Core77 published a detailed interview with Michael Joyce (of Deadwood, South Dakota), the creator of the B9Creator. The B9Creator was a hugely successful Kickstarter project to fund the development of a resin-based personal 3D printer. How successful? Over USD$500,000 was raised, enabling Joyce to get production going.
We encourage you to read the entire interview, but here’s the quotes from Joyce we thought most interesting:
I built several different prototype versions in January, but then I learned that some things I was trying to do had already been patented, so I didn’t want to infringe on anyone’s patents.
The actual SLA patent is expired so we’re basically doing a form of SLA—we’re irradiating a chemical that’s sensitive to the radiation to form solid layer, that’s SLA. But the details of how you release that part from the cured surface, there are different ways to do that and most of them are patented.
We’re also seeing a lot of interest from people who are interested in real high-resolution applications like jewelers. Jewelers will want to make a real complex piece of jewelry, but they need a material that completely disappears without a residue when they cast it and fire it in ceramic.
We hope to keep producing the model we have, and selling [both] parts and resin for it. We’re looking at both a bigger version and a smaller version—the smaller version would be higher resolution, the bigger version would have higher print volume.
It’s truly awesome to see someone so successful building a machine that so many will enjoy. It’s also wonderful to see steps like this contribute to the creation of a worldwide 3D printing environment, accessible by all.
Via Core77
