Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Carbon3D CLIP Fabrication




"Any sufficiently advanced technology
 is indistinguishable from magic."

Last week, I was watching a TED talk which made me think of the quote above, by the great Arthur C. Clarke.

The presentation was by Joseph DeSimone, the CEO of Carbon3D. He was demonstrating a new approach to 3-D printing, that was inspired by the T-1000 "liquid Terminator" from the Terminator 2 movie.



He was showing Carbon3D's innovative technique, called CLIP- "Continuous Liquid Interface Production".



Instead of laying down layer after layer of plastic material, like current 3D printers, Carbon3D CLIP technology uses a pool of liquid resin or polymer. A tray is slowly raised out of the polymer, while a combination of oxygen & ultraviolet light are used to cure the material as it is continually lifted out of the liquid. The process is controlled by software that directs the UV light to cure specific areas as the object is being formed.

The effect is definitely magical when you see it, because it appears that the object is being spontaneously created from a liquid puddle.

In addition to being faster than traditional 3-D printing, it is also a sturdier way to fabricate objects, since there are no striated layers that form weak points in the material.

This new technology has the potential to not only revolutionize 3-D printing, but manufacturing & fabrication on a mass scale.

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