A Peterborough company that makes LCD-based 3D printers and the light-sensitive liquid resins they use, aiming to make 3D printing work for mass manufacturing.
Photocentric makes 3D printers, the liquid resins that go into them, and printed parts. Its printers use ordinary LCD screens, the same kind of technology found in a phone or monitor, as the light source that hardens liquid resin into solid plastic. Because LCD screens can be made large and cheaply, the company says it can print bigger objects at lower cost. Its products include the LC Magna printer and a resin range called Daylight, which hardens under visible light. It also produces industrial parts, dental aligners and ceramics, and during the Covid-19 pandemic it printed two million face shields.
The company grew out of research into light-curable materials, called photopolymers, which began in 2002 and was supported by Innovate UK grants. Early on it packaged light-sensitive liquids in sachets to make rubber stamps. Its founder, Paul Holt, has said: "Our goal is to change world manufacturing, not just 3D printing." In a 2019 interview he described the mission as making 3D printing affordable, large-scale and functional, so that custom products can be made in volume around the world. The company has won three Queen's Awards, including one for international trade.
Photocentric is based in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. A local news report describes a move into Titan House on Titan Drive in Fengate, a 5,500 square metre centre with laboratories, a warehouse, three print farms, a hardware production facility and a sales and service office. A print farm is a room of printers running side by side. A 2021 Innovate UK case study said it had opened a large digital manufacturing facility and grown its UK headcount from 115 to 160 during 2020. A withdrawn government case study from about 2020 listed roughly 90 UK employees and 35 in a US subsidiary, so figures vary by date.
The people named in local coverage show the variety of roles: a group marketing director, a group production manager, a 3D assembly operator and a 3D print technician. The company has been expanding its research and development team, and says it applies quality control at every stage. Paul Holt has said he hopes the business can help Peterborough move from warehouse work towards high-tech manufacturing. It also works with companies such as Unipart, Games Workshop and Essentra Components to improve how they make things. These are the company's and local press's descriptions, not an independent review of its workplace.
For a student, Photocentric is a good example of chemistry, electronics, software and production all working in one place. Chemists develop the resins, engineers design and build the printers, technicians run print farms and finish parts, and marketing and sales teams explain the technology to customers. If you like science and making things, it shows how a lab idea can become a factory in your own region. Its newest machine, Jeni, is named after the Spinning Jenny, a nod to the textile mills that began the Industrial Revolution.
Website: photocentricgroup.com
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