
Carbon3D – 3D Printing via Continuous Liquid Interface Production - JoelSutherland
http://carbon3d.com
======
8dad6bea
See the paper in Science released online just now:
[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/03/16/science.a...](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/03/16/science.aaa2397)

It will apparently be the cover story. (Does this count as Sequoia breaking
Science's embargo?):
[https://twitter.com/sequoia/status/577651625545748480](https://twitter.com/sequoia/status/577651625545748480)

From the abstract: "...feature resolution below 100 micrometers. ... complex
solid parts can be drawn out of the resin at rates of hundreds of millimeters
per hour."

Key novel feature is the oxygen-permeable, UV-transmitting membrane at the
bottom of the tank that creates a thin (down to 20um) inhibited 'dead zone'
where the resin can't polymerize. They project the image for the current layer
up through the membrane and the dead zone, so the build layer is actually
within the tank. This means they can just draw the part up continuously from
the top, with no stepping or processing needed after each layer. The thickness
of the effective build layer can be controlled by adding a UV light-absorbing
dye to the resin, which allows them to optimize for different print speeds.

Here's a relevant patent, issued in 2014, listing the 3 founders of carbon3D
(formerly EIPI systems):
[http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20140361463.pdf](http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20140361463.pdf)

And... founder Joe Desimone also gave a Ted Talk tonight, so soon we'll even
get to see a splashy 18-minute long talk about the technology.
[https://conferences.ted.com/TED2015/program/schedule.php](https://conferences.ted.com/TED2015/program/schedule.php)

~~~
allending
That's fascinating but a bit out of my depth. Do you have any references that
a newbie to 3d printing should look at before taking the plunge?

~~~
sova
it's like a laser printer but instead of toner it uses gooey resin. project
(in UV light) a shape on the bottom of the goop and it will start to solidify
in that shape (once it touches oxygen)... so gently pulling some solid surface
goop out gets you to the point where you can "print" stuff! Pretty cool! It's
not clear to me if the resin solidifies only on contact with UV light and the
oxygen level is controlled from below or above, but at any rate the balance of
UV light (in a particular projected design) and oxygen is what makes this
possible.

~~~
tim333
I think the oxygen prevents solidification which is what stops the object from
sticking to the screen they project the image on to. By the looks of it the
oxygen just diffuses from the air through the screen.

------
samch
Joe DeSimone is something of a legend around this area (RTP). The guy is a
prolific inventor at UNC Chapel Hill [1] and is a genius when it comes to
chemical engineering. He has also won the MIT Lemelson prize [2]. His partner
in this, Ed Samulski, is no slouch either [3].

These guys don't mess around. Their inventions do spin off into real companies
with real products, and they have a track record to prove their success. Joe
has been involved with projects as diverse as an environmentally-friendly dry
cleaning technology [4] to nanocarriers for vaccines [5].

I was ready to write this off as another promising idea that would either
never make it to market or experience serious issues with the quality and
reliability of the polymers. Knowing now that DeSimone is behind this is all
the reassurance I need. This will be a real product, it will make it to
market, and it will produce quality 3D prints.

1:
[http://www.chem.unc.edu/people/faculty/desimone/index.html?d...](http://www.chem.unc.edu/people/faculty/desimone/index.html?display=research_display&show=all)

2: [http://lemelson.mit.edu/winners/joseph-m-
desimone](http://lemelson.mit.edu/winners/joseph-m-desimone)

3:
[http://www.chem.unc.edu/people/faculty/samulski/index.html](http://www.chem.unc.edu/people/faculty/samulski/index.html)

4: [http://www.fastcompany.com/40583/greener-
cleaners](http://www.fastcompany.com/40583/greener-cleaners)

5:
[http://www.liquidia.com/Overview.html](http://www.liquidia.com/Overview.html)

------
chrisbennet
Does it strike you as odd that the guys who seem to be the "makers" are dead
last on Carbon's about page?

[http://carbon3d.com/about/](http://carbon3d.com/about/)

~~~
tdaltonc
Depending on how they're handling the "tech transfer", they might not actually
have much to do with the company. A lot of academics prefer to keep being
academics and just collect their royalty checks.

~~~
chrisbennet
Yes, that would make sense. The 2 "makers" are listed under "North Carolina
Office" and seem to be academics.

------
Animats
The site is so cool that it just screams "fake". Cool pictures, not much copy,
no details.

The big difference here is that they're doing photopolymerization at the
bottom of the tank, rather than at the top like everybody else. This requires
a transparent material that passes oxygen on the bottom of the tank, so the
action takes place on the surface of that membrane.

They're vague about the details. How long does the membrane last? Is it an
expensive consumable? Is the process gas air, or pure oxygen? Why do all the
videos show the object being built slightly out of focus?

It seems to generate smooth surfaces nicely, but none of the examples have
fine detail or sharp corners.

~~~
sdrothrock
> The site is so cool that it just screams "fake".

They do have a video of the actual product at the bottom, which is just plain
cool.

~~~
vortico
I don't know much about 3D printing, but that's the most futuristic video I've
seen this decade. It looks like it could just pull a coffee mug or whatever
out of nothing and serve it.

~~~
huuu
If you like this search for "stereolithography" on YouTube ;)

------
tbenst
One thing to clarify is that this is appears to be an insightful tweak on a
popular form of 3D printing, rather than a new technology all together. This
uses a standard vat photopolymerization process with a DLP projector. The key
difference is the oxygen permeable window that removes the detachment step
between layers. This step is a common point of failure and slowness with
current inverted photopolymerization printers like the Form1 and B9 Creator.

This is still a layer-by-layer process: the DLP takes a 3D object and uses a
2D projection (in both the mathematical and physical sense) per layer. Due to
pixel constraints, this process will produce objects with similar resolution,
although may have more organic edges instead of harder ones. I’d bet the
software stack being used still slices the object into layers, so the
projector still operates in a layer-by-layer fashion, and likely well below
the theoretical 60 or 120 layers / second max dictated by frame-rate. The key
advantage here, and it’s a big one, is speed.

It's tremendously exciting to see companies tackling the speed problem in 3DP.
In the next two years, we will see a 25x improvement on print speeds from
companies like HP, Carbon3D, ...

~~~
samch
Yes, it does still slice into layers. Those layers were demonstrated in their
paper as small as 1µm in thickness.

From the paper:

"Because CLIP is continuous, the refresh rate of projected images can be
increased without altering print speed, ultimately allowing for smooth 3D
objects with no model slicing artifacts."

"elevated at print speeds of 500 mm/hour"

------
crocowhile
I am just a bit sad that this is going to be a commercial venture protected by
Intellectual Property. IP is the reason why filament extrusion is so
widespread and cheap for DIYers compared to SLA.

~~~
gavazzy
If it weren't for patents, they likely wouldn't have spent $40million
developing it. Someone would reverse engineer it and then launch a Kickstarter
and sell it without having to spend the R&D cost.

~~~
crocowhile
They did not spend $40M to develop it. The development came from tax-payer
money given to their lab at UNC through classical funding streams.

Sequoia put in $40M to make a business out of it, which is a very different
goal.

------
bhouston
Neat. The animation/rendering of the blue and cyan particles on the page I'm
sure is done by Krakatoa, a renderer I wrote. :)

------
drabiega
Unless I'm missing something, this is not exactly a new technology.

[http://makezine.com/2014/07/26/droplit-the-low-cost-diy-
resi...](http://makezine.com/2014/07/26/droplit-the-low-cost-diy-resin-
printer/)

[http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-high-
resolution-3D-DLP-p...](http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-high-
resolution-3D-DLP-printer-3D-printer/)

[http://www.3ders.org/articles/20120911-a-list-of-diy-high-
re...](http://www.3ders.org/articles/20120911-a-list-of-diy-high-resolution-
dlp-3d-printers.html)

~~~
iamwil
You are. Using UV to cure photo-sensitive resin isn't the innovation, it's
using the oxygen permeable membrane.

If you look at the Form 1 printer or the B9Creator, there's a mechanical step
between every layer where it needs to actuate the platform in order to loosen
the resin from the projection window, so it can build the next layer. In the
Form 1, it peels the print off, and the B9Creator slides a window. (look for
videos on youtube.)

In both instances, the amount of time spent actuating the mechanical part adds
up, and results in a significant amount of time spent in the print actuating
the plate. What the oxygen membrane allows us to do is to skip that step
between every layer, and simply keep shining a continuous changing image slice
of the object as we're pulling the object out of the resin.

Not only does this have the advantage of speeding up prints by orders of
magnitude, in materials, the grain of the object influences the type of thing
you can built. If you print a stress holding object with the grain orientated
in the wrong direction, the part will fail very readily. This way, we have
greater design freedom, without worrying about grain direction.

~~~
Geee
Is this process really better than the one used in the Peachy printer? Peachy
printer uses resin tank that is filled with salt water from the bottom (which
raises the level continuously, resin floats on saltwater) and the UV curing is
done from the top. One huge thing for the Peachy is that you can use any tank,
and the size of the print isn't limited. Also, Peachy costs just $100.

~~~
kerridge0
Well here you only need a small tank relative to the finished print, also, you
don't move the laser head, but only the parts of the item that has already
been printed. Everything else stays still, meaning reduced vibration which
seems to mean a really steady quality of print.

~~~
Geee
In Peachy, both the laser head and the print are fixed in place. So it doesn't
have the usual moving parts at all (although it uses modulated laser mirrors
instead of a projector for cost reasons).

------
ChuckMcM
Ok, that is a new spin on the resin printers. I have wondered about ways to
'scan print' an entire layer rather than draw it out with a laser. Given the
translucency of the uncured material the ability to project on the membrane is
really cool.

And I am waaaay relieved they raised 40M in a series A rather than have this
be a link to a kickstarter (which I feared) since bringing this to market
isn't a kickstarter level kind of thing. Now if they can stay disciplined and
not waste the $40M it could be very interesting.

------
andrewmb
The website is pretty and the copy is tight, but it's nothing pathbreaking in
terms of fundamental principles.

This is just bottom-up UV-DLP SLA with a new twist: taking fuller advantage of
oxygen permeable materials for the vat to eliminate the recoating step and get
to continuous printing. A similar idea was tried, the ill-fated Solidator used
a pressurized vat bottom with a permeable membrane. Though from what I know
Solidator was not counting on the oxygen inhibition in the same manner as
Carbon3d. Solidator's problems were not related to the inhibition technology,
just the standard hardware issues faced by many on KS. Other companies have
similar technologies as Carbon3D in production or soon to reach the market.
But a very talented team and quite the splash of a product launch.

~~~
darkmighty
The speed and smooth ascension are actually game changers imo.

~~~
andrewmb
Agreed. I have a more or less exact idea of what they're doing just from the
concept description as I design resin-type 3D printers at my day job. I know
this concept has been tried, I think they're just the first ones to have
gotten it to work.

The other thing to note is that this only works with a certain subset of
polymerization reactions--not all polymerizations are oxygen inhibited so if
they want to move into truly water-clear and UV stable materials this design
won't work.

~~~
darkmighty
I really love the approach take by the Peachy Printer [1] guys. I wonder why
more people aren't exploring that route (dripping system, or any water-
assisted system)? It shares many of the strengths of this one but got far less
attention.

I wonder how it would perform with a controllable dipping system and a DLP.

[1]
[http://www.peachyprinter.com/#!methods/cjg9](http://www.peachyprinter.com/#!methods/cjg9)

------
politician
It looks like the object is drawn from the resin through adhesion to the build
platform, so I'm curious about the maximum weight this method is capable of
lifting. Any rough estimates?

------
FrankenPC
This is going to take off like a rocket. It's genius.

Maybe some chemistry/materials engineer can figure out ahead of time how to
take a polymerized object and convert it back to a usable resin. Really, we
have to start analyzing the end product for recycle-ability before the tech
explodes.

~~~
brador
Agreed. This is more like what I want from 3D printing. The smelly ABS 3D
printers were never really suitable for indoor use, but this I can see myself
using!

~~~
542458
> The smelly ABS 3D printers

Don't kid yourself. The photopolymer resin used here still has a noticeable
odour, which is in many cases worse than ABS.

PLA filament, on the other hand, has very little odour.

------
jclarkcom
Smooth curved surfaces have been a limiting factor for 3d printing in regards
to optics. It sounds like this could be used for either directly printing some
lenses or printing molds that could be used to create lenses depending on
their level of precision. This would be awesome.

------
keithwarren
This looks similar to what FormLabs does, granted the approach is different
but it reminded me of them.

I would be curious is the projection technique is limiting right now in the
build size? Their prototype (or what was shown in the video) seemed relatively
small.

------
booli
Continuous is kind of a misleading marketing term isn't it? If it projected,
it is in frames. Just like that the upward movement is in frames / steps. In
essence the resolution is still as high as the resolution of the step motors
moving the build plate up and it's layer by layer.

Not arguing that it is not a cool technique, just saying that they marketing
it again with bogus wording.

I've seen many FDM printers do continuous, albeit vase-like, prints. Shall we
market them as Continuous Filament Fuser?

~~~
no_gravity
Projectors and motors are analog devices. Even step motors do not move from
one position to the other instantly.

In theory you could tell the build plate to go up 100 microns and tell the
projector to change the image while taking into account what happens between
the two stages. While the motor moves and the lights change color. So you can
create different kinds of continuous transitions between the stages.

This applies to every discussion about digital/analog of course.

~~~
booli
The image the projector makes is in theory also in frames of course.

But yeah, discussion, is a movie continuous or is it frames p/s?

~~~
ddingus
A "movie" depends on the tech presenting it. For typical projectors, yes. It's
discrete frames.

Other displays could vary! A display capable of incrementally updating the
picture could show motion as a series of changes without there actually being
a frame, just deltas... Done quickly, this would approximate what the human
eye does.

In the context of this process, "frame" would refer to the changes to the
projected image. Each of those changes would be a "frame"

But, if the object being rendered is actually in motion during the cure, there
will be interpolation between those "frames", resulting in a very analog like
product.

The motion would be "frames" too, as each micro-step would presumably be a
controlled atomic thing, but those movements would not necessarily need to be
keyed to the changes in the projected image.

Take both of those up in terms of rates and precision, and it's all going to
blend together, particularly as both push the material to it's change rate
limits.

Think "motion blur" when motion exceeds capture rates, or in the case of
analog film, where reality "smears" onto the film while a shutter is open.

------
lostsock
This looks amazing though I'm not really sure it is the speed that has been
the thing holding back 3D printers, although that is certainly an aspect of
it.

I still think the biggest thing stopping adoption is most people not having
any idea what to print on a 3D printer, even if buying, operating, calibrating
and maintaining one was cheap and easy.

~~~
adventured
Speed is a very big market impediment for 3D printing.

You can't mass deploy printing kiosks at consumer stores if it takes four
hours to make a mug or a trinket (you can, but it's absurd). If it takes five
minutes you can and people will buy all sorts of custom products that way.

Someone on Reddit mentioned it taking 20 hours to print half a skull. That's
ridiculous. This will do it in probably 20 or 30 minutes, and it'll likely get
faster with improvements in the next couple of years.

~~~
lotsofmangos
20 hours to print a plastic skull you have just designed on a kit printer is
still quick and cheap enough to feel amazing. Most small objects I do take
about an hour or so and it is still cool to have drawn something and then go
off and watch something on tv and come back to a working part.

I agree that having a massive increase in speed is cool, but the materials
range for UV cured stuff isn't that high. If we are talking wishlists, I'd
rather have plastics and metals in one print and be taking a few hours, than a
UV cured object in minutes, but that is because of the applications I am
interested in. I do think this tech is very very cool though, especially given
the detail level you can get at that speed.

~~~
lsaferite
I know this is probably the wrong comment to hang this on, but I was just
thinking about it reading your mixed mode comment.

I can see shipping container type units fitted internally with multiple 3D
printer types that are basically little mobile factories. Any part you need
(withing certain volume and material limitations) can be produced on demand.
These could easily be transported to remote locations to fully support all
kinds of activities.

I swear, I was born 100 years too early.

~~~
lotsofmangos
The game is, how small can you make a general engineering factory?

You could do the shipping container version now, using existing prototyping
tech and some well thought out robots to move parts between processes.

I suspect you can get most of them in one box though, and this will be
becoming mainstream within ten years to fifteen.

------
nevir
By the way, they're hiring. And they're looking mostly for software people,
who are steeped in web tech. They have some very interesting and challenging
ideas for what they want to build on that front!

I got to meet the software side of the Carbon3D team (and printer) not too
long ago, and came away _extremely_ impressed.

------
blisterpeanuts
Wow, that's an impressive presentation. I'm interested in the tech behind that
website; can anyone suggest how it was done? I see several elements that are
in vogue:

Scroll down slightly to reveal top menu bar Animation at the top Scroll down
and a left frame of animation appears, while allowing scrollable text on the
right. Scroll down more, left animation disappears, and we find an embedded
Youtube video.

Where can one read more about this type of design, such as online tutorials
and the like?

~~~
doczoidberg
you can realize things like this with a scrollspy. E.g. that from bootstrap:
[http://getbootstrap.com/javascript/#scrollspy](http://getbootstrap.com/javascript/#scrollspy)

------
ericjang
Whoa - pretty awesome. I can see CLIP tech being really practical for soft
robotics (print the actuators directly rather than casting the elastomer from
a 3D-printed mold)

------
gonoobie
I was just about to purchase my first 3d printer (Lulzbot Taz 5), but this
gives me pause.

As runner up to the coolest 3d printing technology I've seen recently, check
out the Mcor Iris:

[http://mcortechnologies.com/3d-printers/iris/](http://mcortechnologies.com/3d-printers/iris/)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh3McRQi6II](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh3McRQi6II)

~~~
astrodust
There will always be something better. You can't play that game.

When this thing's on the market you'll be all "Oh, but the second generation
one prints 4x faster and can do color! I'll wait for that."

------
robbrown451
Is there anything on how cheaply parts can be produced? They suggest that it
could be used for production parts --presumably ones that can't be produced by
other processes -- and that's great, but what about for inexpensive one-offs,
whether they be hobbyists/inventors/mechanical hackers making stuff, or for
things that are highly customized (say earphones that are shaped exactly to
your ear).

------
doczoidberg
Printing from top to down from a plate is a much better approach because it
works faster. The whole layer can then cure instead of only a single point.
This seems to be the main difference to conventional 3d printers.

The website is inaccurate in some aspects but this new top down approach could
change the 3D printing industry. Maybe it could also make 3d printers cheaper
because less mechanical parts are needed.

------
gustoffen
This stuff is great, but too bad resin prints are brittle, and nearly useless
at building replacement parts that require any strength.

------
gdubs
A few years ago I 3D printed a head I sculpted in Maya, and took a video of
the print. [1] Seeing the video of the Carbon3D in action makes me want to buy
one just so I can make a cooler video :)

1: [https://vimeo.com/54888826](https://vimeo.com/54888826)

------
gizmo3dprinters
Here is a speed test from Gizmo 3D Printers
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzJyZAYMFc-
IlK3Eu20TGvA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzJyZAYMFc-IlK3Eu20TGvA)

More tests and hopefully faster printing to follow

------
seanfchan
This is great! The point the website makes that really intrigues me is the
vast amount of materials this technique opens up to 3-D printing. I wonder if
this tech will ever make it into the hands of the consumer.

------
javiramos
Don't you get the same effect (of a 'dead zone') by printing immersing the
object rather than pulling the object from the pool of material? The top layer
is exposed to the air directly.

------
jeffchuber
so this is SLA+?

speed seems to be a factor - i think SLA printers are limited by resin curing
time under UV light.

perhaps this is more a resin technology than a printer technology.

they do keep mentioning oxygen - but it's not clear why

~~~
fixermark
The oxygen enters the chamber from the permeable membrane that makes up the
tank base, and creates a liquid-polymer barrier between the solidifying
elements and the bottom of the tank. This means that the work doesn't fuse to
the tank bottom, and can therefore be built not in a layered(1) fashion, but
continuously. Therefore, both faster and (hypothetically) smoother.

(1) I'm sure there will still be some directional effects in the result---the
light is only coming from one direction, for example. But you definitely
shouldn't expect to see the "sandwich stacks" effect you get from extrusion-
filament 3D printing.

------
riffraff
can anyone explain why doesn't the object risk detaching from the panel that
lifts it up? How is it attached to the moving part?

~~~
sova
at the bottom of the page there is a video -- it looks like they cure the
resin to make a thin layer across the whole plunger/panel, at the very least
there is the small layered grid that holds it on before they start "printing"
the object. seems like cured resin will stick to the panel, so they just have
to do some simple layered curing before they engage the actual object

------
jonalmeida
I'd like to see some more complex prints to compare it what a conventional 3D
printer can do. Very interesting indeed!

------
john_saxon
Very interesting! I wonder at what resolution they print and whether they can
print capacitive materials.

------
tomkinstinch
Does anyone know the composition of the oxygen permeable membrane?

Is it a UV-transmissible siloxane window of some kind?

------
zobzu
This is great tech. I fear its going to be far from PLA-printers price wise,
for a while at least ;)

~~~
protomyth
I would expect someone will open the 3D printing equivalent of a copy shop
with one of these.

------
morekozhambu
This is awesome.!!

------
mark_integerdsv
What is the precision and how small can an object be? How small can the
printer be? Can we make nanoprinters that are controlled from the cloud to
mutate the models they create as necessary?

Nanovaccines that can change in response to mutating threats...

I feel like I have understood the importance of 3D printing for the very first
time which makes sense, I have tended to be a little slow.

~~~
samch
It's interesting that you ask about nanovaccines in relation to this article.
The lead inventor and CEO on this project also founded another company that
works in that exact area [1].

As to the precision of Carbon3D, the best I can figure based on their recent
publication is printed layers as small as 1µm. That's pretty darn good
resolution for a 3D printer.

1\. [http://www.liquidia.com/](http://www.liquidia.com/)

~~~
mark_integerdsv
That is interesting. Thank you.

I found this whole thread very exciting, I as down-voted into oblivion very
quickly so I stopped sharing my thoughts but my mind ran on for a while...

Self-healing machines, buildings and devices also sprang to mind.

Basically, if the printer is small enough to be a part of the object and there
were a way of determining what it needs to print then the object need never be
broken (for very long) in fact: the object doesn't even need to be defined as
a cup, a pair of trousers, a bicycle. If the printer can embed itself into
anything it prints then it could literally morph according to a given
requirement.

...I'll stop now.

