Carbon3D Unveils CLIP 3D Printing Technology

Carbon3D unveil a new 3D printing technology which is 25-100 times faster than the technology available today. Carbon3D is a Redwood city, California based company founded in 2013, changes the technology of 3d printing. 

CLIP (Continuous liquid interface production technology) works on harnessing the power to light and oxygen to cure a photosensitive resin. CLIP is a breakthrough technology that grows parts instead of printing them layer by layer. UV light triggers photopolymerization and oxygen inhibits it. By carefully balancing the interaction of light and oxygen, CLIP continuously grows objects from a pool of resin. CLIP moves beyond the limitations of 3D printing to offer unprecedented speed, quality, and choice.


Traditional 3d printer takes hours or even days to finish a part while CLIP is 25-100 times faster. A comparison of production time between the different technologies is given below to produce a 51 mm complex object.

Quality of Printing

Quality of traditional 3D printers is very poor because the mechanical Properties vary in the direction the parts were printed with layer by layer approach, but in the CLIP approach of 3D printing the parts are made just like injection molded parts. CLIP produce a very smooth surface from the outside and they are more solid from inside. The Mechanical Properties of Component produced by CLIP approach are more consistent and predictable

Materials 

There are lots of material choices you can take with the CLIP for desired production quality. You can use a whole polymer range and elastomers. It covers a range from the high elastic to the strength and temperature resistance needed for any part.

How It Works

CLIP is a carefully managed chemical reaction process which is controlled with the help of some software. In this technology light solidifies the resin and oxygen keeps it from solidifying. Tradition 3D printing requires a repeated process of layer by layer approach of mechanical steps. In CLIP the mechanical steps are eliminated by carefully balancing the light and oxygen to create any object.

It works by projecting light through an oxygen-permeable window into a reservoir of UV curable resin. The build platform lifts continuously as the object is grown. The heart of the CLIP process is a special window that is transparent to light and permeable to oxygen, much like a contact lens

By controlling the oxygen flux through the window, CLIP creates a “dead zone” — a thin layer of uncured resin between the window and the object. This makes it possible to grow without stopping. As a continuous sequence of UV images is projected, the object is drawn from the resin bath. The sophisticated software manages the entire process by controlling the variables.

About Carbon3D

Carbon3D, a Silicon Valley based company, was founded in 2013 in Chapel Hill, NC. Working at the intersection of hardware, software and molecular science, Carbon3D is delivering on the promise of 3D printing, allowing commercial customers to go beyond prototyping to achieve 3D manufacturing. The Continuous Liquid Interface Production technology (CLIP) was originally developed by Professor Joseph DeSimone, Professor Edward Samulski, and Dr. Alex Ermoshkin and introduced simultaneously at TED 2015 and to the scientific community (Science, 2015). Since its inception, Carbon3D has partnered with Sequoia Capital to lead the company’s Series A round of financing in 2013 along with Northgate Partners, Piedmont Capital Partners and Wakefield Group. Silver Lake Kraftwerk led the Series B round of financing in 2014 with Northgate Capital and Sequoia Capital, for a total raise of $41 million to date.

For More Information: Carbon3D