Junior Veloso Is Really Hi-Res

We've written about Junior Veloso's fascinating experiment in constructing a homemade resin-based 3D printer, but he's recently made significant progress in developing the quality of his 3D prints. Just take a look at the image above and we're sure you'll agree he's on the right track. The left side is printed at an incredible "50 micron" resolution.

 

He's also posted several images of comparisons between his 50 micron resolution and garden-variety 3D extrusion printer kits, and as you can see, there really is no comparison. 

 

The question is, when can the rest of us get our hands on such an incredible 3D printer? Junior plans to "improve the project in a way that anyone could build one of this 3D Printer at home", which we read to mean "open source". He also is considering putting together kits with the required parts. 

 

However, to do so he still has to make several adaptations to his machine's design in order to lower costs and improve the quality of operation - and write up a pile of documentation and instructions, too. 

 

We feel this approach is really quite encouraging - if consumers can produce this quality of objects at home on demand, that will change things significantly. 

 

Via Homemade High Resolution 3D Printer (Hat tip to Phil)

Junior Veleso's Homemade High Resolution 3D Printer

Junior's making his own hi-res 3D printer, and he has the experience to do it, having previously converted an inkjet printer into a 3D powder-based version. He's been blogging this journey since July 2010 and is providing all the information and discoveries to the public, "you agree to not make use of it for commercial purpose."

 

His plan is to use light to fuse resin. The light can be very high resolution, which of course is the main objective of this project. The light will be produced by a standard DLP projector, capable of 1024x768 resolution (actually an Optoma EP728). As his build area is to be 100 x 80 x 130 mm, the 1024x768 resolution will enable pixels of "100 microns" size. 

 

The project is still ongoing, but he's managed to actually produce prints. However: 

 

I am still facing a lot of problems to find the right material for the bottom building area, so far I have tested glass (result: don't work as the resin stick to it), acrylic (result: resin stick to it as well) and polycarbonate (Result: resin does not stick but after some minutes the polycarbonate become opaque because of some chemical reaction and does not work anymore.

 

Good work so far! Be sure to watch the videos, which show a very different approach to 3D printing. 

 

Via Homemade High Resolution 3D Printer

Another Inexpensive 3D Printer Kit Emerges

Competition for Makerbot? Cubely jumped into the 3D printing scene this week at an Arizona Hackerspace meetup. Cubely, a RepRap derivative, hopes to produce a superior hobbyist 3D printer at low cost. 

 

Cubely consists of four major components: Electronics, which they recommend purchasing from MakerBot, as they are "unfortunately" the sole supplier; Stepper motors from Interinar; Extruder assembly; Frame, made from 8020 extruded aluminum t-slots. Cubely says: "You are already less than 30 hours and less than $1,000.00 from successfully printing your first object." 

 

Cubely says "unfortunate" regarding the MakerBot electronics because Cubely is an Open Hardware project under the Open Hardware License, which should permit the use of freely available components. Their objective is to produce a "fully capable" 3D printer for manufacturing or prototyping that is made from "standardized, commodity components that are widely available" at a cost of less than USD$1,000. Further, they limit the assembly time to less than thirty hours with a typical set of common tools. 

 

All this and a goal of having 10,000 devices in production by the end of 2012! Their program is very ambitious, but will fully leverage crowdsourcing via the very open strategy. Will they succeed? Let's check back with them in several months, as they are clearly just starting out: their wiki pages are still mostly empty, ready for participants to assist.

 

Via Make, TeamDroid and Cubely

Image Credit: JohnKit  

Eleven Year Old Boy Builds 3D Printer

Some may say 3D printing is a niche topic understandable only by ultrageeks, but we're reading about Justin Urke, an eleven year old from Auburn, California who not only can use a 3D printer, but apparently has constructed his own! Even though he modified the design to increase the size of the build chamber from 4x4 inches to 8x12, he found the most challenging element of the project to be the software.

We're not sure which printer design Justin based his design upon, but there are several he could choose from.

What does this mean? We think it shows two important things: first, there are sufficient designs, software and materials available to actually achieve this on your own. Second, it shows how capable young students can be if they have the passion to focus on a project that leverages the available information. Congratulations, Justin!

Via Auburn Journal

CubeSpawn

Another very cool KickStarter project has appeared: CubeSpawn, by James Jones. The project's concept is to establish a standard approach to linking personal manufacturing machines together based on the common cube shape. In this vision, 30cm square cubes are placed adjacent to one another, and each contains some type of manufacturing machine. Results from one cube are passed to the next cube for further manufacturing.

The project envisions standard cubes with "the basic 20 or so industrial capabilities". With a library of functions like that, one could potentially assemble a manufacturing plant simply by arranging the appropriate selection of cubes in the right sequence and providing some coordinating software. According to CubeSpawn:

If the cubes can pass what they are working on between them and each cube can do one of more steps in making something, then a large collection of cubes with the basic 20 or so industrial capabilities, could make almost anything -- that is, anything of a size that would pass through them, of course.

In video Jones explains his goal to produce a set of standards that permits easy creation of a complete manufacturing process from end to end. He's starting by building two prototypes in 0.5m size.

If you'd like to support open hardware, we'd encourage you to contribute to this very interesting project. Good luck, CubeSpawn!

Via CubeSpawn and KickStarter

Printing Steel. At Home!

There's an interesting discussion underway at the RepRap forums, where the idea of Direct Metal Laser Sintering is being pondered. DMLS involves laser-heating metal (or other material) powder, layer by layer, slowly building up a solid object. This is pretty similar to how many 3D printers work, but the interesting bit is that these guys are contemplating designing a system that could do this at home:

In other words, it's a laser cutter with a powder bed. This should be hackable by combining an off-the-shelf laser cutter with Fab@home or even CandyFab technology. From there it's all about finding the right settings.

and:

It may be necessary to work under a nitrogen or carbon dioxide atmosphere, as steel powder is highly flammable under the right conditions

So it's not quite as easy as it sounds, but we may soon see a MakerBot-like device that prints wrenches and hammers. Where's our fire extinguisher again?

Via Open Manufacturing and RepRap Forums (Hat tip to Micah)

Homemade 3D Printer: The Details

Alvaro Fogassa of Homemade 3D Printer has posted some details about his inexpensive design. We've written on Alvaro's expedition before, and now he tells us how it works, and points us to the software he used.

The Lexmark Z12 inkjet-printer based design involves using common dental plaster as it's material, mixed with a water-based glue and of course, water. At this point his minimum resolution is 2mm, but that's pretty good for this approach.

Alvaro is now off working on a new and larger build chamber (300 x 210 x 125mm). Good Luck!

Via Homemade 3D Printer

The Homemade 3D Printer

 

Yes, there's RepRap and Fab@Home, but it's also possible to just get down and do the whole thing yourself too. Not everyone would be able or interested to do such a thing, but certainly everyone enjoys a good story. Alvaro Fogassa is publishing an episodic story of how he's trying to build a 3D printer out of "standard tools and off the shelf hardware". In fact, his base will be a run-of-the-mill Lexmark  Z12 inkjet 2D printer. As this is a part-time venture for him, you will see updates only periodically; he has the same problem as the rest of us - not enough time.

Via Homemade 3D Printer