Hi there !
depending on your requirement for detail I would suggest to go with SLS/SLM or SLA/DLP printers, like the Form 1+.
SLS/SLM works by having a box of powder, which gets molten at specific spots with a laser. This allows for high accuracy, but maybe isn’t as heatresistant as it needs to be. SLM uses plastics, of which the most common is Nylon, also called PA.
Nylon has a relatively low heat resistance and will most likely deform.
SLS uses metal powders, those will resist the temperature, but are very expensive, the average is 10-30€ / cm³, just for the printed material.
SLA/DLP printers use resin, which is cured with a laser. This also gives high details, maybe a little bit less compared to SLS/SLM, but it would be surely enough. I have no idea on how heat resistant those resin prints are, as heat isn’t used during the printing.
Lastly you will have heard about FFF/FDM printers, those extrude plastics through a nozzle. The print quality can differ a lot and in general the quality is much below what SLA/DLP and SLS/SLM can produce.
Layerheights of 0,1-0,25mm are common for FFF/FDM machines. My printer can handle up to 0,025mm layer height (theoretically even less, but that may suffer nasty surface artifacts).
As these machines melt the plastics, you can imagine, that the heat resistance is fairly low, and that’s partially true.
There are tons of materials to choose from for FFF/FDM printers, the most common, which is PLA, can deform at 60°C, so it won’t fit your needs.
The second in line is ABS, which is stable up to 120°C, but it can shrink during the printing, which may mean, that a model, that is designed with a 60mm width will print out with a 57mm width.
Therefore ABS is also a material to avoid.
To shorten the comparison I will skip to the materials that will work for this application:
BluPrint by Taulman3d (i offer it upon demand, I don’t have it in stock)
Polycarbonate
Tritan by Taulman3d
T-Glase / XT / PET / PETG by Taulman3d / Colorfabb / random brands (if the heat doesn’t exceed 70°C)
There may be more materials that would suit your needs, but these are the ones, that I know of. I would recommend XT as it’s fairly cheap in price, while providing a good print quality.
If XT wouldn’t work for this application I would recommend BluPrint as it’s reasonably strong and can be used in temperatures of up to 130°C.
Polycarbonate is very difficult to print and there’s barely any hub, that will offer Polycarbonate (same goes with Tritan).
Even though I would like to take this challenge, I think, that the first four printing methods will give you the best results. Especially because FFF/FDM printers are limited to certain wall thicknesses (which are equivalent to the nozzle diameter), these methods won’t be able to produce accurate thin walls, like the ones between the front teeth.
If you are interested anyways you can contact me via my hub at:
www.3dhubs.com/siegen/hubs/marius
I hope this helps you out, it would be nice, to hear from you about what method you finally chose and maybe you could even upload a picture of the print.
Cheers,
Marius Breuer
