"SoyCow1337" writes in with the following story via IRC:
A new spin on 3D printing can produce an object in seconds:
3D printers are great for rapid prototyping and building low-volume, specialized parts, but they sure can take a while. Today's 3D printers might be called "3D printers" but really, the print heads work in 2D. A 3D model is sliced up into hundreds of 2D horizontal layers and slowly built up, one layer at a time. This layer-by-layer process can take hours or even days, but what if we could print the entire model at once? A new technique demonstrated by researchers from Switzerland's Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)—and further detailed in this Nature article— does just that and can print an entire model in seconds.
The new technique builds a model by hardening a photosensitive resin with a laser, not unlike existing stereolithography (SLA) printers. The big difference here is the application of tomographic techniques, the same used in x-rays and ultrasounds, that allows for rotational printing. Laser light is modulated with a DLP chip (just like in old rear-projection HDTVs) and is blasted into a container full of resin. The laser covers the entire build volume, and the container of resin actually rotates while it's being exposed to the light. The laser projects the model at different rotational perspectives, which is synced up with the spinning resin, and a whole 3D model can be produced in seconds.
The EPFL writes, "The system is currently capable of making two-centimeter structures with a precision of 80 micrometers, about the same as the diameter of a strand of hair. But as the team develops new devices, they should be able to build much bigger objects, potentially up to 15 centimeters." In this first public demonstration, the build volume is 16mm × 16mm × 20mm, making it one of the smallest 3D printers on earth. An 80 um resolution is also nothing to write home about and can be bested by ~$500 consumer SLA printers. It is very fast, though, and the technique is just getting started.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 21 2020, @03:20PM (1 child)
I've read a few models, and I've even read a couple in braille. I've never printed one. Imagine, you want a model from the cover of a magazine, you just print her! I need to explore that idea!!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday February 21 2020, @09:00PM
> I need to explore that idea!!
I think the (probably female) scientist that put the upper limit for the technique at 15 cm has explored the idea already.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @04:05PM (2 children)
The resin is a liquid, so spinning it seems sub-optimal. I'd be interested to see how much better results could be obtained by spinning the lasers instead, exactly like a CT scanner has a spinning array of X-ray emitters.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @04:36PM (1 child)
> The resin is a liquid, so spinning it seems sub-optimal.
Agreed...except for making telescope mirrors. Then spinning on a vertical axis generates a nice paraboloid in the liquid glass. Cool while still spinning and you save a lot of grinding, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_casting_(mirrors) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @04:59PM
I guess it's actually being rotated very slowly. You only need to rotate it slowly through 180 degrees once to have cast all the beams from all (flat plane) angles.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday February 21 2020, @04:54PM
1) Take a polymer cube.
2) Hand it over to you.
3) Profit!
(oh, wait, you wanted some other shape than a cube? might have to restructure to obtain that shape and hand it to you instead. minor technical detail to solve.)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 21 2020, @06:53PM (2 children)
If an american company produces this you will only beable to rent it for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It will require cloud-programs to use at all.
If a chinese company does it, it will be 4000 dollars and you'll own the device.
American white men are complete scumbags, and also woman worshipers.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday February 21 2020, @09:26PM
This is sad but true. American made desktop 3D printers have expensive enclosures with locking doors and custom molded parts. Just getting at the mechanism is a major pain in the ass. They cost thousands. Chinese and other non-American 3D printers have no enclosure, just a frame. They are easy to work on with plenty of 3rd party parts (simple replacement or upgrade). They cost hundreds.
If you actually need an enclosure for maintaining heat (some plastics need that), a simple plexiglass box suffices.
Of course, the same is true of laser engravers, but there you actually do need an enclosure if vision is important to you. Of course, a cheap plywood box and a webcam will suffice.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday February 21 2020, @09:29PM
>American white men are complete scumbags, and also woman worshipers.
um... are you trolling feminists?
Account abandoned.