Guide to SLA 3D Printing for

Education and Research

Table of Contents
Guide to SLA 3D Printing for Education and Research 3

Demystifying 3D Printer Specifications 3

XY Resolution 5
Layer Thickness 6
Maximum Speed 7
Surface Finish 7
Accuracy 7
A Better Way to Evaluate Professional 3D Printers 8

What Does Resolution Mean in 3D Printing? 9

Resolution vs. Minimum Feature Size 9
Resolution and 3D printing 10
High-Resolution Printing 10
SLA vs. FDM 11
Laser vs. DLP 11
Understanding XY Resolution 12
Designing a Test Model 12
Analyzing the Model 13
Understanding the Results 13
Understanding Z Resolution 14
Are Smaller Layer Heights Always Better? 14
When Thinner Layers Don’t Help 15
When to Choose Higher Z Resolution 16

Choosing the Right Technology – FDM vs SLA vs SLS 17

Additional Educational Resources 18

3D Printing for
Education and Research
At Formlabs, we encourage hands-on learning through the integration of 3D modeling
and 3D printing into STEAM education. From high school drafting classes to university
biomedical labs, there are no limits to the applications of 3D printing in education
and research.

Our customers use 3D printing to inspire students and push research boundaries by
creating 3D models, prototypes, and custom tools that would otherwise be too costly
or complex to produce. For example, researchers from the Indiana University School
of Dentistry who specialize in maxillofacial prosthetics used the Form 2 to create an
artificial jaw for a cancer survivor. Somerville High School uses 3D printing as a tool
for project-based learning in their Career and Technical Education (CTE) program.
Dental and medical students across the globe practice procedures on 3D printed
parts before they perform them on patients.

Before bringing a 3D printer into your classroom or lab, there are a few important
aspects to consider so you can decide which technology is right for your applications.
In this guide, we’ll outline important 3D printer specifications you should understand
and what resolution in 3D printing really means. We’ll also cover the different 3D
printing technologies, how they compare, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Did you Know? We are trusted by the top educators in the US. 46 of the 50 top
universities in the US are powered by Formlabs.

Demystifying 3D Printer
Specifications
When the 3D printing industry exploded in 2014, a myriad of new companies rushed
in, claiming to be the next revolution in 3D printing. Every week, a new professional
3D printing company would crop up—each of them touting a product with a new
feature or a unique specification.

Naturally, all of this novelty caught the attention of consumers and business buyers.
With each product launch, more and more people became interested in applications
for 3D printing, particularly for industrial engineering and design prototyping.
However, as that interest grew, so did the use of confusing marketing jargon in
professional 3D printer specification charts.
To illustrate that trend, here’s a common specification comparison chart:

What do you notice about it? What stands out is all of the capital letters, numbers,
and parentheses. One might look at this information and assume that they needed
the highlighted printer. After all, it has the best specs and the most impressive (albeit
confusing) set of numbers.

The problem? That chart doesn’t actually say much of anything.

If you were buying a professional 3D printer, this chart wouldn’t help you understand
what really matters: how the part will come out. That approach doesn’t help customers
choose the right 3D printer for their needs and, in the long run, it doesn’t help the
professional 3D printing industry grow.

This isn’t meant to be a super technical breakdown of every 3D printer specification

out there. Instead, the goal is to shed light on what some commonly discussed 3D
printer specifications really mean and help businesses understand what they should
actually be looking for.

Let’s start by diving into some of the individual specs listed in the chart above.
XY Resolution
XY resolution is the most talked about specification for stereolithography (SLA) 3D
printers. In many circumstances, it also happens to be the most misunderstood.

Typically, XY resolution is used to describe the details or features of a part. In the

chart above, the XY resolution listed for this digital light processing (DLP)-SLA printer
(25-80 microns) is amazing, but what does that number actually describe?

In all likelihood, it’s the resolution of the actual projector, which is why it’s a variable
range. That number doesn’t tell the whole story. Ultimately, there are a plethora of
variables that can affect a printer’s output. By looking only at XY resolution, we’re led
to believe that there’s a 1:1 ratio between the size of a pixel on the projector and the
cured resin of the part.

Here’s why that’s a faulty calculation: It doesn’t take into account the material itself,
the print process, the software used, or numerous other variables. As a result,
this spec doesn’t tell us anything about what you could actually produce with this
machine.

These two rooks were printed with the same XY resolution. The rook on the left looks
smoother because it is made with our new matte black material.

Order a Sample Part

Layer Thickness
Layer thickness is typically used to describe the surface finish of a part. While
the thickness of a layer is often better at lower layer heights, the issue is that the
roughness of a surface is not standard in relation to the layer height.

To illustrate this, see the images below of a few parts printed on the Form 2 to show
that the relationship between layer thickness and surface finish is not what one might
expect. In the picture below, you’ll see two rings—one printed in Castable Resin and
the other in Black Resin. The Castable Resin has a slightly smoother surface finish and
the micro pavé is a bit crisper.

Black Resin (25 microns layer height). Castable Resin (50 microns layer height).

Here’s the catch: the ring printed in Castable Resin was actually printed at 50 microns,
whereas the ring printed in Black Resin was printed at 25 microns.

The reason the ring printed in Castable Resin looks better at 50 microns is because
this resin was designed to produce the best results at 50 microns. Also, the Formlabs
team dialed in the print/material settings on the Form 2 to make sure it produced the
best results for casting.

Some companies list Z-axis resolution instead of layer height, which has the same
usefulness as XY resolution because it speaks to the distance the Z-axis motor can
mechanically move/step.

The bottom line: just because a printer manufacturer claims “X” layer height, doesn’t
mean that printer will have a better surface finish.
Maximum Speed
Maximum speed is a hard metric to quantify, particularly across different printers.
Again, there’s not enough information for us to really understand how these printers
will perform when producing parts. Not only do the standard variables impact print
time, so too do factors like geometry and orientation of the part.

For instance, a taller part will take more time than one oriented closer to the build
plate because there are more layers to print. Also, the way that an object is oriented
and supported will change the time it takes to print the part.

A common benchmark is how fast a printer can produce a one-inch cube. The
problem with that example is that it’s very specific. Unless you’re a dice manufacturer,
one-inch cubes aren’t a great way to estimate how long your part will take to print.

Surface Finish
Decisions in life would be so much easier if “good” and “bad” were the only ways
of quantifying specifications. Surface finish was discussed earlier in relation to layer
thickness, but one thing to keep in mind: there is no real specification for surface
finish. Surface finish can differ depending on the geometry (curved vs. straight
surfaces) and orientation. The only way to compare surface finish between printers
is if every 3D printing company published results from an industry standard part and
profilometer. Unfortunately, this is probably not going to happen anytime soon.

Accuracy
Accuracy isn’t included in the chart in the introduction, but it is something that a few
3D printer companies have been publishing recently. The mistake that a lot of 3D
printer buyers make is assuming that XY resolution or layer thickness will determine
the accuracy of the final part.

The truth is that global accuracy is hard to determine, largely because it can be
impacted by length, geometry, and orientation. Here’s an example of an accuracy
statement for a large industrial machine:

Accuracy for a large industrial printer (priced around $100,000).

At first it seems all parts will be within 25-50 microns but the footnote references just
about every aspect of producing a part.
A Better Way to Evaluate
Professional 3D Printers
It’s not that everyone in our industry is trying to mislead you. The truth is, the 3D
printing industry as a whole lacks a set of standard specifications that adequately
describes what you can expect from a 3D printer. Even with established technology,
specifications don’t tell the whole story.

Output is truly dependent on hardware, operating system, application, and several

other factors.

With that said, all hope is not lost. Here are four tips that will help you effectively
evaluate different 3D printers:

Talk to the company. You’re investing in something to help you iterate faster and
build better products. The best way to better understand a company’s technology and
how its products work is to talk to its team.

Request a sample part. We’ve established that 3D printer specifications aren’t a

great way to evaluate what a printer can actually produce. To see if a specific printer
will meet your needs, ask the 3D printing manufacturer to send you a sample part,
such as this free sample part from Formlabs. Once you receive the sample, ask the
company to provide more information. For example:

How long did it take to print?

How much material was used?

What’s the layer thickness?

If you do this a few times with a few different companies, you’ll see that surface finish
from different printers can vary, even at the same layer height.

Ask for custom sample parts. Not all companies will do this, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Seeing your design printed will help you to understand what you can expect when
you begin running the machine. If most of your parts are protected IP, try designing a
part with similar features to avoid worrying about confidentiality agreements.

When sending a design for a custom sample, make sure the design is representative
of your business or use case. For most prototyping applications, we typically
recommend sending a design that represents roughly 80 percent of your business.
Sending a complicated part that is a small percentage of what you’ll be printing can
lead to purchasing a solution that doesn’t really make sense for your work.

Look for design guides. Most 3D printing manufacturers have published design
guides that help customers understand how to better use and design models for their
printers. Guides like the Formlabs design guide provide specifications for different
types of features.
What Does Resolution
Mean in 3D Printing?
In our previous section, we touched briefly on XY resolution. Now, we want to delve
more into what resolution really means and how we can measure it. “Resolution” is
an often discussed but seldom understood value in the world of 3D printing. How
does XY and Z resolution influence on the quality of your 3D prints? What’s minimum
feature size and what layer height should you choose?

In this section, you’ll learn how resolution affects your 3D prints and how it differs
between SLA, FDM, and DLP printers.

• Resolution vs. Minimum Feature Size

• Understanding XY Resolution

• Understanding Z Resolution

Resolution vs. Minimum Feature Size

Technology has been in a resolution war for decades. Televisions recently quadrupled
pixel counts from HD to 4K and are poised to do it again soon to 8K. Cell phones,
tablets, and anything with a screen will have its resolution as the lead on the spec
sheet, provided that it’s something to boast about. But this is nothing new. Resolution
wars have been waged since digital technology became popular, and the printing
industry was one of the first battlegrounds.

If you were around in the 80’s and 90’s, you remember Canon, Brother, HP, Epson,
and Lexmark (among others) battling it out for print speed and resolution. What
started at 100x100 dots per inch (DPI) quickly escalated to 300x300, then 600x600,
and finally the current industry standard of 1200x1200 DPI. Back then, the meaning
of these values was clearly understandable; even the units made perfect sense.
Unfortunately, things get more complicated when you add another dimension to
printing.
RESOLUTION AND 3D PRINTING

In 3D printing there are three dimensions to consider: the two planar 2D dimensions
(X and Y) and the Z dimension that makes it 3D printing. Since the planar and Z
dimensions are generally controlled via very different mechanisms, their resolutions
are going to be different and need to be treated separately. As a result, there is a lot
of confusion about what the term “resolution” means in 3D printing and what level of
print quality to expect.

Level of detail is impacted by the resolution in all three dimensions.

HIGH-RESOLUTION PRINTING

What is the resolution of a 3D printer? There’s not a one-number answer. Since

they print in three dimensions, you will have to consider at least two numbers: the
minimum feature size of the XY plane and the Z-axis resolution (layer height). The
Z-axis resolution is easily determined and therefore widely reported even though it
is less related to print quality. The more important XY resolution (minimum feature
size) is measured via microscopic imaging and is therefore not always found in spec
sheets. Practically, it means that you should pick a printer that performs well in both
categories like the Form 2 does.

The Form 2 SLA 3D printer has a high Z-axis resolution and a low minimum
feature size on the XY plane, allowing it to produce fine details.
SLA VS. FDM

A lot has changed since the first desktop 3D printers became available to the public.
Now Stereolithography (SLA) 3D printers, like the Form 2, are competing for the same
desktop spots as FDM printers. One of the main advantages that SLA printers hold
over their plastic-melting cousins is print quality: SLA printers produce significantly
smoother and more detailed prints. While SLA printers can usually also achieve
significantly smaller layer heights, the reason for the improved print quality lies in their
much higher XY-resolution.

Unlike FDM printers, minimum feature size in the XY plane on SLA printers is not
limited by melted plastic flow dynamics but rather optics and radical polymerization
kinetics. While the math is complicated (and outside the scope of this post), it shakes
out to this: features on SLA prints can be approximately as small as the diameter of
their laser spots. And laser spots can be really small, especially compared to extruder
nozzles.

LASER VS. DLP

Within SLA, there are two main types of imaging systems, laser-based and DLP. Unlike
DLP printers, which have a fixed matrix of pixels relative to the build area, laser-based
devices can focus the laser beam on any XY coordinate. This means that laser-based
machines, given high-quality optics, can more accurately reproduce the surface of a
part even when the laser spot size is larger than the DLP pixel size. Whichever printer
you choose, it should be able to capture the finest details of your creations, from
stress test models to photorealistic busts of famous leaders. The right high-resolution
3D printer will bring your designs to life.

Understanding XY Resolution
In the world of 3D printing, no factor influences print quality more than XY resolution.
Often discussed but seldom understood, XY resolution (also called horizontal
resolution) is the smallest movement that a printer’s laser or extruder can make within
a single layer. The lower the number, the better the details. Yet this number is not
always included in spec sheets, and when it is, the published value is not always
accurate. To truly know a printer’s XY resolution, it’s important to understand the
science behind the number.

Practically, how does XY resolution affect your 3D prints? In order to find out, we
decided to test the Form 2 SLA 3D printer. The Form 2 has a laser spot size of 140
microns (FWHM), which should allow it to print fine details on the XY plane. We put it
to the test to see if this ideal resolution holds true.
To test the Form 2’s minimum feature size on the XY plane, we designed a model (left) with lines ranging
from 10 to 200 microns and printed it in Clear Resin (right).

DESIGNING A TEST MODEL

First, we designed and printed a model to test the minimum feature size on the XY
plane. The model is a rectangular block with lines of varying widths in horizontal,
vertical, and diagonal directions to avoid directional bias. The line widths range from
10 to 200 microns in 10 micron steps and are 200 microns tall, which equates to two
layers when printed at 100-micron Z resolution. The model was printed in Clear Resin,
washed twice in an IPA bath, and post-cured for 30 minutes.

ANALYZING THE MODEL

After post-curing, we put the model under a microscope and took high-resolution
photos for analysis. Using ImageJ, the NIH’s free image analysis software, we first
scaled the pixels of the images and then measured the actual widths of the lines
printed. We collected over 50 data points per line width to eliminate measuring
errors and variability. In total, we printed and analyzed three models on two different
printers.

The model was photographed and tinted green to improve visibility. On the right side of the window,
the vertical yellow line with black points measures the width of a photographed line.
UNDERSTANDING THE RESULTS

As the print’s line width decreases from 200 to 150 microns, the ideal values are
within the 95% confidence interval of the measured value. As the intended line widths
get smaller than 150 microns, the measured interval starts to deviate significantly from
the ideal. This means that the printer can reliably produce XY features as small as 150
microns, about the size of a human hair.

The results indicate that the Form 2 has the same ideal and actual XY resolution for features
that are 150 microns and larger.

Based on our measurements, the Form 2’s minimum feature size on the XY plane
is about 150 microns, which is only 10 microns larger than its 140-micron laser. The
minimum feature size can never be smaller than the laser spot size, and there are
many factors that affect this value: laser refraction, microscopic contaminants, resin
chemistry, and much more. Considering the printer’s entire ecosystem, a 10-micron
difference is nominal. Not every 3D printer’s published resolution holds true, so it’s
a good idea to do plenty of research before choosing the one that’s right for your
project. If your work calls for prints with intricate details, look for a printer with an XY
resolution that’s backed by measurable data, not just a number.
Understanding Z Resolution
When you read 3D printer spec sheets, you’ll see one value show up more than
any else: Z resolution. Also known as layer height, Z resolution was the first major
numerical differentiation between early 3D printers. Early machines struggled to break
the 1 mm barrier, but now layer heights on FDM printers can be sub-0.1 mm thin, while
SLA machines are even more precise.

Currently, the Form 2 SLA 3D printer supports layer heights of 100 and 50 microns
in all resins. Clear, White, and Castable Resins can achieve Z resolutions as high as
25 microns. This selection of layer heights gives you the ideal balance of speed and
resolution. The main question is: what is the best layer height for your print?

ARE SMALLER LAYER HEIGHTS ALWAYS BETTER?

High resolution comes with a tradeoff. Thinner layers mean more repetitions, which
in turn means longer times: printing at 25 microns vs. 100 usually increases the
print time four-fold. More repetitions also mean more opportunities for something to
go wrong. For example, even at a 99.99% success rate per layer, quadrupling the
resolution lowers the chance of print success from 90% to 67% if one assumes that a
failed layer causes total print failure.

Do thinner layers result in better prints? Not always — it depends on the model to be
printed and the printer’s XY resolution. In general, thinner layers equals more time,
artifacts, and errors. In some cases, printing models at lower resolutions (i.e. thicker
layer heights) can actually result in higher-quality prints.
WHEN THINNER LAYERS DON’T HELP

Thinner layers are typically associated with smoother transitions on diagonals, which
leads many users to generalize and push Z resolution to the limits. But what if the
model consists mostly of vertical and horizontal edges, with 90-degree angles and
few diagonals? In those cases, additional layers don’t improve the quality of the
model.

The issue is compounded if the XY resolution of the printer in question is not perfect
and “colors outside the lines” when drawing the outside edges. More layers means
more mismatched ridges on the surface. While the Z resolution is higher, the model
will look like it is significantly lower quality in this case.
WHEN TO CHOOSE HIGHER Z RESOLUTION

That being said, there are times when you want higher resolution. Given a printer with
good XY resolution and a model with intricate features and many diagonal edges,
dialing down the height of the layers will yield a much better model. In addition, if that
model is short (200 or fewer layers) upping the Z-axis resolution can really improve
the quality.

The results indicate that the Form 2 has the same ideal and actual XY resolution for features that are 150
microns and larger.

Certain designs benefit from a higher Z resolution: organic forms, rounded arches,
small embossings, and intricate engravings. As a general guideline, err on the side
of thicker layers and only bump up the Z resolution when completely necessary.
With the right printer and a certain type of model, higher Z resolution will capture the
intricate details of your design.

Learn How SLA 3D Printing Works

How to Choose the Right 3D Printing
Technology – FDM vs SLA vs SLS
There are several different 3D printing technologies and each has their advantages
and disadvantages. Watch our webinar recording if you want more information on:

• Each 3D printing technology and their different use cases

• The primary 3D printing technologies and why their ideal

uses are not widely understood

• How surface finish, speed, functional parts, or

implementation costs should influence your decision to
adopt a certain 3D printing technology

What you will learn

How do you know if you’re using the right 3D printing technology for your application?
Watch the recording to learn:

• A brief history of the primary 3D printing technologies –

FDM, SLA, and SLS

• Suggested usage scenarios for each process

• Design guidelines to make the most of each technology

• Example use cases and applications

Watch the Webinar

Additional Educational Resources
Education and Research Resources Page →

Formlabs Blog →

Formlabs Forum →

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