CLIP technology produces layerless 3D printing

Carbon3D is offering an innovative approach to polymer-based 3D printing that could advance the industry beyond basic prototyping to 3D manufacturing.

Carbon3D’s layerless, continuous liquid interface production technology (CLIP) rapidly transforms 3D models into physical objects. By carefully balancing the interaction of UV light, which triggers photo polymerisation and oxygen, and inhibits the reaction, CLIP grows objects from a pool of resin instead of printing them layer-by-layer.

At the heart of the CLIP process is a special window that is transparent to light and permeable to oxygen, much like a contact lens. By controlling the oxygen flux through the window, CLIP creates a ‘dead zone’ in the resin pool just tens of microns thick where photopolymerisation cannot occur. As a series of cross-sectional images of a 3D model is played like a movie into the resin pool from underneath, the physical object emerges continuously from just above the dead zone. Much more like injection-moulded parts, CLIP produces consistent and predictable mechanical properties, smooth on the outside and solid on the inside.

Carbon3D’s CLIP technology is a significant development because it has a speed that is 25-100 times faster than conventional 3D printing, it produces objects of commercial quality with consistent mechanical properties and it enables a range of polymeric materials.

Dr Joseph DeSimone, ceo and co-founder, Carbon3D, said: “Current 3D printing technology has failed to deliver on its promise to revolutionise manufacturing. CLIP technology offers the game-changing speed, consistent mechanical properties and choice of materials required for complex commercial quality parts.”