DSM Somos, a world leader in the development of innovative, high-performance stereolithography (SL) materials, announced that 2007 was a record year in sales for the company, crediting the result to wide market acceptance of their extensive list of new products introduced from late 2006 through 2007. Among the most popular introductions:

DMX-SL™ 100: a breakthrough high-impact resin delivering the accuracy of stereolithography with sintered-like durability. Based on a new chemistry platform, DMX-SL takes stereolithography beyond its traditional applications and toward applications previously reserved for cast urethanes and laser sintering that require both high stiffness and high impact resistance.

WaterClear® Ultra 10122: based on colorimeter comparison testing, the clearest SL resin available on the market today. Closely mirrors the behavior of high-clarity acrylic and demonstrates higher clarity than commercial grade polycarbonate. WaterClear Ultra is the resin of choice for automotive lenses and packaging applications due to its optical clarity and high accuracy.

WaterShed® XC 11122: a near colorless version of Somos’ best-selling ABS-like WaterShed® 11120 material, with high stiffness, good elongation and exceptional water resistance. WaterShed XC exhibits an improvement of 5 DE units over the original WaterShed resin (anything over 1 unit being noticeable with the human eye). WaterShed XC is being widely used for lenses, housings, flow modeling, and investment casting patterns.

ProtoGen O-XT™ 18120 (clear) and 18420 (white): extremely accurate, all-purpose ABS-like SL materials offering high dimensional stability, low water absorption and high green strength. Other advantages: faster processing speeds with higher accuracy and heat deflection temperatures (HDT of 70°C with UV-only post-treatment and >100°C with thermal post-treatment).

Somos 19120 ProtoCast™ AF: Targeted for the metal investment casting industry as an antimony-free (heavy metal free) casting resin with attributes tailored to the investment casting process. The material boasts extremely low ash content and is targeted for use with both fused silica and alumina refractory shell systems.

NanoTool™: The third in DSM Somos’ line of reinforced composite materials for conventional stereolithography (SL), NanoTool combines high-temperature-resistance and exceptional stiffness with low thermal expansion and low shrinkage characteristics. Enhanced processing speeds ( >30% increase) shown in head-to head testing with the competitive SL materials, as well as ease of secondary processing make this composite resin ideal for applications such as wind tunnel testing, rapid tooling and metal plating of structural composites.