Leveraging your Open Material License on your Origin One

The Open Material License (OML) on Stratasys’s Origin One is perhaps one of the printer’s greatest tools. At a time when the additive manufacturing industry is advancing rapidly, futureproofing your 3D printer has never been a more important investment. Each OML can cover up to three Origin One machines allowing them to print almost any resin cured with 385-nanometer wavelength UV light.

Several 3^rd party materials that can be printed with an Origin One’s Open Material License will be outlined here including:

• Covestro’s ceramic-filled resin
• Mechnano’s ESD resin
• Tethon3D’s ceramic-filled & metal-filled resins
• Arkema’s investment casting resins
• Pro3dure’s biocompatible resin
• 3Dresyn’s biodegradable resin

Covestro’s Perform HW

Covestro was acquired by Stratasys in 2022 integrating their knowledge of additive materials to Stratasys’s impressive materials portfolio. Their Perform HW resin is a ceramic-filled resin for DLP/LCD printing largely based off their industry-leading Perform resin for SLA printing.

With a flexural modulus of 9,400 MPa and a tensile modulus of 10,140 MPa without a thermal cure this is one of the strongest known materials available in DLP/LCD printing. It has a HDT of 292°C making the material ideal for manufacturers looking to print temporary injection molds for low volume production or mold design confirmation.

The resin has relatively average viscosity considering the ceramic particles mixture – it is comparable to Dura56, a validated material on the Origin One. This means it should print fine as-is and likely does not require usage of the Origin One’s interface heating element. This also means it will quickly print high resolution parts with a smooth surface finish, high accuracy, and low warpage. These parts can be used for jigs/fixtures, wind tunnel testing, automotive housings, and consumer electronics casings.

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Mechnano’s Formula1

Formula1 has Carbon NanoTubes (CNTs) mixed in with a tough resin to give this material excellent ESD properties. It has a flexural modulus of 1,800 MPa and a tensile modulus of 2,600 MPa without a thermal cure. It’s HDT of 91.4°C allows parts to survive most heated environments such as consumer or automotive electronics.

Of particular note, the surface and volume resistance of parts made with this resin would be 10⁷ Ω which is comparable to Stratasys’s ABS-ESD7 filament on their FDM printers. This makes it ideal for hard electronics housing and casings but prints significantly faster than FDM printers with higher resolution and accuracy. The resin has slightly lower viscosity than Dura56, most likely due to the inclusion of CNTs, so it should be a reliable resin to print without using the Origin’s heating element.

Tethon3D’s Ceramic-filled resins

Tethon3D offers a variety of ceramic-filled resins with unique mechanical and thermal properties. Unlike Covestro’s Perform HW, these resins oftentimes have over 50% infill rate giving them triple the density of Perform HW. Tethon3D has partnered with Stratasys to bring some of these resins to the Origin One, but for now, the Open Material License would be required for printing these non-validated materials.

Aluminum silicate is a common ceramic filler for photopolymer resins giving them high HDTs, strength, and little shrinkage or dimensional inaccuracy. Glass ceramics are less common but can offer an even greater thermal tolerance of over 1,700°C! Their Ferrolite Iron resin can be used to craft 100% iron parts after being fired in an oven. With the right processing parameters these sintered iron parts could compete with traditionally cast-iron parts.

It is important to note that metal-infused resins, such as Ferrolite from Tethon3D, could negatively affect the pneumatic-controlled Teflon sheet the Origin One uses between print layers. This could lead to needing more Teflon sheets than usually needed for validated resins.

Arkema’s IC142 & IC163

These two resins come from the materials manufacturer, Arkema. They are both designed to be durable investment casting resins for the jewelry, dental, or rapid tooling industries. This resin would be optimal for smaller parts that require greater accuracy than FDM could provide without dedicating the system to investment casting like many large SLA systems. Resins such as these typically have a low ash rate that is easily cleaned out afterwards.

IC142 requires a specific burnout procedure of increasing temperature over several hours until reaching casting temperature after 3+ hours. IC163, however, does not outline this procedure in its documentation so it may be preferred when quickly casting multiple small parts in a single batch. It also offers better mechanical properties than IC142 and comes in orange, not black.

Pro3dure’s GR-10 Black1

This resin was designed to be cured at 405nm but with the proper configuration it works exceptionally well at 385nm on the Origin One. With the correct processing procedure, the resulting part should be biocompatible for mucus membranes for under 24 hours of contact, or for prolonged skin contact. It was initially designed for the audiology, dental, and micro-fluidic industries.

In order to achieve biocompatibility, the manufacturer says the part must be cured in an inert gas atmosphere or liquid environment to prevent oxygen inhibition. The manufacturer, Pro3dure, offers a High Intensity UV Cure Unit with an inert gas option to assist. The low viscosity of this resin suggests it can print easily and quickly. It should not require a long exposure time because black materials absorb light well.

3Dresyn’s CD Bio D Cyan

This plant-based resin is ecologically friendly, biodegradable, odorless, and prints very fast. This affordable material is sold by 3Dresyns and could provide manufacturers with a safe alternative to traditional prototyping materials. It could be used to check your design inexpensively before mass production. Hundreds, possibly thousands of single-use plastics could be printed each month on a single Origin One with this material.

The material has very low viscosity which makes for quick and easy printing. With a ShoreD value of 70 after being cured your part will be quite brittle. The cyan color makes for an attractive part with minor translucency for thin features. For every bottle purchased the company will also plant 1 tree with greenspark!

Tuning your OML Settings

Below is an image of some of the settings you can edit with your Origin One’s Open Material License. Stratasys and TriMech application engineers are unable to support the material tuning process, so here are some considerations you should have when testing a new material:

The viscosity of a resin describes its thickness and desire to flow. Lower viscosity resins are easier to print since they more quickly replace the recently cured material after each layer. Thicker resins with a higher viscosity will likely require heating to increase their flowability. Looser resins carry fewer internal stresses and air bubbles when cured. The Origin One will simultaneously heat your material from both the resin interface heater and chamber heater, so you can ensure a consistent viscosity throughout your material tray and optimize your printing experience.

The geometry of your part will describe how much resin is displaced each time the build plate is lowered into the material tray (sometimes called the build box). If you were building two square pillars with a horizontal bridge across the top of them, you should picture that the first layer of that bridge will only be 100 microns thick: roughly the diameter of your hair. After curing, this very thin layer will be separated from the pneumatic-controlled Teflon layer and pulled through a pool of uncured resin. Then it will be pushed through that same pool of uncured resin to prepare for the next layer. Depending on the length of this bridge the thin layer of cured material might not be rigid enough to displace the uncured resin as quickly as the reinforced vertical pillars. This stress may even stretch that first cured layer of the bridge too, making it longer than desired. Therefore, the second layer for the bridge might not cure onto and attach to the first layer for the bridge. This can be solved by increasing the exposure time for this first bridge layer to make it more rigid, reducing the speed at which the build plate lowers into the resin pool between layers, or adding in supports for the bridge’s underside so the first layer can push through the uncured resin.

Separation forces aren’t just a driving factor for current and future layers of your part but also for giving your part its foundation. The first layer of your part must be securely attached to your build plate if you are to have a successful print. This usually means curing your first layer more than normal. The amount of surface area attached to the build plate will also make it either easier or harder to remove from the build plate upon completion. In some instances, placing your part a few millimeters above the build plate and using support structures to attach it to the plate is better than directly attaching your part to the plate. With the right support structures and enough material, you’ll be able to stack your parts in the Origin One and fully utilize its print volume!

The color of your resin has as much to do with its ability to cure and your part accuracy as the viscosity. Black resins can absorb light and energy much better than translucent resins. Although black resins will be able to absorb light better there will still be some ‘bleeding light’ passing through the current layer into the previous layer. More often than not this effect helps to bond the current layer to the previous layer, but it also reduces how green the previous layer is as well. Since cured resin has a slightly different volume than uncured resin, and some previous layers will not be additionally cured by the ‘bleeding light’ effect, you can assume shrinkage is a minor factor in your DLP printing. Adjusting the Cure Depth Coefficient can help retain desired part accuracy and precision. This effect also means a lower layer height does not always result in a higher resolution or more accurate part!

Origin One OML & Custom Materials

For those who are experimental and passionate about additive manufacturing the Open Material License of the Origin One allows users to fully leverage the power of their machine. With hundreds of resins available and over three dozen settings to adapt to your part, the Origin One is indeed a formidable addition to any manufacturer’s capabilities. TriMech’s hardware applications engineers are here to answer your questions about the Origin One and its Open Material License! Contact us to speak to an expert.