If You Dream of Large Resin Prints, Get Ready for Morpheus

If you are looking for a trend in desktop additive manufacturing (AM) systems, resin systems would be a contender. Ever since Formlabs proved such a thing was possible with the FORM1, other companies have been playing follow the leader in a rush to offer their own system.

Owl Works is a company out of China preparing to crowdfund its new Morpheus AM system this July on Kickstarter. I don’t generally like to speculate about the potential success of a system before it becomes available on the market, but Morpheus isn’t just a FORM1 clone, and offers something new to the desktop resin market even before it goes on sale.

Morpheus uses LCD masking to produce 3D printed objects. Courtesy of Owl Works.

Morpheus isn’t technically an SLA system. Instead of using lasers or DLP projection, the company has developed its own process which it has dubbed LIPS (Light Induced Planar Solidification). The process employs a commercial grade LCD to create a photo mask on the surface of the resin. This is followed by a UV light that cures the exposed areas.

That process is strikingly similar to that developed by Carbon3D, except that it still relies on mechanical operation to build an object, rather than chemical reactions. While final specs may change, the system is projected to have a 170 micron x/y resolution, and a layer height resolution of 25 - 300 microns.

The name Morpheus was drawn from the classic sci-fi thriller, The Matrix. The Morpheus AM system is larger than life in the same way the character Morpheus was in the film. According to the company, the forthcoming system boasts the largest build envelope of any desktop resin system at 13 x 7.1 x 7.9 in. (33 x 18 x 20 cm), and requires about 30 seconds to print a layer.

The hinted at starting price for the system will be $3,000, which is fairly middle of the road. Below you’ll find a video of Morpheus at work.

Source: Owl Works