The best of resin with the best of filament; is such a 3D printer possible?
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The background music is also the music I mentally associate with this project.
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Read more »Just like with the 8-stepper Bumblebee, I was once again looking around for motherboards because of my Coaxial Hotend project and came across this:
This Mellow Fly D7 v1.0 board is low cost, compact and has all the things that I actually need (UART-enabled stepper ports) and trims out many of the things that I don't (since they'd be on the Manta M8P V2.0).
The most notable ommision are EXPn, meaning that I'd only be able to use 1 motor expander (on the M8P). That should be fine, as with 2 Fly D7s and 1 BTT EXP MOT, the printer will have 25 steppers to work with.
It might be useful that CANBUS devices can be connected directly to the board without a separate transceiver.
It seems that more tech innovation news happened on Feb 2 than customers getting their hands on the Apple Vision Pro or me getting some test prints from the 4-in-1-out Coaxial Hotend.
I've just read on Fabbaloo that a company called Supernova has spun off from BCN3D and taken VLM with them. That sounds good considering BCN3D has been rather quiet on what I believe is a notable technology and the writer, Kerry Stevenson, ended the article with this:
Someday it may be that Supernova eclipses BCN3D in size, especially if manufacturers catch on to VLM.
Interestingly, this company is headquartered in Austin, Texas, which I assume is because that's where the US engineering talent pool seems to be outside of California.
They had an event and here's the things that stood out to me:
There was also a short clip of the actual printer printing:
The XY resolution is 23 microns, so this must be one very high pixel-count LCD considering its size.
Now I'm looking though their website and I'm already liking the sounds of the materials. For example, the longer oligomer chains reduces undesirable biological effects:
This is important for wearable electronics, or parts that will experience a notable amount of skin contact (e.g. keyboard keys).
Then there's the filled materials in 3 flavours: ceramic, metal (such as copper) and fiber:
All 3 of these are materials I'm excited about; ceramics and copper for electronics and then magnetic fibers with Fortify's fiber-aligning tech.
I did some looking into the printer series' that this scanner is used in, and all but one of them has "optical resolution: 2400dpi". Now this is actually really high, as resolutions in the datasheets that exist online are 200, 300, 600 and one or two 1200dpi. I looked into a handful of other sensors on AliExpress and the printers that they're used in have a 1200dpi scan.
The one used in #Magic Frame : Turn Everything into a Touch Area had 2700 pixels. For 216mm of scan length, a 2400dpi scanner would have at least 20,410px!
Thus, I looked for a 2400dpi CIS chip, assuming that HP wasn't going to invent their own. The only thing I found was the AMIS-722402, with datasheets online (with the sharpest looking to be from Arrow as a PDF download).
14.56mm wide per sensor chip means that 15 sensors would be put together to get over 216mm, resulting in 218.4mm of scanning length and 20,640px.
By looking at other sensor datasheets, one of the things I noticed is that the communication protocol is rather standardised. There's a pin that starts the scan, a clock signal and, some N number of cycles later, the "video out" (aka sensor data) gets read 1 pixel at a time.
For this chip, the clock is typically 2.5MHz but it sounds like the engineers expect the fastest, 3MHz, to be used more.
So I was thinking to myself "That's all great and all, but shouldn't there be like some kind of examplar circuit in here?" and there was one at the back. I think I'm onto something:
Technically, the pin can accept 0V, but it's actually expected to use 0.35V and determines the black-level voltage:
Then there are select pins that determine how high a resolution is scanned. Lower resolutions bin pixels together, making them proportionally more sensitive.
I connected the LEDs and found that Pin14 is LED Positive. I expected the entire white section to illuminate, but it's only a strip next to the lens array. I also found out that
I'm finally starting to revamp and equalize all my details pages so that the projects can be better understood and information hidden within the depths of logs can be more easily found. The below is the old Details page.
[16 April 2022]
So I'm going about my day and I see a link in a Discord channel to this video:
Now, looking at the logo and red material that looked like paint, my expectation was that there was some marginally new resin technology and BCN3D was trying to make a new buzzword out of it.
I'm like "BCN3D. I get it. You're now getting into the SLA business and it's all new to you from an FFF standpoint.", waving jazz hands. "But can this 3D printing industry stop over-hyping marginally new technologies like it's the next generation of 3D printing??"
However, everything changes when I get to the 30 second mark of the video and it's revealed that the camera actually isn't upside down for visually nicer footage and that the resin is seemingly suspended in air somehow.
As soon as I see that the resin is stuck to a film, I'm like "AGHHHH!!! That's so simple, so obvious now that I've seen it! How has Me In The Past (or anyone else in the hobbyist 3D printing community) not thought of this?!"
I'd love to end the thought there, but I've been thinking about what could solve the single-material and uncured resin handling issues of MSLA and what could bridge the gap between hobbyist machines and PolyJet. The reason I've never gotten an SLA printer is because, unlike FDM, the majority of my planned prints would be multi-colour, the uncured resin is toxic and the parts aren't ready fresh out of the machine.
So after I saw the video, I thought:
Thus, this project is mainly for me to do something -- anything -- to inspire someone with the ability to research / develop this kind of printer into reality, if I haven't done so myself. Other reasons are so that I'm not keeping ideas in my head (writing Future Me some documentation to work with) and so that these ideas are in the public domain, meaning that any future patents can't be too vague and over-reaching.
SecSavr Sol^2 [gd0045] is the slicing software for this machine.
SecSavr Syrum [gd0141] is the project for materials research.
This log here is where I'm posting little comments, though some of them are so large that they should've been actual logs.
This isn't exactly what I had in mind for the 100th project log, but a few days ago...
... three, actually, I put all the SecSavr projects on the shelf because my highest priority project, #Tetrinsic [gd0041], expectedly hit a snag when trying to bring it out of the virtual and into the real world. I was thinking "Ouch. If this is what perils await me for a project that only has a few components, perhaps I should be realistic and shelve the research and design of a 3D printer, its printing software and its materials science research for some time in the distant future.", partially because I recently watched this Meta Quest AR mod whereby the designer went from start to finish in 6 months and his original concept was very similar to the final device, unlike Tetrinsic which has changed numerous times in its 19 months of development.
Additionally, a few more days ago, I got onto the hopium train as they're now serving the room temperature superconductor LK-99. It's an inspiring ride that is best summed up by the following image going around:
Most of this induced hopium energy has actually gone to being mentally prepared to continue tackling #Coaxial Hotend [gd0144], understandably because I'm essentially validating a discovery from Nozzleboss just as scientists around the globe are validating LK-99. I had to get off the train since, as you can see by the graph, the time period between evidence suggesting one or the other was getting shorter and shorter
After shelving the SecSavr project, I went and researched other 3D printer projects, such as these below:
The things I was able to gather was that
Additionally, I found some articles on All3DP when searching for full-colour 3D printers:
But the notable articles that eventually lead to me reversing my decision on SecSavr were these:
The BOM has been rather stable, with the only thing that I wasn't sure about being the laser. I was considering a 5W 0.08*0.08mm spot laser for the #SecSavr Soapavr [gd0146], but more research shows that a 20W laser with a sufficient spot size is the way to go.
Firstly, I was looking at the cutting depth of stainless steel with these kinds of wattages, and it seems that 0.08mm thick is possible so that's good enough for me:
Then, I was looking at the recently announced 30 - 48W lasers. Unfortunately, there's some issues. Some of them have spot sizes that are 0.1*0.15mm or larger, meaning that the kW/mm^2 is still at around 20W laser levels. Most of them are 750g or heaver, as well as having dimensions exceeding 60x60x130mm. All of them are near or over 2X the price of the ZBAITU VF20 that is possible to get under £300 on sale.
The next video I saw was about copper laser welding, which is essentially what I'm trying to do here.
One of the cool things is that the tests were done without shielding gas. Anyway, the below slide is important:
The 450nm laser used has a dot diameter of 0.6mm. Thus, for a 1kW laser, the power density is 3.5kW/mm^2. As you can also see from the graph, 100um depth is achieved at 600W, or 2.12kW/mm^2, for a travel velocity of 50mm/s.
The VF20 has been measured to output 21.5W, though the meter also says "Wavelength: 600nm" even though this is a 445nm laser:
The listing on Aliexpress says that the spot is 0.1*0.08mm, but their website says 0.08*0.08. I know that, when it released, the spot was the former, and it's possible that, after almost a year of making these modules, they've been able to shrink the spot size to 0.08*0.08mm.
They've also got a similarly priced XF20 that has a 0.08*0.08mm spot size claimed in some listings and 0.06*0.08mm claimed in others. While I find the flame detection and laser crosshair useful, it's height of 130mm with the air assist inlet on the top (meaning I need even more height clearance) and weight of 700g makes it harder to integrate compared to the 80mm tall, 364g VF20. The XF30 also shares the same build as the XF20.
Power densities of the options:
| Power (W) | Spot Size (mm*0.08mm) | Power Density (kW/mm^2) |
| 20 | 0.10 0.08 0.06 | 2.5 3.125 4.166 |
| 21.6 | 0.10 0.08 0.06 | 2.7 3.375 4.5 |
| 30 | 0.08 0.06 | 4.688 6.25 |
| 32.4* | 0.08 0.06 | 5.062 6.75 |
*Assuming 5.5W diodes output 5.4W of power
[9 Jun: Edit 1]
I'm just going to assume that the below specs are accurate:
This is a 84W laser, the same as the 84W UV LED I'm planning to use for the #SecSavr Soapavr [gd0146]. I wonder if I should try powering the system on the 24V 5A (120W) power supply this comes with. Then again, since both L^3 SecSavrs have more things to power than a typical laser cutter, I should stick with a 200W PSU.
Then again, it could be benefitial to go with an external PSU, meaning that DIYers don't need to deal with mains connections at all (even if it's just screwing 3 terminal blocks).
The SecSavr Suspense is quite large and I think it's slowing down my development as I feel the stakes are higher. Additionally, I can't make much (if any) progress towards #SecSavr Sol^2 [gd0045] or #SecSavr Syrum [gd0141] without actual hardware.
I already knew about all this last year and that's why I started thinking about the SecSavr SuspenseSmall, but its phyiscal size (more important in regards to development) and BOM cost (less important) grew so large that it couldn't really fufull its initial goal of having something that can fit somewhere in a house (without having to plan for it like a new furniture item) for a somewhat paletable investment cost.
Thus, I've created a new project:
So, after working on my multicolour FDM project, I decided to just aimlessly scroll AliExpress to see if there were any new and interesting products that I've never seen before, and I found a very low cost and low footprint motherboard, the Bumblebee from Macrobase:
This is the kind of controller board I've been looking for, since the SecSavr Suspense uses so many stepper motors. It's much smaller (90 x 125mm) and cheaper than the MKS Monster, and could mean that I could opt for the £13.42 cheaper M4P instead of an M8P. I probably won't though, since the M8P is laid out more orderly. I've got to take wire management into account when making a motherboard decision.
The M4P seems to have one more physical USB port (and not a header), but since I'm planning to have a lot of USB cameras dotted about like it's a mini-factory, I'll be using USB extension hubs anyway.
Anyway, 2 of those Bumblebee boards costs about the same price as many singular 8-stepper motherboards, so I'm just going to see it as a split-in-half 16 extruder motherboard and embrace the FREEDOM of going with as many stepper drivers as needed. I might give each stepper it's OWN stepper driver, putting the ones I'm most likely to need to tweak current values on the M8P and all the rests on 2+ Bumblebees.
Oh right, I should mention that I'm going to be switching to 3 or 4 Z axis motors. Manual bed levelling should be a thing of the past, especially if aimed at consumers (though I'd imagine only prosumers would actually consider spending >£1500 on a Do It Yourself build).
The idea DIY Perks tried was to place 2 LCDs ontop of each other to increase contrast levels.
It was suggested a few times by the community to have the 2 LCDs front-to-front to increase light efficiency as opposed to a diffuser between the first and second to unpolarise the light from the first one.
I believe the main issue for this application would be to make sure that the two panels are aligned to retain the 0.04x0.04mm pixel size. Longevity would also be a concern.
The reason why I'm thinking of that higher resolution is because of colour dithering and PCB printing, where I'd ideally like crisp voxels of the correct size. If one pixel is 10um larger than it should be when printed, it means that the voxel for the subsequent material would be 10um smaller than it should be, giving inaccurate colours / trace widths just because of the material print order.
This model is long overdue because the open-style SleepCinema idea was rejected a long time ago. As I mentioned in a TestCut [gd0139] log, I had an idea for a modern but boxy redesign.
I model the actual thing really quickly (because I've only done the faces seen by the render camera) and then I look on GrabCAD for some castor wheels. After seeing a few, I think "You know what? I never liked castor wheels anyway. They're kind of large for heavy duty things and they don't respond to different movement directions all that well. This is a concept render anyway, so let's virtually spend £20 a wheel on some omniwheels!"
So I found some omniwheels and it turns out that Fusion 360 can actually take CATIA files and turn it into something I can use in Fusion360.
Made the wheels a light green because I like the look of it, added to the model, added a blue led texture to the base because I expected the box to look bland and took it to a render:
The blue was overkill, but I then tried without any LED and it was expectedly dull. I then tried a more realistic white LED strip and I think I've now got what I was looking for: elegant, yet boring, but with a hint of modern interesting.
Remember that interesting looking 3D printers are less likely to be "mass consumer" friendly, even though I doubt any mass consumer would be spending in the ballpark of £1500 (and potentially higher) to print AI generated 3D models.
Lastly, add some handles and fillet the inside edge.
I'll skip on the ergonomics for now. I do think the milky green looks quite peaceful and mind-clearing. Might as well change the wheels to more accurate colours since I can use the handles as the highlight colour.
Copper looks REALLY modern and striking. The shorter FOV also helps. I think this is good enough for the final render after I reduce the length to 118cm (from 125cm). I've already reduced the depth from 60.5 to 57cm as I think it could be possible-- wait, is it?
No, I did the maths wrong and I need something more like 64cm.
Hmmm... I'm looking at cupboards and the handles are rotated 90 degrees from what I've got, and there's only 1 handle for cupboard doors the same size as the main door. Speaking of that door, it's only 60cm long and the expected max print length is 65.2cm. The door also needs airtight sealing around it, so I don't think getting under 1.2m is actually going to be possible unless the print area is also reduced. I also think 3 seperate doors is not going to be efficient (when sealing is added) and will have to switch to 1 long door.
It's nice to read about the chemical and biological applications of 3D printing since I haven't heard much about it. I especially like the look of fluidics even though I don't have any practical use right now.
What lead to finding this research article?
I was just searching for 3d printing in general and the figure 5 of the article made me remember of this project because of the rolling film.
True. I heard about LOM ages ago with that full-colour paper printer.
Now that I think about it, It could be possible to make a micro L^3 printer with a transparent, spinning disk. The front area has the screen+build plate and the remaining area is for resin application rollers and their tanks.
[this comment has been deleted]
"...and so that these ideas are in the public domain so that any future patents can't be too vague and over-reaching."
Thank you.
kelvinA
I looked at the pinout here and many of them lined up with the pinouts determined in 
Mn... not sure I like the look of that fillet. 
Wow. This looks SO much more professional and worthy of its £1.5K+ expected BOM pricetag. Print volume aside, you have to realise that my indirect competitors are printers like the RatRig V-Core, Prusa XL, E3D Toolchanger, UltiMaker (if you squint), Raise3D, Voron, Anycubic M3 Max and probably a few others. The printer should look like £2Ks worth of kit.
Doesn't look as glamarous but those are the ergonomic rules and consumer expectations that I'm not about to go against. Now I know it looks like 3 seperate doors, but it's actually 3 seperate tiles in a single door, since each tile is 60 x 60cm and the printer is now 64 x 128cm in floorspace.
Michael
Hello, I just found this article here that made remember of your project: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac403397r
Dunno if you already saw it, but I think it is worth the read :)