Hi RK:
Thanks for your letter. Here are a few comments:
The answer to all of these questions is "no." There doesn't yet exist any SLS equipment
capable of operating anywhere near that size, nor is there likely to be any in the
immediate future. There are substantial problems with laser exposure, etc., over wide
angles, and I suspect the market would be limited, as well.
On the other hand, there are specialized stereolithography machines in that ballpark
made for in-house use by Materialise. Materials would be an issue, of course. One can also
find groups doing very big LOM, as well. There are groups working with three dimensional
printing, but not quite in that range and mainly with metals.
Selective Inhibition sintering (SIS) may be a technology that will provide the right
combination of features for plastics at some point. It's in early development at USC and
has been licensed by a couple of companies.
PE is not available to any method of RP at present, although there are photopolymer
analogs in development for SLA. I don't recall that anything has appeared in the market
yet, though.
Speed is a real problem with all RP-based methods. LOM might be able to pop out one of
those puppies in a day, but you'll have to live with compromised resolution and materials
properties - and a layered structure, of course. Everything else is much slower and is
much happier simultaneously building many copies of smaller parts rather than one very big
one. Solving the speed problem won't be easy, but there may be some interesting brute
force approaches to do it.
If you'd like to learn more, you can search the site for the various topics I've
mentioned. There's plenty there, but it's scattered about a bit. There's a link to the
site search feature on the front page.
Thanks again and I send best regards.
Ed
Ed Grenda
Castle Island Co.
The Worldwide Guide to Rapid Prototyping
