More SLA on the cheap ideas

So with the right resin it might be possible to use an LCD and an
appropriate none UV light source. But there are a lot of ifs and buts.

Anyway it may interest you to take a look at this:

http://www.imagepacdaylight.co.uk/

Its basically a visible light curng resin in a sachet that can be used
to make stamps, it won't make hard parts but I could almost imagine
putting a vessle on top of an LCD screen directly before playing a
series of images while lifting the platform to build a rubbery part.
That might be something worth investing a few quid to try but its a
little doubtfull.

So I started wondering about the alternatives, if we return to UV cure
resins which I feel I have a better chance of getting hold of then the
question becomes how to make the masks. The part shown in the paper here:

http://www-optim.mech.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/english/study/enlee.pdf

They used 50 layers, many SLA parts used many more than that but let
me assume small parts and let me assume a thicker later than the paper
had, say 0.1mm which seems fairly standard in the SLA world. The mask
would consist of 50 small negative images. You could print those on
an A4 sheet or for really small parts on a photoprinter.

You then just need a simple x,y system to index the sheet as required.

Printing big black sheets normally means a laser printer for small
parts I'm looking at some dyesub photo printers from Cannon, they are
only 300dpi but I think the ink should be fairly opaque. Incidentally
if my experience with a thermal CD printer is anything to go buy it
should be possible to print on to preheated PCBs with the same printer.

So this is one possible poor mans solution, I'm not sure it is a good one.

Oh and another idea I had was to cut the sheet into slides or strips,
that way you only need a single axis control.

Graham