Stereolithography and its possibilities

The stereolithography process is used to print thin parts, such as this mounting card produced for the Tour de France.

The advantage of this technology is that the various components that make up the bike can be detached from the card. Simply detach and assemble them one by one. This means assembling the frame with handlebars, wheels, saddle, kickstand, pedals and of course the sprocket and derailleur. On this card you’ll also find the luggage rack and travel bags, which we haven’t installed to stay in the“Tour de France” spirit.

The finesse and thickness accuracy of stereolithography allow this type of 3D printing to be carried out with an assembly useful for prototype operation. This is where stereolithography comes into its own, compared with other rapid prototyping processes.

Stereolithography and its various uses

In this case, we used several stereolithography resins, mainly for aesthetic reasons.

In fact, with the stereolithography process, we can use several resins, depending on the desired use (temperature resistance, particular strength, color, transparency or opacity, mechanical or technical characteristics, etc.).

We chose the Accura 25 (the white bike), the Xtrem (the light gray bike) and the Taurus (the dark gray – charcoal – black bike). We chose them for monochrome rendering, only in the color gradient.

As explained above, each resin has its own specific characteristics. If you’d like to find out more, please visit our materials page or contact us for further details, and we’ll be happy to send you the data sheet.