Quick Summary
• When we previously looked at the Additive Chicken Coop, we saw how selling devices to labs shaped a lot of our industry. Here, we explore other key factors that have...
Additional Context
When we previously looked at the Additive Chicken Coop, we saw how selling devices to labs shaped a lot of our industry. Here, we explore other key factors that have led to the industry’s current state.
Piggybacking on Lasers
An increase in the capabilities of low-cost lasers and new diode laser forms is the real driving force behind many developments in LPBF and SLA. Vat polymerization can hardly have existed at scale without the Texas Instruments DMD mirror setup. In parallel strides forward, Scanlab, Visitech, and others have done a lot of the heavy lifting to make new print platforms possible. They’ve centralized a lot of the truly hard science into convenient, mountable packaging. Low-cost lasers are now enabling companies such as Metal Base to produce sub-$10,000 metal LPBF printer