Community Poll:
What has a better future in 3D printing? SLA or SLS?
For me, it’s SLA.
Look at the Objet for example, 127 different materials! (Granted its not textbook SLA, it’s still photopolymerization of a resin but via inkjet)
Multiple materials, high resolution and can handle complex geometries.
SLS is useful in terms of metals, but can there be an SLA compatible metal? (Just thinking out loud)
SLA seems like it’ll have a lower introductory price point, but the chemicals can be quite noxious. The lower price point might be all it takes to be the more successful method though. SLS is nice in that you have a wider range of materials, no need for support material, etc.j
Another benefit of sls: you can fit more parts into a given print because you can use the entire build volume.
All of them. Prices will go down such that each manufacturing technology can be applied as needed.
As an engineer, I’d see SLS as the more potent printing method since it can process metals and create functional parts that could otherwise not be made. Open-source SLA, on the other hand, can produce very precise parts and is therefore useful for actual prototyping of injection molded parts, but not so much for things that are the finished product.
Re: SLA metals
Obviously, metals are not resins, and are not subject to photopolymerization. This means that the SLA process with not work with metals, at least not as a one-step process.
Investment casting is the obvious solution. If you can burn an SLA part out of a mold the way you can with wax/PLA/ABS, you can turn it into a metal (or glass) part.
When you order steel parts from shapeways, they actually aren’t SLS parts. They use a powder/binder system, to glue a steel powder together. The delicate, porous objects this produces are then infused with molten bronze (in effect, essentially braising the particles together). It may turn out to be possible to do this using an SLA resin with a metal filler, with the heat of the infusing metal burning out and immediately replacing the binder, though it will obviously be a tricker process than doing this type of infusion with a porous part made with one of the powder-bed processes.
Re: Objet SLA and metal SLA
Both Objet technology and Shapeways metal printing machines fall within the 3D-Printing class of techniques. I know this sounds pretty confusing but as many keep calling the whole Additive Manufacturing family with the “3D Printing” nomenclature, this actually refers to just one class of machines. So, for exemple, you have FDM, SLA, SLS (DMS or DMLS for metals), 3DP and some more.
Plus, by means of inkjet noozles, 3DP shares two different processes:
• Direct 3DP, sometimes referred to as MJM, prints tiny drops of photo curing resins followed by a UV radiation source;
• Indirect 3DP prints tiny drops of a binder onto a powder filled building platform.
What I can say on SLA is that even though I have read of processes in which metal powders are suspended into the liquid resin vat, such tricky practice is not - and more likely will not be - commercially available. And more generally, photopolymers and so called “digital materials” don’t seem to be as stable in time as one would expect (so this includes SLA and direct 3DP).
Finally, I’d bet on the future of SLS and Indirect 3DP because of the range of materials that can be processed and the fact that both of them don’t necessarily require support structures so that post-processing can be automated (poloshig a.s.o.). But still, while Indirect 3DP can build full colour components, SLS produces more mechanically functional parts. So again, every single class has a different feature or a combination of them that other techniques might be missing.
The one that can keep raw material cost lowest. Low filament price is a big plus for FDM/FFF.
Why would you ask such question, both technologies have been used for many years and are different enough from each others and from others not to disappear any time soon.
P.S. you forgot the to add poll answers (if it’s a poll)
@CornGolem I understood the question as being specific to the hobbyist market - just like FDM has been used for many years, but took off because it was accepted by the community as a feasible printing method.
Also, see how it’s in the “Discussion” category? It’s not a simple yes/no question that is going to produce one clear winner.
@CornGolem yeah, it was more of a discussion, labeling it as a poll was a mistake.
And @Thomas_Sanladerer had it right, I was referring to its application in the hobbyist/home-use realm of things. I’ll be sure to be more specific in the future :P.
If SLS with metal can be done affordably, it’ll be a hit. Right now it is not a viable option for normal manufacturing, but the the potential is there