Mar 10, 2016 | By Alec

It’s an age-old battle when it comes to resin 3D printing. Do you go for the often more expensive SLA 3D printer, or for the cheaper DLP 3D printer – which features a light source that needs to be replaced after several thousand hours? When the other stats are almost exactly the same, it can be a hard choice to make. But that might not be an issue any more in the near future, as South Korean 3D printer developer Carima has just unveiled the im-j DLP 3D printer, featuring an LED UV light source that can last 20,000 hours – about four to seven times longer than other DLP light sources.

Carima is a South Korean 3D printer manufacturer. Founded way back in 1983 as a photo-conducting business with a focus on optic machinery, their focus has shifted to 3D printers a few years ago. They developed their first industrial 3D printer (Master) in 2009, by relying on their own optic technologies. Last year, they unveiled the very interesting C-CAT 3D printing technology at Euromold 2015, which is also part of the im-j DLP 3D printer. In a nutshell, it combines high speed 3D printing with DLP’s excellent detail level. Depending on who you compare it with, C-CAT (Carima-Continuous Additive 3D Printing Technology) is theoretically capable of being up to 400 times faster than existing DLP 3D printers.

While they are not specifying the speed of the im-j DLP 3D printer, the combination of C-CAT with a long-life light source makes it a very interesting 3D printer indeed. As they explain to 3ders.org, Carima purposefully unveiled the 3D printer at the Hong Kong Jewelry Show 2016, as the machine has been specifically designed for jewelry design. They are therefore pushing to enter Hong Kong’s considerable jewelry market. For that purpose, the Hong Kong event was obviously the right place to be. Held throughout last week, it is the largest jewelry event in the world and attracted more than 2,500 companies from all over the world, as well as 320,000 visitors from Asia, Europe and the US.

And it certainly seems to be a good option for jewelry design. Combine the theoretical top speed of C-CAT technology (up to 1 cm/minute) with a good resolution of 50 microns, a touch panel, and user-friendly operation system that accommodates inexperienced users, what more do you need? And with a 20,000 hour life span for its LED UV light source, it definitely won’t need maintenance frequently. The company further revealed that the machine can also be used with wax resin for direct casting, making it easy to create metal jewelry as well.

According to Carima, the crowds in Hong Kong were quite impressed with the machine, which they will initially bring to the Asian market. But as the company already exports to more than 25 countries throughout the world, they are also looking at international export. Lee Byung Geuk, the company’s CEO is confident that the im-j DLP 3D printer will be a huge hit. “Carima expects that a turning point will be reached once the im-j model hits the worldwide market. It will enable us to export high-end Korean technology worldwide.”

 

 

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Pritpal Singh wrote at 9/17/2017 10:57:23 AM:

I am interested in buying . Send detail of product Ppbangles25273@gmail.com

John wrote at 3/10/2016 10:19:09 PM:

50um wont cut the mustard for jewelry prints. Shame as this looks interesting



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