Formlabs Part Removal Mechanism Enables Lights-Out Production

The actuation mechanism seen in the simple video above is transformative to the ability to automate production of polymer parts on a desktop SLA machine. I came to appreciate this during a recent visit to Formlabs’ headquarters in Somerville, Massachusetts. The video demonstrates the company’s Build Platform 2 featuring (patented) Quick Release Technology. Previous build platforms for Formlabs SLA 3D printers required hand scraping — that is, a manual step — to remove completed parts from the build surface. The Quick Release action mechanically flexes the build surface, allowing parts to snap free and cleanly and effectively fall away.

Formlabs recently introduced its Automation Ecosystem for unattended production on SLA machines. My host during my visit, the company’s Olivia Mattyasovszky, pointed out to me that the Build Platform 2 is actually the enabler to this system.

“If you can’t automatically get parts off the build platform, you can’t do unattended production,” she says. “An operator might have to return every 45 minutes when a new build is complete.” Indeed, this very scenario — small SLA machines offering rapid 3D printing cycles, and therefore frequent need for part removal and job changeover — is a case where unattended operation in 3D printing is the most valuable.

Formlabs has seen greater application for automation as small SLA machines find increasing application for mass customization, or production in which every individual part is tailored to the user. A novel application of this is Hasbro’s “Selfie Series” of action figures, in which SLA allows the action figure heads to be produced to individual specifications. However, Mattyasovszky points out that the much earlier and more widely applied mass-customization application is dental labs. A mouth guard is a 3D printed part made through SLA that is tailored to an individual patient, even though a dozen or more of them might be made in a single small SLA machine at the same time.

The Automation Ecosystem allows a production application of small SLA machines to run unattended, potentially producing custom mouth guards, for example, all through the night while no employees are present. The system retrofits to an existing Formlabs 3D printer, provided it uses the Build Platform 2. Thanks to this style of build surface, the actual part unloading automation is simple. The company’s unloading unit reaches into the 3D printer to remove the build platform. It actuates it through pressure similar to what is applied manually in the video above, and parts fall away into a container that can collect them until employees arrive in the morning.