3D printers coming of age...?

At this rate of progress in 3D printing systems, it might pay not to blink in case you miss something.

Edited By V8Eng on 09/11/2013 18:19:57

Note the UP Mini printer uses 1.7mm filament. compared to the standard 1.75mm. Yep they are at it again! trying to lock users in. Next they will be changing the shape of the filament; hmmm.

Regards
John

The UP mini will work with 1.75 or 3mm filament, you just need to change a resistor on the extruder

Gee John

Spare parts for the UP Mini are not cheap, $1100 USD for the main board. plus $400 for the driver board. A good little earner if the machine goes bung.

**LINK**

Compared to a quick search on the net for an open source kit Some sites list the entire electronics kit for a couple of hundred bucks.

**LINK**

You certainly do have to pay a heavy premium for this machine. given that you can build one up for maybe half that.

I do like the Up Mini frame design. steel and linear bearings, for us do it yourself types not that hard to do and not very expensive given they are so short. The up Mini has a table 140 x 140mm x 135 Z travel.

We should remember that the term "Rep Rap" concept was to make self replicating machines, A noble concept, but not without its flaws. Plastic parts and high precision do not go easily together.

There are a few members of the hacker group I mentioned previously that have built precision machines using linear bearings, the output from these machines is a lot better. than many commercial Rep Rap kit machines.

I guess it is a matter of priorities,

From a project point of view it would be interesting to tackle, maybe laser cut steel and off the shelf bearings.
Has anyone done some Cad drawings of a design? Maybe it could be a collaborative design on this forum. I would be happy to share.

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 10/11/2013 01:52:43

One wonders whether when these machines "come of age" all those machining skills will be largely rendered obsolete. Will we be giving our lathes away at garage sale prices, with the scrap dealers queuing up to collect them, or will the bottom have fallen out of the scrap metal market ?

Dennis

. . . or perhaps use a frame made from aluminium extrusions like this?

I imagine that the biggest challenge for improving print quality/resolution lies in making a decent extruder. Most of the ones I've seen have a 0.5 mm dia nozzle. How are you going to get good resolution with that?

Russell.

Problem is you are then back to the open source software which just doesn't cut it.

Secret on the UP printers is their software at the moment is far advanced of all the cheap options.

Didn't know about board prices but dare say there will be people willing to repair them.

Hi Russel yes .5 or .3 is near the bottom limit is the rub, literally. The nozzle rubs itself along the work as it spreads a thin line of hot melted plastic, and every time it turns a corner the line tends to loose control with a tiny but visible glitch.

That is why we are not likely see great improvement with this mechanical spreading method, the result is always going to be grainy. (Often exacerbated by backlash in many of the machines I have seen working)  creating a strong case for linear slides and eliminating backslash errors.

there are other photo methods using UV cured resins etc. Often used by commercial machine builders, they have better resolution. Not easy to DIY build and the materials are difficult to get.

Inkjet of a solvent on a constantly respread powder layer is also used commercially. I have seen DIY experiments using this method

John the open source software mob will improve their work in time, competition is a wonderful printer driver!

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 10/11/2013 11:36:51

Fascinating stuff to an old Ludite ! How about using VHV and magnets to control the deposits ,something like the old cathode ray tube. Would that work?

Slightly OT but related I think.

I came across this the other day, does anyone have experience of this I've read up a little, and to he honest it seems too good to be true, @ a price of $200 and its apparently a very similar sensor unit used in the xbox Kinect which can be had for even less, as far as I can gather the accuracy is about 0.5mm although this info is not forthcoming hence this post, I think the gathering popularity of 3D printing technology is the driving force behind this, however I can see this being of great use to Mach users.

What do you guys think of this device and its uses

Cheers

Shaun

**LINK**

other useful links

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**LINK**

**LINK**

Here is a kit (well, promised...) for ~$100 Canadian. http://www.peachyprinter.com/

Converts the 3-D drawing to a sound file that controls the resin placement & volume.

Very true but only if they accept that there is a need to do so.

Problem with open source projects is the people who have the skills to develop these features are not the users.

The users don't have the skills and so it hits a log jam.

Classic example is EM2 / LinuxCNC, very good bit of software but in 8 ? years no one responsible for the coding side has bothered to develop a GUI [ screen to the unwashed ] that looks even interesting or workable.

I have said for ages that if EMC had started out with a decent GUI making it attractive to users then Mach3 would not be in the prime position it is in today.

It can be done, I have seen a peek preview of the new Tormach lathe software which uses LinuxCNC and it blows you away with it's professionalism, makes a modern Fanuc look old fashioned.

Only problem is they have taken open source software, modified it and it's now theirs, no way this will be offered for sale unless you buy a lathe.

A new screen for LinuxCNC is under development and the developers are asking for comments/suggestions: **LINK**

Perhaps it would help if you could give them your thoughts? I'm sure they would value your experience.

Russell.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/pc-peripheral/3489616/microsoft-debuts-3d-printing-app-for-windows-81/?cmpid=HTML-N181113&olo=newsletter

might be of interest for starters.

Edited By V8Eng on 18/11/2013 10:53:39

Quote from Microsoft's blog, "A few months ago, you may have heard that Windows 8.1 makes 3D printing possible". Apparently it wasn't possible before they got involved

Russell.

simple answer No not for anything you cold subjectively call useful 3D printing is not a close tolerance thing it does not produce a finished item when you get to precision engineering,in fact the gentleman who sells EOS DLMS machines in the UK will tell you this himself he stood in a room full of aerospace execs and pointed out at this level it wasnt ready yet

the Gun still had to have all the post machining operations you would traditionally apply to get the precision needed in a firearm the difference is that the metals etc were not forged or cast so no tooling etc was needed

there are also materials being produced now that would not lend themselves to being printed but outperform both metals and ceramics in many ways in this area and they are kind of pushing 3d printing aside based on their unique properties alone

there are however machines that laser powder mettalurgy and machine to tolerance size inside one convenient cabinet so it is advancing all the time rather than coming of age