Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Last post for today... initial plans and findings

My plan is to build a chemical 3d printer similar method of this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbNl0CsB2xE). Using visible light and DLP chip to cure visible light resin.

The main advantages are: high resolution, very small waste and no powder mess... and most important low cost for building :) ... but high cost for the resin :(

But there are also some disadvantages: if you want a high resolution the
printing area must be small, because of high price of chemicals you will spend
a lot of money for big printing area.

I am not buying a DLP kit to build the machine as this would cost a fortune, so I am using a DLP projector that you can find anywhere.

Some of my findings so far:

1) The projector must use DLP chip www.dlp.com

2) Resolution: I am using a 1024 X 768 (0.55'' DLP chip) – I bought a used
projector on e-bay for less than 500USD. If you want a higher resolution you
will need a more expensive projector (over 1000 dollars). As I am planning to
have 100X80X130 mm building size which will give me a very good resolution, one
pixel will be thinner than a human hair (100 microns). My projector is Optoma
EP728. Projector lamp is cheap, I bought spare one...

3) The Z resolution is also important, I am using a microscope screw lead (140mm
- travel). This will give me a resolution around 0.01 mm on Z

4) As the projector lens are not for short throw distance, I did a small
modification to adjust the focus in short throw. (Removed some screws – my throw
distance 170mm)

5) The top-down building process has 2 main issues: bubbles and chemical level
as you introduce more solid material (elevator) the level goes up which could
give a small difference on Z axis. For this reason I am building a bottom-up
platform, this makes the project simple and also reduces the cost of chemicals
as you don't need to have a full Z deep building area.

6) Software: For slicing the solid I will use any commercial or non
commercial (Fogassa/Pov-ray). For printing I am building one which I can share
later on.

7) Chemicals: I have purchased one material from Dymax for keypad coating (very
hard (D80) and low viscosity that will arrive in 4 weeks, if it works it will be
best cost (around 200 USD per kg – must be cheaper in USA).


Cheers,

Junior

6 comments:

  1. Fala Junior! Vc é malucão mesmo! Que projeto louco, quero ver a impressora funcionando, hein. Parabéns!

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  2. Fala Tiagao!!! To terminando o software essa semana... e testo ela no fim de semana....
    Semana que vem podemos inaugurar...
    Abracao!!!
    Jr

    ReplyDelete
  3. Caramba! Quero ver mesmo isso funcionar! Mandou bem demais!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Do you happen to have any video of your machine in action?

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  5. Great job!!!! can you tell me wich program do you use for sliding, or better if you can post.
    thanks

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  6. Junior, Nice job on the printer! It's very impressive! I've been working on something similar and really like your idea of using an old projector to cure the resin. Could you elaborate a little more on how you did that? Did you completely disassemble the projector and use some specific program to display 1 layer at a time or was it simpler then that?
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

About the Project


I have been dreaming about having a 3D Printer at home for many years, but the ones with good quality are not affordable and the low costs just deliver poor quality. Sounds crazy but I decided to build a high resolution 3D Printer by myself at home (people actually said that I was crazy and this was impossible). The funny thing I never saw this type of machines in real life, and still haven’t seen one besides the one I built.

Now that I succeed building the first prototype, the target is to bring this low cost 3D Printer to every home, so we are developing the first affordable one with high resolution.

I hope you enjoy our blog, follow us and you can have this printer in your home soon.