Starting to plan out building a low cost dlp printer.

3D Printing
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1

Starting to plan out building a low cost dlp printer. What slicing software is reccomended?

2

Slic3r can slice to svg, so can others. But you have so many other choices to make first, like light engine and controller and CPU and hardware.

3

Already have those mostly figured out.

4

The biggest problem is building a high accuracy z axis. Gonna use a sloppy screw compensated by a linear encoder. Light engine is of the shelf dlp possibly modified to blue or near UV led

5

Creation Workshop is probably the go-to DLP printer control/slicing software around at the moment…

6

Would be great to see your setup. I’ve been very keen to build one.

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Yeah, I plan on documenting it. Component cost wise, its come out to ~$1000 including DLP.

8

I did find a cool usb dongle which supports reading a linear quadrature encoder, and allows you to also control a stepper motor in response. Speaks a simple protocol over serial USB

9

Alright, so after hearing the deep imager 5 guys use a modified pico projector and get ultrafast cure time, I am thinking of going with

with http://www.aaxatech.com/products/led_pico_pocket_projector.html

Its cheap, I can afford to break a few, and I think it uses a single RGB LED, so refitting with a near-uv LED should be easy.

I plan on using a 405 nm LED, because I do have concerns with UV cooking the LCOS chip. Most photo resins cure fine with light < 420nm

AAXA also offers light engines with basic pricing info, so I’ve inquired about them as well.

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You might want to verify curing with your LED of choice before you get everything built and buttoned up. (Not speaking from experience or anything,)

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Oh yeah, I plan on doing that.