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WRONG THEORY
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It might be the future of manufacturing, but 3-D printing is built on a 2-D foundation: A MakerBot is essentially an inkjet printer that spits out plastic instead of ink. Keep printing in the same spot over and over and the layers will form a 3-D object from the bottom up. But an outfit called Carbon3D is 0
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taking the opposite tack. Its new rig creates objects from the top down, in one continuous motion. It’s faster, with no layering required. Inspired by the mercurial T-1000 bot from Terminator 2, University of North Carolina prof Joseph DeSimone wanted to make objects emerge from liquid. The process, which is based on a 30year-old technology
called stereolithography, starts with a bath of liquid resin that hardens when exposed to UV light. A projector under the bath delivers targeted blasts of UV to shape the form from below as the overhead platform lifts, drawing the object out of the soup. (The glass between the projector and the resin is permeable to oxygen, like a contact lens, and that O2 keeps the resin from hardening too soon, before the object is complete.) The Car-
bon3D can print up to 100 times faster than leading 3-D and stereolithographic printers. The startup has prototypes running at auto behemoth Ford, at an athletic apparel company, and at an f/x house, with an eye to hitting the market in 2016. But it has no phase-shifting bots that are hell-bent on destroying us. Yet. —Lexi Pandell
SPENCER LOWELL
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Carbon3D Printer 1. Object-building
platform 2. UV-curable
liquid resin 3. Microthin layer of
oxygenated resin 4. Oxygen-
permeable glass 5. Ultraviolet-
light projector
AUG 2015
ILLUSTRATION BY BROWN BIRD DESIGN
3-D PRINTING EMERGES FROM A PLASTIC SOUP
