RepRap was the origin of pushing hobby 3D printing boundaries, and here we see a RepRap scaled down to the smallest detail. [Vik Olliver] over at the RepRap blog has been working on getting a printer working printing down to the level of micron accuracy.
The printer is constructed using 3D printed flexures similar to the OpenFlexure microscope. Two flexures create the XYZ movement required for the tiny movements needed for micron level printing. While still in the stages of printing simple objects, the microscopic scale of printing is incredible.
[Vik] managed to print a triangular pattern in resin at a total size of 300 µm. For comparison SLA 3D printers struggle at many times that scale. Other interesting possibilities from this technology could be printing small scale circuits from conductive resins, though this might require some customization in the resin department.
In addition to printing with resin, µRepRap can be seen making designs in marker ink such as our own Jolly Wrencher! At only 1.5 mm the detail is impressive especially when considering the nature of scratching away ink.
If you want to make your own µRepRap head over to [Vik Olliver]’s GitHub. The µRepRap project has been a long going project. From the time it started the design has changed quite a bit. Check out an older version of the µRepRap project based around OpenFlexure!
At micron scale, it might be interesting for hobbyists, to print photoresist onto wafers. Not as efficient as lithography but probably a whole lot easier to set up more than one machine…
This is pretty cool! I can see myself getting into something like this. Keep up the good work!
To all who wondered how the actual printing works (source: GH project README):
i clicked around a little bit and if i’m understanding the mechanism correctly, i’m more impressed by the deposition method than by the micro-movements. it seems like they’re using a syringe to deposit resin, and then UV lighting the whole thing to solidify it? that seems like an interesting development compared to firing lasers into a huge bath of resin
Syringes don’t work too well at that scale, so it dips a micron fine probe in a smear of resin periodically, like an old-fashioned ink pen in an inkwell.
The probe is simply 26ga nichrome wire electrolysed until the end drops off.
It gets 16 or more evenly-sized droplets before recharging. It dips in a smear rather than a drop because otherwise surface tension goes bananas and you get a huge glob on the point.