Building the LumiBEE

Almost all LumiBee parts can be 3D Printed with a domestic FFF machine. The parts can be easily assembled by hand. Screws and threaded inserts are used to make the LumiBee easily repairable. The resin vat is either milled on a CNC machine with some Acrylic material, or 3D printed with a resin 3D printer. Motors, PCB, 4mm linear rods and bearings must be bought separately.

Assembling Lumibee

Using the LumiBee

To use the LumiBee is quite simple. You just need to:

Open the App on the phone and select all the parameters.
Open the LumiBee last segment and place the phone inside.
Power on the LumiBee
Move manually the tray to the top position, after fixing the building plate.
You can preview the layers before starting the print job to be sure all is in order.
Pour some Photocentric Daylight resin in the resin vat and close the LumiBee.
Don’t forget to put acrylic windows, that are magnetically attached, in place, to avoid external light to cure the resin inadvertently (remember than this is daylight resin, therefore more sensitive to visible light).
Press start and let it work
After printing, remove acrylic windows, unscrew the tray and open the LumiBee.
Remove the tray and 3D Printed part and clean it with TEK 1960 or similar liquid products.
Finally, remove the phone, and clean the vat, if needed.

Insterting a smartphone inside LumiBee

Pouring resin in the resin vat

Closing the Lumibee and starting the 3D printing process

3D Printing results on the LumiBEE

Daylight resins are slower than UV resins. We tested different resin suppliers and Photocentric daylight resins had the most consistent results. The best curing time up to now is 26s for one layer at 50um. More reactive daylight resins do exist, but operations like loading/unloading resin, or 3d printed parts after print job, must be done in a darkroom – like setup, as resin would start to cure with normal ambient light.

Another issue on which we are working on, is that the light rays emitted from the screen of a smartphone is not parallel; this means that 3d printed parts details will not be as sharp as the screen resolution would allow. We are testing different resins and setups to see the best solutions for this problem.