First, apologies if this is the wrong place for this… hoping for someone from Formlabs with knowledge of this subject to weigh in, but if you’ve heard Formlabs answer this question before or have your own ideas, feel free to contribute.
I’m wondering why Formlabs decided to go with MSLA instead of DLP technology for the Form 4 Series. From my understanding, DLP can be superior in almost every way, other than super high pixel densities (higher than 8K screens). And DLP lasts much longer too, something I would think would be important for a printer in this price range. Is it only cost and availability that drive the decision, DLP being more expensive and (I believe) less available? Or is there some technical reason MSLA is better for the Form 4?
Well, size I believe is one of them because most projectors need a further distance for focusing and I think you can also get an issue around the edges if I’m not mistaken. Essentially any flaws a normal projector would have a DLP machine could have as well.
Thanks for the reply, and that link was a great read! It sounds like Formlabs believe their MSLA technology has caught up with DLP in terms of overall quality, and yes it seems DLP will usually suffer from some distortion or lack of uniformity near the edges of the projection area. I guess columnation suffers, or at least changes near the edges too, which isn’t good. And apparently DLP chips with enough pixels to have decent density at large build sizes (even the base model Form 4 size) are hard to come by or don’t exist, so they aren’t usually used for large format printers, especially the more modern inverted-platform types that don’t require a vat filled with liters of costly resin at all times. So with some well designed and calibrated optics, I suppose DLP could have been as good as Formlab’s MSLA on the Form 4, but DLP would fall short of MSLA for the Form 4L and uniformity of tech across the Form 4 line is clearly important. So it makes sense… and Formlabs says their LCDs last a long time and can be easily replaced for cheap (how cheap though? I’m worried Formlabs’ idea of “cheap” is a bit different from that of most non-commercial 3D printer enthusiasts lol).
Still curious if someone from Formlabs would be able to weigh in here. I still think DLP is cool and has more potential… just need to embrace taller printers and someone needs to develop a cheap and available super high res (16K+) chip that can power up to medium format printers, and for small format printers, some portion of the display near the edges can be sacrificed (i.e. refracted outside of the build platform area) to improve uniformity at the cost of pixel size (less of a concern for small format if the chip is already super high res). Anyone want to group-buy some super high res DLP chips (joking!)?