Formlabs officials think their new Form 2 stereolithographic 3-D printer could enable better medical device prototyping. Check out video of them demonstrating the printer at MD&M Philadelphia.

Chris Newmarker

Formlabs--the four-year-old 3-D printer company that raised nearly $3 million in a Kickstarter campaign--is touting its new Form 2 stereolithographic 3-D printer as a professional-grade desktop 3-D printer that costs only a few thousand dollars. 

The printer has a 5.7-by-5.7-by-6.9-in build volume, 40% larger than its predecessor, the Form 1. And the targeted UV laser that hardens the surface of the liquid polymer resin pool in the printer is 50% more powerful. The laser hardens one layer out of the time, so objects aren't rising out of the pool within minutes as they do with Carbon 3D's unconventional Terminator 2-like CLIP technology.

The Form 2, though, retails for $3499, while CLIP machines will likely be big-ticket items running over $100,000, JP Shipley, a Formlabs marketing professional, explained at MD&M Philadelphia. (Formlabs will be at Booth #311 at Minnesota Medtech Week, November 4-5 in Minneapolis.) The Form 2 excels at producing intricate parts, thanks in part to its ability to use laser light to cure resin. TechCrunch referred to the Form 2 as the first refined consumer-grade SLA printer whereas it calls the Form 1 "a prototype for a consumer-grade SLA printer." 

Check out Shipley demonstrating the Form 2 in the video below:

Chris Newmarker is senior editor of Qmed and MPMN. Follow him on Twitter at @newmarker.

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