That's the "Woz-est" engineering I've seen in some time.
Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
11–20 of 117 posts
Re: Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
#12I wonder how much error is introduced by the use of the headphone jack to drive the printer - you've gotta deal with line noise from the computer's sound card, mixing latency/glitches from the OS, and the device sampling rate, along with any noise introduced on the audio cable. Does a 3D printer like this not actually require high-precision data to work correctly?
Audio output of modern computers is high precision. 16 bit resolution is pretty damned precise...even once converted to analog. I'm certain the mechanical parts being driven by it is a much, much, larger source of errors than any decent computer output would be.
That said, there is measurable and audible differences between a stock audio output and a high end (or even prosumer) audio output. A nice 24 bit audio box could, possibly, be a useful upgrade in the future...when the mechanics finally catch up. But, I suspect it'll be years before the mechanical side of this design is precise enough to even show the errors in a 16 bit output. If ever...
Re: Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
#13I wonder how much error is introduced by the use of the headphone jack to drive the printer - you've gotta deal with line noise from the computer's sound card, mixing latency/glitches from the OS, and the device sampling rate, along with any noise introduced on the audio cable. Does a 3D printer like this not actually require high-precision data to work correctly?
Audio output of modern computers is high precision. 16 bit resolution is pretty damned precise...even once converted to analog. I'm certain the mechanical parts being driven by it is a much, much, larger source of errors than any decent computer output would be. That said, there is measurable and audible differences between a stock audio output and a high end (or even prosumer) audio output. A nice 24 bit audio box c…
I'm not referring to 16 bit precision per sample, more to 44khz and the potential for multi-millisecond audio glitches on most modern PC configurations. Glitch-free audio is pretty tough, still.
Re: Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
#14I got my first ever 3d printer today (Makerbot Replicator 2). It is seriously the coolest piece of tech I've ever seen, which is really saying something. I can't wait for the price to drop, and for damn near everyone to have a 3d printer of some sort.
Re: Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
#15This is the first 3D printer I've been excited about since the very first one I saw maybe a decade ago.
The reason is that it is actually a novel approach that I can see is in its very infancy...and it's clever as hell. The reality of 3D printers is that at this stage of their development, they aren't useful for a lot of people; at least not useful enough to make them a cost-effective purchase.
This, however, begins to make it seem a reasonable purchase for a wide variety of people. Any hobbyist or artist that builds things would find this an awesome tool for taking their ideas to the next level. Table top gamers can make their own models. People who work on electronics can make their own boxes and internal parts. The possibilities are pretty broad. They've always been broad...but the printer options have always been expensive, or required you to build it yourself.
We're getting close to a 3D printing revolution. I'm not the first person to say that. But, this is the first time I've ever said it, because it's the first time I saw a glimmer of hope that it would actually soon be in the same league as laser and inkjet printers in terms of cost.
And, this may be the time when I finally opt to jump into the pool and try out this new tech. If I can think up something I'd actually want to regularly use it for, I probably will.
Anyone know how tough the resulting objects are? Could I use it for something, such as gears or a chassis for an outdoor computer, that needs to take a lot of abuse and expect it to hold up?
Re: Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
#16this may be obvious to everyone else, but took me a while... stereo! [there are two mirrors to drive (or, equivalently, a point in 2D to target with the laser) and i couldn't see how to do that with a single audio signal.]
It's even called stereolithography :-)
Re: Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
#17I wonder if this will work with a combined headphone/microphone jack.
Regardless, I love the approach taken here; really quite clever.
Re: Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Audio output of modern computers is high precision. 16 bit resolution is pretty damned precise...even once converted to analog. I'm certain the mechanical parts being driven by it is a much, much, larger source of errors than any decent computer output would be. That said, there is measurable and audible differences between a stock audio output and a high end (or even prosumer) audio output. A nice 24 bit audio box c…
I'm not referring to 16 bit precision per sample, more to 44khz and the potential for multi-millisecond audio glitches on most modern PC configurations. Glitch-free audio is pretty tough, still.
Perhaps, with slightly more hardware, you could rig it up to kill the power to the laser if the sound level dropped to zero (which is typically how computer audio hiccups manifest). Printing would stop for a moment, but you wouldn't have the laser curing anything it shouldn't.
Re: Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
#19This is the first 3D printer I've been excited about since the very first one I saw maybe a decade ago. The reason is that it is actually a novel approach that I can see is in its very infancy...and it's clever as hell. The reality of 3D printers is that at this stage of their development, they aren't useful for a lot of people; at least not useful enough to make them a cost-effective purchase. This, however, begins…
I've heard the resin resultant objects are pretty brittle at least on the Form1, so I'm not sure it could do what you're hoping.
You would be better served with an FDM printer if you want to be able to use it as you describe, but then you need to be careful of the direction of the grain (or rather, the layers) so that they're opposite the direction of stress if there's specific ways it will take stress.
Re: Peachy Printer - The world's first $100 3D Printer
#20Damn I didn't quite realize the ingenuity of using a mirror instead of fixed axis until I read this:
>Build volume: There is no certain limit on build volume. In the same way that a flashlight beam gets bigger the further it shines, so does the build volume of the Peachy Printer. Although this has not been tested, we have high hopes to print a full size canoe! This will require a build volume of approximately 3'x3'x16'. The real limiting factor in build volume is time... It could be possible to calibrate the Peachy Printer to print a house, but it would take years![1]
And here I am thinking it was to save money on the rods and stepper motors.
[1]: http://www.peachyprinter.com/?_escaped_fragment_=printer-spe...