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This is related to Cons to UV printing and focused on Ryan Carlyle's answer, mentioning:

"...resin-curing SLA/DLP printers are industrial or commercial tools that are really not suitable for home desktop use."

So, my general question is what are the pros to using a DLP printer in an manufacturing environment?

My experience with 3D printing in manufacturing has shown me the necessity of understanding material strengths as well as how to utilize the 3D printing technology (FDM mostly) to produce a structurally strong part. Most of what I've made has been fixtures with small to moderate forces applied to them.

In short, are there any technological advantages to using a DLP printer in a manufacturing environment?

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  • $\begingroup$ Would you mean "are there any technological advantages..." rather than "advances?" $\endgroup$
    – fred_dot_u
    May 13, 2016 at 17:34
  • $\begingroup$ Now that this question is nearly 6 years old, I would love to see an update based on the technology changes since 2016. $\endgroup$
    – FreeMan
    Feb 24, 2022 at 19:06

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When using a DLP 3D printer, a projector (or other UV light source) is shining on a layer of resin. As the light source shines on a whole layer at a time, it is able to print at a rather constant linear vertical rate. This rate is normally around 2.5 cm (1 inch)/hour

When comparing this to a standard FDM printer or a single laser system (such as the Pegasus Touch. The printer takes more time on more complicated layers. If a you were able to print the same 2.5 cm (1 inch), at 0.3 mm layer height, it would be a total of ~85 layers. This would allow for ~42 seconds per layer. Most layers would take longer from this (from personal experience).

With the constant layer rate, multiple objects can also be printed at once because if the printer has to print the layer for the first object, it is not taking more time for it to cure resin in another location on the print bed.

In addition to this, DLP printers can have much better resolutions than FDM printers. A DLP printer such as the Titan 1 has a 37 μm XY resolution while a Prusa i3 has a resolution closer to 300 or 400 μm.

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