polySpectra launches new cyclic olefin resin material on Kickstarter - Engineering.com

3D Printing

COR Zero aims to make production-quality additive manufacturing more accessible.

polySpectra, maker of rugged photopolymer resins, is launching its latest cyclic olefin resin (COR) material on Kickstarter: COR Zero. COR Zero is designed to be a manufacturing-grade material for resin 3D printing that can be printed and processed in a home workshop with inexpensive equipment.

“It took us more than a decade to develop a COR formulation that was safe enough and inexpensive enough for individuals to use in their own workshop,” said polySpectra Founder and CEO Raymond Weitekamp. “We’re partnering with Kickstarter specifically because the kind of person who would be most empowered by COR Zero is the kind of person who would launch a Kickstarter for their innovative physical product idea.”

COR Zero marks polySpectra’s entry into the consumer market. Intended to enable designers and engineers to skip injection molding, COR Zero aims to lower the cost innovation in a number of key application areas, including end-use manufacturing for:

While resin-based 3D printed parts can experience issues of brittleness or poor thermal stability, COR materials are designed to be compatible with both industrial and desktop DLP/LCD 3D printers and, according to polySpectra, they bring additive parts closer to true production quality. The company has stated that it will continue to refine the formulation for COR Zero before shipping, but offered the following representative properties:

Tensile Properties:

Impact Strength:

Thermal Properties:

“The chemistry behind COR Zero has been in development for many years, with direct input and validation from Fortune 500 customers, leading aerospace firms and the US Department of Energy,” said Weitekamp. “We are tremendously excited to bring this powerful technology to the general public, which we hope will accelerate innovation in hardware and durable goods.”