Combining MSLA and LOM to eliminate the time spent cleaning the slime.
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The background music for this one is also the music I mentally associate with this project (though the one in my head is a bit different).
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Read more »I was thinking about the practicality of the current render of the SlimeSavr when there are so many unknowns that could affect how the entire enclosure is designed. I know one thing is certain though, which is that it needs to be airtight. Trying to cut and seal 5 tiles -- as well as a door -- sounds like unnecessary complexity this early into the project. Just look at the difference between the Ultimaker 1 and 2, for example:
While nowhere near as glamorous as tiles, I'm wondering if there's an off the shelf, airtight container that is large enough for a solution.
I've read the comments of those that were disappointed in BambuLabs' new H2D and one was that it wasn't a 400x400mm bed or larger. Thus, I certainly want the X axis to be over 400mm at the very least, ideally longer than a side of A3 paper. Other comments believe the add-on laser cutter is of questionable utility inside a 3D printer that needs to be as clean as possible to maintain reliable operation. I also don't have much of a use for cutting sheet stock, so will only include a laser if it's required for conductive circuit traces.
The first potential option I found that is in the size category I'm looking for is the barrel below, but obviously it's not ideal for getting things in and out.
Improving on my search strategy, I found a 190L black container. Remember that the materials are sensitive to light so I can't just use something transparent like a fish tank (also, they're £200+):
Depending on the weight, it might be a strategy for the container to instead be the lid, similar to the current MSLA printers. However, there's likely a good reason that large printers don't have one single container-lid like smaller ones.
There are also outdoor storage containers that are much larger and look better, but likely need DIY amendments to make them airtight:
For the aforementioned candidates, it's questionable how well they'd fare being rotated on their side so that the "door" is on the front. When put into scale, the 220L barrel looks like it should be decent space for some kind of preliminary testing:
Due to its shape, and since the goal is proof-of-technology, it would make the most sense to just laminate the resin from one side of the film so that the print can be easily accessed. Additionally, these barrels are obviously the easiest to clean on the inside.
If the thin film of resin doesn't move regardless of orientation, it may even be possible to keep the barrel as oriented above and the user would pull out the print-bed like it's a honeycomb, thus saving on floor space. Like, even viscous liquids probably would move eventually but it only needs to stay put for under a minute. Such an orientation also reduces the overall amount of motor current merely just fighting gravity (holding up the material cartridges or printbed). Perhaps the bed can be ejected similar to the below monitor lift table from Enwork?
It seems that pricing on ebay is generally £65+ for a new barrel as seen above, but there's refurbished ones for £55. The seller does note that:
Please be aware that plastic is absorbent and you may be able to smell the washing solution used to clean the barrel.
Thus it might not be the best idea to have a plastic container if there's potential that resin fumes could embed themselves. At the same time, it's reported that these containers are made from HDPE, which seems to be the same as resin bottles:
There are also refurb steel drums that were previously used for juice, and since they don't taper on the edges, might allow more room to slide in the printer stuff (which has rigid dimensions, unlike a liquid):
I was considering "SoapSaver" because I wanted it to sound similar to #enSweepen [gd0096], but "soap savers" are actual things that already exist.
This morning, I remembered the SecSavr Slime, the hotend assembly in #SecSavr Sublime [gd0036], and it didn't take long for me to be convinced to at least try it:
The idea behind the name is that the machine is reclaiming the slimy resin instead of letting it sit on the printed part and having to clean it off afterwards.
This isn't a sudden decision. Instead, it's a feeling that has slowly been chipping away at me.
For starters, the original reason I thought of the name SecondSavr is so far removed from what I'm trying to do these days. It's like a "Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown" situation, where I personally think it should just be "Test Drive Solar Crown". Why? Well "the title is getting long" is a reason, but my main one is that "Test Drive" is the brand and "Unlimited" was the name of the game: a new play mode of open world. "Unlimited 2" understandably built on that. Solar Crown, while being an open island game, changed a lot of stuff -- enough that even the developers didn't call it "Unlimited 3".
Additionally, the project is currently needlessly separated apart. As you may know, #Coaxial8or [gd0144] is currently my furthest-ahead project that isn't "finished" (e.g. like #WK-50 Trackball Keyboard) and I see it a bit like a template of how other projects might play out: Design some ideas, make some prototypes, it grows into the project we see today; that kind of thing. There's also the #Teti [gd0022] kind of project, where you try and make X and then realise there's no off-the-shelf component so now you need to invent Y. SecSavr Suspense is essentially like Coaxial8or but split apart almost like Teti. For example, SuLotion is still a shell after all these months:
There's also another 3D printer called SecKit so it would fall into Java / Javascript territory.
Thus, I'm going to think up a new name that tries to embody one of the reasons I called this printer Suspense in the first place: The suspense in anticipation that Liquid Laminate Lithography can achieve most of the benefits of PolyJet with minimal drawbacks.
In the meantime, I'm going to archive / delete other projects such as #SecSavr Soapalai [gd0146].
I was looking through the SLS4ALL discord when I found out about the Metal Base project, which aims to specifically print stainless steel 316.
Only using 316L metal powder, our extensive testing has shown that using this material in combination with the relatively low laser power does not generate any fire hazard even when used in open air with 20% oxygen content.
I wonder if this is the reason JLCPCB's only metal print material is 316L.
Looking through their YouTube channel, I was able to find out that a Laser Tree K30 -- a 33 - 35W output power laser -- was used. This laser has a spot size of 0.16 * 0.19mm, meaning that it comparatively has the same irradiation intensity as a 0.08 * 0.08mm 7 - 7.4W laser. The price is £375, which was where 20W lasers used to be. Today, the V20 laser, still my most ideal candidate, is only £240. All Laser Tree's modules seem to have the same spot size, which would need to be 95W to match the V20 on intensity. Their current top-end is a staggering 60W, which actually is still priced at the same £/watt as the V20 (it's around £750).
Something to note is that the K30 claims to use 10W less input power than the V20 (120W vs 130W), suggesting that its 6 diodes are more efficient. It actually seems that each 11W uses an additional 24W of input power:
Below is the result of a bottle-opener they printed:
The system works by using a CMS (carbon molecular sieve) material in 2 separate air tanks that are switched between filtering and cleaning state. This is called the pressure swing absorption process.
Their price target is >$6K for the machine.
I'm planning for the main ground-floor level project logs to be written on #SecSavr Soapavr [gd0146], with the Suspense being the "this could be all the possibilities"-type research project. I just like to have the peace-of-mind that I didn't implement feature XYZ because I weighed the pros and cons and not because I didn't even know it was a valid option in the first place.
The name could use some work though. It's no longer the shape of a bar of soap nor is a stepping-stone project, so it's now tough to get branding-energy behind it (unlike #Coaxial8or [gd0144] for example).
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:
I think the industry uses photoinitiators because of the low resolution of "locally heating" anything, since the heat moves due to conduction.
It also seems that there is correlation with the resin viscosity and toughness of end-use parts, so I'd rather just use a high viscosity resin from the start. Some resins even have a thinning agent added to make it printable on VAT printers, increasing its cost. So, to me, it sounds like high viscosity resins would generally be more durable and cheaper.
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 :)
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.
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"...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 also consider S[L3]imeSaver and SLLLimeSaver because of "Liquid Laminate Lithography". 
I also want to avoid a 
There doesn't seem to be any video where the part is actually removed from the build plate. I theorise that it's welded onto the plate and has to be grinded off, and then ground again off the supports. Not entirely ideal for a consumer-oriented perspective and why I hope L^3 can do metal + support in a single print job.
I looked at the pinout here and many of them lined up with the pinouts determined in 
samern
Michael
Dunno if you are still working on the idea, but I was wondering about the possibility of cooling down the resin.
Conventional Two part epoxy resin stops curing at -40ºC, and a consequence of that is higher viscosity.
So, cooling down the photoactive resin of conventional resin printers may increase their viscosity well enough for viscous lithography.
Or even allowing to work with conventional two part resins since you could program the laser/projector to locally heat the resin and cure it.