracy are often more noticeable between printers from different manufacturers than between the technologies themselves.

For example, entry-level SLA or DLP printers may use off-the-shelf projectors, lasers, or galvanometers, and their manufacturers strive to achieve optimum performance from these parts. Professional SLA and DLP printers (such as Formlabs Form 3) have a special optical system that is adjusted according to the needs of users.

Precision is critical for parts such as mouth guards (left) and surgical guides (right).

Precision is critical for parts such as mouth guards (left) and surgical guides (right).

Equally important is calibration. When using DLP projectors, manufacturers face uneven distribution of light on the platform and optical lens distortion, which means that the size and shape of the pixels in the middle and at the edges are different. Stereolithographic 3D printers use the same light source for all parts of the model, ensuring uniformity, but they still need to be carefully calibrated to avoid distortion.

Even a 3D printer with the best components and the best degree of calibration can produce different results depending on the consumables used. Resin parameters have to be changed to ensure the best quality, but they may not be available for new materials that have not been properly tested with the appropriate 3D printer model.

What conclusion can be drawn from this? Knowing only the technical characteristics, it is impossible to get a complete picture of the quality. The best way to evaluate a 3D printer is to study the models printed on it or ask the manufacturer to make a test model for your project.

DLP printers have an inverse relationship between resolution and working volume. The resolution depends on the projector, which determines the number of pixels/voxels available. If you move the projector closer to the optical glass, the pixels will become smaller and the resolution will increase, but the working area will be limited.

Some manufacturers install multiple projectors side by side or use a 4K high-definition projector to increase the working area, but this increases the cost significantly. The price of such models is much higher than other desktop 3D printers.

Therefore, DLP printers are usually optimized for specific purposes. Some of them have a smaller workspace and allow you to produce in high resolution such small and detailed models as jewelry, while others can print larger parts, but with a lower resolution.

The stereolithography process is inherently more scalable because the print volume of an SLA printer is independent of model resolution. A single model can be of any size and resolution, and can be placed anywhere on the workspace. This allows you to print large high-resolution 3D models or large batches of finely detailed models to increase printer performance.

Another hurdle to increasing print volume in both SL and DLP printers is the release force. When printing large models, the forces applied to them increase exponentially as the cured layer separates from the reservoir.

With LFS printing, the flexible film at the base of the resin reservoir gently peels off when the platform pulls the model up, greatly reducing stress on the model. This unique feature has dramatically increased print volume in the first affordable large-format stereolithography printer, the Form 3L.

Form 3L is the first affordable 30 x 33.5 x 20cm large format 3D lithography 3D printer. compared to solutions based on other technologies. When we talk about differences, in most cases they are only visible on very small parts and models with a high degree of detail.