3d printer dreaming
Doing it again, busy painting boxes till I don't post for days! I've got all the bracelets printed for this summer. I'm really hoping the 3d printing trend isn't peaked yet by then, but I think I'll be able to surf the wave this year. Another year, it wouldn't be as interesting because there'll be a lot more printers this time next year! Already there is a Dremel model available in the stores! I'm going to pop round Canadian Tire this afternoon for a boo. I've decided not to lust it but I'm tickled at being able to buy the filament as it fits our makerbot. Definitely I will pick up a spool today for testing! I love the guys in Outlook www.thor3d.com but it's so much more convenient to just pop round across town by myself than to fiddle with paypal and web forms and then wait with an eye on the door. I can say they can often get it to you by afternoon, so really for many people it's less convenient to pop by the store than to order from them. Keep in mind, I'm in Saskatoon, they're in Outlook. I wouldn't suggest same-day delivery outside of Saskatoon because the couriers bring it to this city for sorting and send it out the next day, unless it's local traffic.
That is my 2nd point. While I definitely want to support local shops, I recognize that getting this technology into the franchises is what it takes to get these things down in price from the manufacturer level. When Mattel licenses a toy printer and retails through walmart, my bracelets will be worth nothing at the Fringe! That should happen in the next year or two, you'll see. I'm shocked that Mattel hasn't gotten ahold of Cubify3d yet to make the arrangements. Their printer is ideal for family use. Perhaps the software end isn't simple enough yet? It needs to have both a powerful engine and an absurdly simple user interface with complicated adjustments available under the hood to be found. That's asking a lot, and the computer you use to send the prints needs to be equally compatible. these days I'm able to send prints with my ipad, though I still must use the laptop for design. Design, however, is not necessarily a part of owning a printer. A Mattel licensed printer is going to be printing toys, Mattel figurines or Disney if that's the partner, or whomever. In fact if they were smart, they'd collaborate and issue little cards that give you the option to download and print a small collection of licensed figurines. If you saturate the market, there is no market in making multiple Mickey's to sell at the flea market. Customers will scoff and say they could print that at home.
the factories currently selling the standard injection moulding toys can move to both filament production (colours like nail polish pallettes, delish!) and higher quality or larger toys that the cheap little printers don't do, plus, of course, the little printers themselves. Like the Easy Bake oven of my youth, the toy printer could wind up in every suburban neighborhood and school if not every bedroom or play room.
Kids would learn to use it with other software in time, learning to build and make and design. they'd learn about plastic tolerances, what it means to clean a print and how to reduce the work load, and tons about structure and software that they'll need as adults.
so yeah, it's going to snow tomorrow they say, really bad. I'm going to take the van out. The car could go out but the streets are so awful I fear she'd get smucked again and if you warm it up enough the van won't embarass you as much. I think she could take a slow route to the stores. We want 3 of them today, I need more gloss and gold and other basic colours. I need to pick up more freshies and sundries, pipe and chain at the hardware store, and of course some filament. We've built a suspension system for the spools but the current prototype uses bungee and coat hangers and a shade roller. Now I can understand some folks would call it "good enough" but I want the system strong enough to hang all our filament once and for all. All I really need is two meters of chain and a meter of PVC pipe with some holes in the end for the chain. I can make them with a hot awl and spare myself the trouble of drilling on a slippery curve. the hooks dan put in the ceiling are good and strong enough.
Then we string the spools on the pipe and they dangle down ready to grab and use.
I really want a multi-colour printer. I really do.
That dremel one is only slightly cheaper than ours, and has a bigger build plate. I think we decided against it because it has to sit upstairs on the desk. You control it via wifi or sneaker-net the memory card over to it and run from that. I prefer sitting on the can setting up the print on my ipad.
I already suggested we design around the makerbot extruder because it does wifi and senses filament loss. I know they've got a multiple extruder head already for folks like us. thing is, we don't yet know what part of the whole thing is in control of movement, does the extruder require the same movement system, or can it be mated with a delta system control module?
I can never remember the name of the square style but there's two types of structure involved. The structure holds the printer and moves it around to create the model. The printer does the on-off spitting out of filament.
the structure comes in "delta" and I think it's like "carthagian" or something like, but that's an ancient society. Lemme go google it for you. Good thing I did, in fact I never found it till I remembered on my own. Cartesian. Delta and Cartesian are the two styles of structure.
Cartesian is square. The head moves in straight lines like the Etch a Sketch, or a mechanical copying device, but because the table moves down, it can do 3 directions, and a full print.
Delta is tripod. it's got 3 legs and they hang down arms to the middle that go up and down at the leg independantly. The head is hinged and the joint between leg and arm are hinged. With the 3 arms moving independantly, it can shift the center point in any direction. I suspect this system is ultimately more versatile and allows a greater proportion of the desktop footprint to be used for print volume.
Both systems use the same number of belts and motors so there is no mechanical advantage, but the Cartesian system is more stable overall and less likely to vibrate during movement. Even if you tie the 3 uprights together on top, they're still a tower that can sway with a pendulum bouncing around rapidly in the middle, even high up in the tower.
Perhaps a counterweight could be built into the top stabilizer bars that would work like the counterweight in the Taipei Tower to damp the movement.
I wish I had the technical skills to go with my engineering brain so I could implement this stuff. I don't have a shop, either. Just my small glass kitchen table.
That is my 2nd point. While I definitely want to support local shops, I recognize that getting this technology into the franchises is what it takes to get these things down in price from the manufacturer level. When Mattel licenses a toy printer and retails through walmart, my bracelets will be worth nothing at the Fringe! That should happen in the next year or two, you'll see. I'm shocked that Mattel hasn't gotten ahold of Cubify3d yet to make the arrangements. Their printer is ideal for family use. Perhaps the software end isn't simple enough yet? It needs to have both a powerful engine and an absurdly simple user interface with complicated adjustments available under the hood to be found. That's asking a lot, and the computer you use to send the prints needs to be equally compatible. these days I'm able to send prints with my ipad, though I still must use the laptop for design. Design, however, is not necessarily a part of owning a printer. A Mattel licensed printer is going to be printing toys, Mattel figurines or Disney if that's the partner, or whomever. In fact if they were smart, they'd collaborate and issue little cards that give you the option to download and print a small collection of licensed figurines. If you saturate the market, there is no market in making multiple Mickey's to sell at the flea market. Customers will scoff and say they could print that at home.
the factories currently selling the standard injection moulding toys can move to both filament production (colours like nail polish pallettes, delish!) and higher quality or larger toys that the cheap little printers don't do, plus, of course, the little printers themselves. Like the Easy Bake oven of my youth, the toy printer could wind up in every suburban neighborhood and school if not every bedroom or play room.
Kids would learn to use it with other software in time, learning to build and make and design. they'd learn about plastic tolerances, what it means to clean a print and how to reduce the work load, and tons about structure and software that they'll need as adults.
so yeah, it's going to snow tomorrow they say, really bad. I'm going to take the van out. The car could go out but the streets are so awful I fear she'd get smucked again and if you warm it up enough the van won't embarass you as much. I think she could take a slow route to the stores. We want 3 of them today, I need more gloss and gold and other basic colours. I need to pick up more freshies and sundries, pipe and chain at the hardware store, and of course some filament. We've built a suspension system for the spools but the current prototype uses bungee and coat hangers and a shade roller. Now I can understand some folks would call it "good enough" but I want the system strong enough to hang all our filament once and for all. All I really need is two meters of chain and a meter of PVC pipe with some holes in the end for the chain. I can make them with a hot awl and spare myself the trouble of drilling on a slippery curve. the hooks dan put in the ceiling are good and strong enough.
Then we string the spools on the pipe and they dangle down ready to grab and use.
I really want a multi-colour printer. I really do.
That dremel one is only slightly cheaper than ours, and has a bigger build plate. I think we decided against it because it has to sit upstairs on the desk. You control it via wifi or sneaker-net the memory card over to it and run from that. I prefer sitting on the can setting up the print on my ipad.
I already suggested we design around the makerbot extruder because it does wifi and senses filament loss. I know they've got a multiple extruder head already for folks like us. thing is, we don't yet know what part of the whole thing is in control of movement, does the extruder require the same movement system, or can it be mated with a delta system control module?
I can never remember the name of the square style but there's two types of structure involved. The structure holds the printer and moves it around to create the model. The printer does the on-off spitting out of filament.
the structure comes in "delta" and I think it's like "carthagian" or something like, but that's an ancient society. Lemme go google it for you. Good thing I did, in fact I never found it till I remembered on my own. Cartesian. Delta and Cartesian are the two styles of structure.
Cartesian is square. The head moves in straight lines like the Etch a Sketch, or a mechanical copying device, but because the table moves down, it can do 3 directions, and a full print.
Delta is tripod. it's got 3 legs and they hang down arms to the middle that go up and down at the leg independantly. The head is hinged and the joint between leg and arm are hinged. With the 3 arms moving independantly, it can shift the center point in any direction. I suspect this system is ultimately more versatile and allows a greater proportion of the desktop footprint to be used for print volume.
Both systems use the same number of belts and motors so there is no mechanical advantage, but the Cartesian system is more stable overall and less likely to vibrate during movement. Even if you tie the 3 uprights together on top, they're still a tower that can sway with a pendulum bouncing around rapidly in the middle, even high up in the tower.
Perhaps a counterweight could be built into the top stabilizer bars that would work like the counterweight in the Taipei Tower to damp the movement.
I wish I had the technical skills to go with my engineering brain so I could implement this stuff. I don't have a shop, either. Just my small glass kitchen table.