Well, on January 28th, 2014 the next generation of stereolithography patents expire. That will increase the resolution a ridiculous amount.
Linuxcnc is a much more adaptable baseline for any of these machines. I would expect to see a lot of UI changes and movement with it. On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 10:49 AM, Bari <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree with you. When the GGG (Glorified Glue Gun) fad started a few > years ago many of the maker folk looked at Linuxcnc since it had been > used to control multi-axis machines for over a decade. Some of them felt > that it was too complicated and expensive to control their GGG made > mostly of threaded rods, nuts and low resolution PLA printed parts. They > then decided to just use an Arduino and make some custom IO stepper > boards to control the 3-axis Cartesian stage and glue gun/extrude and > write all the software from scratch. The printers still needed a PC for > the user interface, but I guess you weren't supposed to notice that. > > Later they decided to move from Arduino to all-in-one 120MHhz ARM cortex > M3/4 boards and write all new libraries for the new architecture. The > new all-in-one boards sell for $120-200 and combine the micro with > stepper drivers, GPIO and mosfet outputs. A PC is still required for the > UI but they can run stand alone with the G-code stored on an SD-Card. > > Now TI has released a $45 BeagleBone Black with a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 > that can host the machine control and suddenly there is interest in > Linuxcnc again. The UI can be directly off the GPU or over he network. > The Beaglebone Black still needs some expansion IO to drive the steppers > and extruder but the BOM is <$30. > > The GGG's only use one or two nozzles to deposit material so the process > is very slow and they have difficulty with producing features under > 200um. It's become popular since the original patents expired a few > years ago and you can build your own printer for only a few hundred > dollars. > > The reasons I have heard from the "maker guys" for not aspiring to other > additive manufacturing technologies have been the complexity and the > high costs involved for DIY. There are a few DIY projects that use SLA > with DLP (B9) or laser (SLAMPS) but they have chosen slow methods mostly > due to the problems with "It's the patents stupid!" or just ignorance of > the technology and SLS, Inkjet and micronozzle DIY is practically > non-existent. > > > On 06/27/2013 10:29 AM, Dave wrote: > > I have been randomly watching the 3D printer efforts from the sidelines > > and for the most part I have not been impressed at all. > > > > I think you are right ... they are way, way behind. To many, it seems > > that reinventing the wheel is how they learn but at the expense of > > making any meaningful > > progress. > > > > >>Loading an SD card works because it > > > > is pretty bullet-proof and easy to manage as is just pressing a button.<< > > > > I guess that is fine if you want to duplicate a design that someone else > has already worked out on a "standard" printer. > > > > However I would hope that some of the "maker guys" would have more > ambitious aspirations! :-) > > > > Dave Cole > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > This SF.net email is sponsored by Windows: > > Build for Windows Store. > > http://p.sf.net/sfu/windows-dev2dev > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Windows: Build for Windows Store. http://p.sf.net/sfu/windows-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
