The printer uses upside-down stereolithography called SAS

Nov 28, 2014 15:02 GMT  ·  By

FDM 3D printing technology just doesn't cut it when it comes to jewelry, dentistry and industrial manufacture, so SLA and SLS are used there instead. Asiga has just unveiled a 3D printer that uses a very particular version of SLA.

Called Slide-And-Separate (SAS), the technology uses UV-LED in order to cure a photosensitive resin with a very high degree of accuracy.

In fact, SAS technology is capable of the lowest fabrication forces of any upside-down SLA system, according to Asiga.

Asiga has just released the Freeform Pico 2 3D printer, which uses this very sort of additive manufacturing technique.

The printer measures 460 x 560 x 500 mm / 18.11 x 22.04 x 19.68 inches and has a build volume of 51.2 x 32 x 75 mm / 2.01 x 1.25 x 2.95 inches.

As for built quality, the pixel size is of 40 microns, the print speed is of 40 mm/hour and the thickness of the layer is variable in 1 micron increments (really thin, in layman’s terms).

Any basic resins available on the market are supported by the Asiga Freeform Pico 2, and the closed build chamber means you can keep it on your desktop without worry about fumes or smells. At least until you have to take the printed object out.

Finally, Composer Build Gen software automatically generates the supports for a print, letting you save time on design.

The drawback of the Freefrom Pico 2 is the price, of $11,250 / €11,250, but for this type of quality it's actually more than reasonable. Remember, SLA 3D printing used to cost a lot more than that, not that long ago.

Asiga Freeform Pico 2 (5 Images)

Asiga Freeform Pico 2 3D printer
Asiga Freeform Pico 2 3D printer, close-upAsiga Freeform Pico 2 3D printer components
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