New Micro 3D Printing Technology Wins Prestigious NZ Engineering Award (callaghaninnovation.govt.nz) 18
Long-time Slashdot reader ClarkMills quotes New Zealand's Innovation Agency:
New 3D printing technology creating highly detailed objects, smaller than a strand of human hair, has won the 2019 ENVI Engineering Innovation Award (Engineering New Zealand Awards). Micromaker3D, powered by breakthrough Laminated Resin Printing (LRP), makes it easy and more accessible to create detailed submillimetre structures for applications such as sensors, wearables, point-of-care diagnostics, micro-robotics or aerospace components.... LRP enables the printing of submillimetre structures with complex geometries of up to 100 per cent density, in extraordinary low-layer thicknesses and with imaging speeds as quick as one second per layer independent of complexity or density...
The judges saw MicroMaker3D as a gamechanger and believe it will spark many other innovations... The ENVI Engineering Innovation Award category is described as: "A breathtakingly clever engineering project or product that has solved an age-old problem or shifted from the 'always done this way' mentality...."
Callaghan Innovation is working to take the technology global, from the development and demonstration phase to commercial reality...
Lead engineer Neil Glasson points out that while a human hair is about 100 microns in width, "we're looking at five-micron resolution."
The judges saw MicroMaker3D as a gamechanger and believe it will spark many other innovations... The ENVI Engineering Innovation Award category is described as: "A breathtakingly clever engineering project or product that has solved an age-old problem or shifted from the 'always done this way' mentality...."
Callaghan Innovation is working to take the technology global, from the development and demonstration phase to commercial reality...
Lead engineer Neil Glasson points out that while a human hair is about 100 microns in width, "we're looking at five-micron resolution."
Re: (Score:2)
"How do we find a way to create a fusion of this vast technology with blockchain?"
It can obviously be used to print out tiny little bitcoins.
Re: (Score:1)
At that size they would be 1/2 bit bitcoins or quarter bit bitcoins
Wow (Score:3)
" LRP enables the printing of submillimetre structures with complex geometries of up to 100 per cent density"
What is100% density?
Would that be like neutronium , or just the density of a white dwarf?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they're referring to infill density?
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Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The objects it prints are at the 5 micron scale. Check out the picture with the article. It shows a finished object on a dime.
How it Works (Score:4, Informative)
(Just in case you wanted any actual information... though it's still pretty vague on some points)
https://micromaker3d.com/intro... [micromaker3d.com]
Laminated Resin Printing uses elements of microfabrication-based photolithography, reformatted for 3D printing.
Extreme resolution modern dry film photoresist resins are imaged a layer at a time, using a fast-ultraviolet projection system, activating a photoinitiator. After imaging, each section of the dry film is laminated to form a multilayer stack. The stack is then heat cured through a precisely controlled catalytic cross-linking reaction in the activated areas forming a structure fully polymerised across and between layers, with no need for adhesives.
The unpatterned resin provides support material for the printed structure. This means that if you can design it, you can print it. Overhangs, membranes and moving parts that make up microsensors are readily printed and well matched to the resin storage modulus. Unpolymerised resin is highly soluble and easily washed away.
Using a preformed 5-micron thick resist sheet defines Z resolution with a layer thickness tolerance of 125 nanometers. Because the resist is already dry, there is no shrinkage or distortion, meaning this resolution is genuine and highly repeatable. A 5-micron resolution is also obtained in both X and Y, defined by the pixel size from the projector at the print bed. The photoresists used are an industry standard material with excellent characteristics that enable them to withstand the harshest environments.
These processes are automated and housed in a UV-excluding, particulate free desktop machine.
Material: Dry film
Curing: UV projection (+ heat post-processing)
Print speed: 10 seconds per layer (3s patterning, 7s laminating)
Print density: Up to 100%
Ease of printing: High
Visual quality: High â" 5-micron voxel printing
Heat resistance: -60 to + 200C continuous operating temperature
Roll width: Up to 250 mm
Roll length: 100 m
Chemical compatibility: Excellent resistance to a wide range of solvents, acids, bases and harsh environments
Electrical resistivity: Highly insulating
Layer adhesion: Highly soluble uncrosslinked film
Support: Uncrosslinked prepolymer
Layer height: Customisable from 5um to 100um
Material method: Lamination
Storage modulus: 1-4 GPa at room temperature with wide operational range
Comments (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You need to say “some good cunts” in NZ to be truly positive.
E.g. “you’re a cunt” means you’re bad
“You’re a good cunt” means your a top person.
First non-commercial use: (Score:1)
cool, it's MEMS (Score:2)
A 100 micron sized test boat is the kind of thing I would have expected from a new condensed matter physics grad student a decade ago. What's cool here are the low barriers (cost, facilities) to making something like that.
Blurring the lines between manufacturing fields is part of what makes 3D printing cool. As the technology transitions from regions "in between" established techniques to simply copying those well established techniques, you're going to see less enthusiastic reactions, but more commercial r