I've seen 3 companies on kick starter use lcd screens with resin to make/sell SLA 3d printers. It seems to be a rather new technology, and I like the fact that it is faster the fused 3d printers and there are less moving parts. Which begs the question why isn't anyone making them?!@ They seem easier to make than other 3d printers with more moving parts and the prices they sell at seem to reflect that. just bear in mind that this is coming from someone who has always farmed out the 3d work because the printers are so slow. However resin printers are faster (still seem slow to me) so I was thinking of buying one but none of them are largeformat, and then I thought of making one, but don't see anyone making them big yet. Morpheous 3d says they will have a larger printer in ayear or so. Morpheus 3D Printer and OLO - The First Ever Smartphone 3D Printer. by OLO 3D Inc. — Kickstarter SLASH: The Next Level of Affordable Professional 3D Printing by Uniz Technology, LLC — Kickstarter
Sonny lowe is the only KY one present working on any resin. I too am looking into the lcd screens. The hold up is the daylight resin. No one knows if it's a gimmick or here for the long haul. The lcd's may have to be modified with a stronger backlight as well. Though not a problem to handle as I've seen in other forums. To me if the daylight cure resins are viable then it changes the whole paradigm. With dlp projection types you are limited to a size and aspect ratio amd cost of the projector you have or can afford. So with lcd cost goes way down, and the size of the part is virtually limitless ( within matetials capability) . I was also listening to a Google talks and except for in high end industrial manufacturers resins, fused filament is a stronger part.
Photocentric 3D also has an LCD based SLA printer that is available for sale. www.photocentric3d.com I'm working on one myself. The results from Photocentric look really good, and they have a reasonable selection of resins available at the moment. Right now, everything ships from the UK, so shipping costs are high, but that is supposed to be fixed soon with US distribution. My printer will be based on a 3rd/4th gen iPad retina display. I wanted the extra build space but didn't want to compromise on resolution (the whole point behind these printers). Just got the lcd and adapter board for it yesterday and got it working over Displayport. Software seems to be a bigger hurdle than anything else. One of the popular options for the DLP crew is nanoDLP, but that runs on a Raspberry Pi. While that part alone is great (nice compact stand-alone system), the HDMI port on the Pi is limited to 1080p, so you can't take advantage of the higher resolution on the retina display. PC based software seems to be in short supply. The best option is Creation Workshop, but unless I'm understanding things wrong, the license for a single seat is $500, which is crazy for a hobbyist. Autodesk has a new developer platform called Spark that is designed to work with their own DLP based SLA printer, so there is hope there that there will be some decent options. I'm still researching the software end of things. Hopefully things improve by the time I get my printer built (which will be using a C-Beam for the Z-axis).
