3D Print ceramic pieces on your SLA 3D printer

Six years ago, the American manufacturer Formlabs unveiled their first stereolithography 3D printer that was made to be accessible to as many people as possible, with a relatively low marketing price. Since then, the company has grown quickly, evolving their product range of 3D printers and materials while also successfully completing several fundraisers.A few days ago, they announced their official launch of an experimental Ceramic Resin for their European and North American users.

3D ceramic printing is of interest to an increasing amount of players in the additive manufacturing market; such as Kwambio who announced the arrival of a new industrial machine or the Israeli XJet with their Carmel range. The technology, however, is not accessible to all, with high prices and some complexity in its handling. Formlabs wants to lower this price, justifying the launch of Ceramic Resin, a material compatible with the Form 2 3D printer, which remains relatively accessible.

Ceramic Resin 3D printed parts (photo credits: Formlabs)

While they have proposed more colors for their resins that are compatible with their SLA 3D printers last year, they are looking this time to a ceramic solution, offering more opportunities to engineers and designers. It seems that the R&D and in-house production laboratories are becoming more and more interested in ceramic 3D printing. For example, the military uses ceramic materials to design lightweight shields, while electronics manufacturers use alumina ceramics for insulators, resistors, and semiconductors because of their high properties of heat and electrical conductivity.