New substances with better properties presented by Formlabs
Producer of the famous Stereolithography Form 1+ printer Formlabs has represented two new types of materials – flexible and castable. They are represented in a number of colors – grey, clear, black and white. The two types of materials introduce a wider range of opportunities for the Form 1+3D printer. The castable type of material is placed for metal investing casting — with applications that focus mainly on jewellery production, designing and engineering. Flexibles are materials similar to rubber, which is suitable for engineering applications, tactile surfaces, shock absorption, hinges and other applications that use pliable components.
Formlabs is expanding its variety of materials, which, as the company says, goes together with its progressive improvement plan for software and hardware. Maxim Lobovsky, the co-founder of Formlabs explained that all over the world a lot of attention in 3D printing is focused on the machine. Formlabs have always considered both the machine and the materials to be equally important. A collection of functional substances has always been among one of the points of their plan. They were glad to introduce the world their resins.
The Castable Resin is keeps good detail and burns out cleanly, which is necessary for investment casting. Developing the possibilities of application of the materials by Formlabs to embrace investment casting positions, the appliance in a lower price range for professionals and prosumers rather than professional appliances like Stratasys Solidscape printers.
As Formlabs’ material developer Katherine Hammes explains, various types of materials are the key to innovation. Their new resins can now work seamlessly with their machine, and they are so excited about the results they now achieved using flexible and castable materials. The new materials can be effectively used with Form 1 and Form 1+ 3D printers. Flexible Resin will be accessible since December 2014, whereas Castables are available in online shops even now. Shipments are to start in November for updates meant for Grey and Clear resin.