Research of a Novel Integral Stereolithography System for Microstructures

To fabricate microstructures with rapid prototyping system, a novel integral Stereolithography (SL) system is developed. Photo-sensitive resin is solidified with image masks produced by dynamic mask generator in the novel integral SL system. The dynamic mask generator consists of high pressure mercury lamp, collimating lens, shutter, parabolic concentrator, digital micro-mirror device and its control, lens and computer. Experimental investigations were carried out to research the UV light intensity distribution in the imaging plane, and experiments are also performed to investigate the relationship of UV light intensity with position in the imaging plane and gray-scale of pattern. According to the relationship, when different portion´s gray-scale of pattern is controlled with computer, uniformity UV light intensity distribution in the imaging plane has been reached. Small size parts with intricate microstructures have been built with the integral SL system. The advantage of the novel integral SL system is that the cost of the new SL system is lower than scanning SL system, because UV lamp is used in the new SL system as light resource instead of laser in scanning SL system. In this paper, the novel SL system set-up is described in detail. Example of small size parts fabricated by the system is shown. The novel integral SL system provides a solution to the problem that has blocked the progress of SL process into high resolution with low cost.