Norwegian DLP light engine manufacturer Visitech has developed a new product. The LRS 8KA Laser 405 has been specifically created for additive manufacturing. The engine is a native 4K DMD unit that, coupled with a new Laser Module, doubles the power output of a previous unit. This is a significant upgrade over the previous LED-based unit, the LRS McX 4K.
Using Visitech’s optical actuators, the company states that “The new module combines multiple laser diodes to deliver more than 30 W of optical power in image, more than double the output of the LRS McX 4K. Built around this native 4K DMD and Visitech’s proprietary optical actuator, the system addresses more than 35-million-pixel positions per exposure.”
The new unit is twice as powerful as the LRS McX 4K. Effectively, this means a single light engine can cover a larger print bed. Rather than having to get several light engines to work in concert, the new single unit can be used. The unit comes with Visitech’s LAMA Standard software. The LUXBEAM Additive Manufacturing Application (LAMA) was designed from the ground up as control software for manufacturing with 3D Printing or lithography. LAMA is included with your purchase and can emulate projectors. Using virtual projector simulations, you can test before you build. This should reduce the risks of developing Visitech-based 3D printing systems and speed up their development. Precisely simulating how their light engines behave can give developers more confidence that what they’re creating will work.
Visitech’s new LRS 8KA Laser 405 light engine for additive manufacturing. Image courtesy of Visitech.
It also lets you develop before the system is built and test before you even have a test rig. You can complete your firmware before the system is ready, or experiment much more quickly and widely. LAMA can also integrate with different 3D printers and motion control solutions. LAMA can be used with older and not-yet-released Visitech products. The API can be accessed via JSON on both Linux and Windows.
The company designed the units to be easy to service and to calibrate before use. Visitech is showcasing continuous innovation and pushing cutting-edge products out the door. The company is really making tools for massive 3D printing systems or very high-throughput systems. In making these architectures for additive and general lithography use, the firm is making true industrial tools that can work precisely with high uptime. The company wants to go way beyond current SLA and DLP capabilities to huge machines that can make millions of parts at scale.
We had a fascinating podcast with their CEO Øyvind Tafjord in 2025. There, he disclosed that they had a version of a light engine with no Chinese parts whatsoever. With all the tariff hoopla since then, you can see how prescient that move was. And imagine how difficult that would be. Also, in the podcast, he talks about really high-scale additive production and how to get to much higher-volume manufacturing.
With DLP and SLA, many people think in the same form factors and similar systems. But what if you made a five-meter-by-two-meter system that was just a few centimeters high for connectors? That kind of thing could be a great device for a great business. I’m really getting the impression that we could be doing more with light engines and the chemistry they activate. And with Visitech making the software and DMD solution in one package, a lot of the hard work has already been done.