Development and research of vacuum coating system in SL

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to show how to precisely control the liquid resin coating thickness in stereolithography (SL). Design/methodology/ approach - A vacuum adsorption coating equipment and technology are developed to precisely control the liquid resin coating thickness in SL. Dual-electrode device is used, so adsorption can be precisely controlled and the electrode polarization can be avoided. Findings - It turns out that the apparatus can control coating thickness effectively, and thickness uniformity is increased remarkably, which induces the standard deviation thickness decrease from 0.00547 to 0.00243 mm, and efficiency of rapid prototyping production increase by 53 percent. Originality/value - The paper demonstrates that the apparatus can control coating thickness effectively.