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All of Carbon3D's marketing and demonstrations show their CLIP technology producing contiguous and bridge-free parts. Has anyone seen examples of their M1 printing something like a buckyball within a buckyball or a figurine or some other shape that requires support material to print?

For example, how would the Carbon3D print a shape like this:

 vvvvvBUILDPLATEvvvvv
 ====================
  XXX
  XXX            BBB <----- columns A and B require support material
  XXX    AAA     BBB        in order to connect them to the build
  XXX    AAA     BBB        plate.
  XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~RESIN~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|

In a similar vein, how do they handles enclosed volumes? I doubt anyone wants a sphere filled with still-liquid resin...

Again, I've looked around, I can find no material addressing these questions, so if anyone can shed some light, I'd be glad.

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  • $\begingroup$ I believe this could be extended to any DLP/SLA Printer $\endgroup$ Apr 11, 2016 at 20:03
  • $\begingroup$ @Eric Johnson - Well, I understand reasonably well how, say, the Form1 series handle this situation, and I'd imagine that the Carbon3d's M1 handles it in a similar fashion, I was hoping someone might be able to point me towards the M1's implementation—or wven a mention of it—specifically, as the printer operates with very slightly different mechanics than most SLA and DLP models. $\endgroup$
    – PostEpoch
    Apr 13, 2016 at 1:39
  • $\begingroup$ @PostEpoch it might make sense to answer your own question with what you know about how this is handled by the Form1. This might make it clearer which detail of the process is interesting for you. It also would make this knowledge of yours available for others. It might also help answering your question. $\endgroup$ Jul 12, 2016 at 18:41

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On Carbon3D's homepage they show a part that appears to have supports in it.

image from Carbon3D's homepage of supports

Per a conversation with Carbon3D's support they confirm that their slicing software will generate supports based on the overhang angle geometry, and in the case of a buckyball within a buckyball, there would be supports generated to create the buckyball, and to support the interior buckyball joining the two together that would have to be removed in post processing.

Enclosed volumes need to have a drain hole, and you would have to avoid vacuum forming shapes such as an upside down cup in which atmospheric pressure would keep the interior of the cup filled with resin until the reservoir runs out or the vacuum is able to be broken releasing the excess resin. In the case of a cup you would change the orientation. I am not sure how one would handle trying to print a solid sphere with no holes to avoid this condition.

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