Laser Stereolithography Explained

Remember when you were a kid you used to play around with modeling clay? Trying to make all kinds of shapes, and making a mess all over the floor? Now try making let's say an engine manifold using modeling clay. It's possible, but it takes a lot of time and it probably won't be

accurate. That was the old process of making prototype parts, but now there's an easier, and cooler, way of making them. Laser stereolithography.

Laser stereolithography, that's quite a mouthful. Luckily it can also be called 3d layering or 3d printing. It's the high tech way of using ultraviolet lasers to create solid models. It uses a clear, liquid form of plastic as a medium. This photopolymer, as it is called, hardens when it comes into contact with ultraviolet light. Since all of the process is computer-controlled, there is little room for error, unlike hand-carving.

3d printing also speeds up the model making

process. What used to take weeks, and even months, can now be done in just a few hours.

This method of making 3d objects has a lot of uses. But it's mostly used in the manufacturing industry to make prototype parts. Anything that can be drawn in any CAD program can be made 3 dimensional. So the time it takes from conceptualization to actualization is greatly decreased, thus making the design process more efficient.

Laser stereolithography is such a big jump from the previous method of hand-carving. This technology is a great help in manufacturing. Plus, anything that uses lasers is super cool!

Pros and Cons of Laser Stereolithography

Laser stereolithography, or 3d printing for short, is the process of making 3d objects using liquid polymer and a UV laser. The liquid Photopolymer is a plastic that will harden, or cure, once it is exposed to UV light.

This method of model-making is very practical. Not only can you make intricate designs using this process; the time spent is only a fraction of what it used to take. If the design can be drafted using a CAD program it can be modeled using 3d printing. And because the whole process is computer-controlled, there is no room for human error so the end products are really close to the envisioned design.

But though it is practical, 3d printing by no means inexpensive. The UV reactive photopolymer costs a lot of money, approximately $300 per gallon. And the whole Laser stereolithography machine can be worth close to half a million dollars.

But some enterprising companies nowadays offer 3d printing services that won't send you to the poorhouse. They only cost around $50 an hour, depending on the difficulty of the design. This is advantageous to small companies who don't have multi-million dollar R and D budgets.

Another drawback to 3d printing is the limited size of the object that can be made. Presently, only small parts can be made, just roughly the size of a two foot box. But advents in technology may one day permit large scale models of cars or houses to be made using 3d printing.