Over-Curing Reduction of Parts Fabricated by the Solid Laser-Diode Plotter Rapid Prototyping System using the Taguchi Method

A solid laser-diode plotter (SLP) system is one of the commer-cial rapid prototyping (RP) systems developed and marketed in Japan. In the SLP system, two semiconductor lasers are employed instead of a UV laser or a diode-pumped solid state laser, as used in the stereolithography process to cure a specially designed photopolymer. An ascending platform is used to build the suspended solid model, and only a small amount of resin is cured in a thin layer on a plate of glass just below the last layer built. Hence, the SLP system is a low-cost RP system and is well suited for educational purposes, because a high-power laser is not involved and only a small amount of resin is used. However, the over-curing of the overhanging area is a processing problem in the ascending platform method, because the built part is suspended. In order to reduce the over-curing of the SLP parts, the Taguchi method was employed to analyse the processing parameters. The effect of the processing parameters on the over-curing was investigated and presented. The results show that the over-curing of the SLP parts was reduced about 40% using the optima processing parameters as analysed by the Taguchi method.