RepRapMicron, the microscale offshoot of the RepRap project, has built a UV print head called the PIKA UV Head that cures resin through a single-mode optical fiber, down to a claimed resolution of about 9 micrometers. The project published a photo of a 0.5 mm Benchy printed with the setup, along with more images and YouTube links on its blog.
The head is built from off-the-shelf parts: a standard single-mode fiber patch cord, trimmed down with a hacksaw, paired with a UV LED module rated “3W” (a figure the project itself flags as possibly unreliable). The fiber delivers UV light directly into a vat of eSun Standard Resin, curing material in place at the fiber tip to build up structures in situ.
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Claimed resolution | ~9 µm |
| Example print | 0.5 mm Benchy |
| Light source | “3W” UV LED module |
| Optics | Single-mode fiber patch cord, hacksaw-trimmed |
| Resin | eSun Standard Resin |
Post-processing follows standard SLA steps: both the part and the fiber tip need liquid resin cleaned off before final curing. The project reports overhangs as the current weak point, to be addressed in future revisions, and notes that photographing the prints is difficult simply because they’re small enough to lose to a sneeze.
No price, build volume, print speed or hardware source files beyond the blog post are given. This is a hobbyist, open-source development rather than a commercial product announcement, and RepRapMicron has not published a timeline for further revisions.