From Russia with SLA - could this be the answer to consumer 3D printing?
Originally shared by Yuan LIU
Speaking of foreign invasion, these Russians are good. (Or should I say, “These are good Russians?”) I dare say this was the most successful booth in the entire faire. I came around three times to learn about visible-light SLA and about ONO’s particular offering. I must have spent over an hour here in total. (I was here before the show closed for the day.)
SLA 3D printing, you know, is only used in professional factories until very recently. But these guys made a bold move to lower the price to $100. It does use a >$300 device on top - or should I say, on bottom, a device that you most likely already own. Most insanely, they claim that they are ready to ship once FCC certification comes in!
Resins, of course, are more expensive than common FDM filaments by weight - or by volume. Unsurprisingly, they use their proprietary formulae. One of the main points of this show is to showcase properties of various resins they have in stock. Still, according to their explanation, the cost is relatively affordable. (They also take at least one complexity out of users hands: slicing. They claim that you only need to upload your STL file, then G-code will be send to your phone app.)
Slicing for sla is not that complicated. (Compared to fdm). Smartphones can do this in no time. I wonder why they cloud this…
During the kickstarter, their quoted print speed was really slow. I had a hard time with the idea of either printing or using your phone for long periods.
Now, if you could set it on top of one of those sub-$50 Amazon Fire Tablets…
They told me 1-2cm per hour. That’s quite practical for a small platform. (In fact I asked Mark Peng (Peopoly, in a far-out tent) before running back to ask these Russians. The laser SLA isn’t much faster.)
@Carsten_Wartmann cloud could be my misinterpretation. The guy said two things: “upload SLT” and “we take care of it”. They blended in my brain:-)
Well, they’ve been claiming they’re ready to ship on their kickstarter page for months and they haven’t done it yet.
Russians 
? Did the Italian guys already move to Russia to run away from refund claims?
@Markus_Seidt must be my mistake. Their tongues didn’t strike me as very smooth and tonal when they speak among themselves (and two of them are bald:-)
I’m in for the Kickstarter, and some extra resin. They had a board re-design recently. According to the updates, they should be shipping mid to late June.
I’ve got a Note2 that I should be able to dedicate to this. If it’s just ‘decent’, I’ll be happy.
@Carlton_Dodd another detail impressed me: Among the large number of samples, many bear coarse horizontal layer drifts that make them look more DMFish than shown in Maker’s Muse’ Peopoly impression, while a few are nearly seamless. The not-bald guy explains that those seamless ones were printed with recently improved motion platform. If true, this also shows the teams dedication and willingness to make improvements when budget allows.
Did they show devices running? I recall stories they were running a variety of excuses last year.
I had that thought, too. No, I haven’t seen the machine being operated, with or without resin.
@Carsten_Wartmann and a Raspberry Pi slices for FDM based 3D printers in no time using an old version of Cura.
