DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

Z Corporation has just launched the latest product in its range. While the traditional products include 3D scanning devices as well as its now legendary Z Printer products, this sees a departure from that historical product line with the ZBuilder Ultra.

Based on technology licensed from Envisiontec (in fact, it’s pretty much the Envisiontec Ultra... with a badge), the new printer doesn’t rely on the same powder+binder formula that exitsing Z Corp products centre on, but instead uses a mix of photo curable polymer, a technology called Digital Light Processing (DLP) - again wrapped up in a layer-based process. Essentially for those unfamiliar with Envisiontec’s machines, these use UV light to cure layers of photopolymer (as do many rapid prototyping techniques). The difference here is that the system uses DLP to “project” the UV light onto each layer - DLP is a Texas Instruments technology predominately used in standard projector products.

The resolution possible with this combination, added into a machine that can be build with incredibly thin layers (between 0.05mm and 0.2mm), gives models that are not only robust, but also require very little in the way of finishing - as the step-stepping effect evident with many RP techniques, is to all intents and purposes, removed.
If you want the tech specs, the machine is capable of building features as small as 0.2mm at layer thicknesses upwards of 0.05mm in a build envelope of around the 260 x 160 x 190 mm mark. What’s also interesting is that because (as this and several other technologies, such as 3D Systems’ V Flash do) this system “exposes” a single layer in a single flash of the UV light, rather than tracing contours then filling in (such as is evident with laser-based systems such as SLA and laser sintering), then the parts are built in a much quicker time - with Z Corp quoting around the 1/2 inch per hour.

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