New DLP build started! / Pico-projector part 3

I keep saying this, but it's been too long a time since I updated my project blog. It's not for the lack of progress mind you. Things have been very busy for me lately. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I started a new forum dedicated to all things DLP/SLA www.buildyourownsla.com . I have to say, never expected the explosion of interest! It's only been up for less than 2 months, but there are hundreds of active users (and about 1000 spammers).

Creation Workshop http://www.envisionlabs.net/ continues to advance rapidly, largely due to the herculean efforts of the co-programmer Shai (Thanks man!) . I've had a lot of interest with DLP/SLA printer manufacturers wanting to distribute Creation Workshop along with their printers, and I've been signing them on rapidly. I've devised a plug-in system that allows me to create vendor plug-ins to completely customize the GUI and code for each machine. It also allows me to distribute custom machine and slicing profiles tailored to each machines unique capabilities.

I've been talking with a bunch of groups/ start-ups/ companies about their machines for months, and I'm in a pretty unique position to see exactly what's going to be coming out on the market this upcoming year. I'm under NDA with a few of them, so let's just say that 2014 will be the rise of the SLA machine in the 3d printing world.

That all being said, I've been giving some thought as to how to create the 'Best' machine possible. 'Best' is an arbitrarily chosen words really. 'Balanced' would be a better descriptor. As I noted elsewhere http://www.buildyourownsla.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=149 , there will always be tradeoffs between build size, resolution, and print speed. I think I've come upon a good balance between the 3.

What I came up with is a pico-projector mounted on an x/y linear assembly. The projector can expose smaller image tiles on a much larger vat bottom. This allows the pico-projector to maintain a 25micron (or greater) x/y resolution. The vat can be arbitrarily large. This is a good trade-off between size and print speed.

I'm still in the early stages of the build, but it's all coming along nicely.

New parts for the build

Shown above are a few parts I'm using for the build. Here's an incomplete BOM of items so far:

• 12v 6A power supply
• 5x Nema 17 steppers (I'll probably use 4)
• 12x LMU88 linear bearings
• 6 meters of GTK belt and 4 pulleys
• 10W UV LED 405nm on an alum heatsink
• Modified AAXA P2JR DLP projector
• 3' of 1/8 hose for the resin pump
• 3 prong outlet
• Mains switch
• Printed 3 way corner brackets for the 80/20 construction
• 4 printed feet

A bunch of 350mm and 300mm 25mm 80/20 aluminum.

The constructed bottom portion of the machine. Measures 350x350mm.

I'm still waiting on a few more parts in mail:

• Arduino 2560 with RAMPs board
• 8mm hardened steel rails
• 8mm threaded rod
• UV transmissive plexiglass for the vat
• UV blocking plexiglass for the outer casing/window
• Other things I forgot

I'm probably going to do a bit more construction today. Look for the next part of this build soon.
-Steve

Creation Workshop Version 13 - Last BETA release

This is probably the quickest turn-around I've had between releases. Version 13 doesn't have anything earth-shattering in it, but it does have the following:

• Fixed all reported issues in version 12
• Improved Camera Controls (Thanks Shai!)
• Huge reduction in memory usage
• Instant Slicing
• Volume & Cost Estimator
• Revised future-proof config files
• Additional support generation tools
• Fixed the intersection issues in support generation & object selection
• Simplified GUI (G-Code controls)
• New Plug-In System
• Other things I forgot...

Now that I look at the list, this release actually does have quite a bit to offer. You can download version Beta 13 from the usual spot here: https://github.com/Pacmanfan/UVDLPSlicerController/tree/master/UVDLP/Published

Creation Workshop Beta 12 is out!

It's been a long time coming, but I just released Beta 12 of Creation Workshop. There are far too many new features to start listing off, but I'm going to try:

• Improved UV DLP Slicer
• Export to zip file or sub-directory
• Support generation (automatic and manual)
• Ability to reload previously sliced models
• New machine configuration screen
• New slicing profiles configuration screen
• Support for FDM printers using Slic3r to slice
• Serial projector control
• ability to add new projector commands
• 30% faster rendering
• New User manual 
• Improved move/scale/rotate controls
• ability to drag around objects with mouse and shift key
• Everything else I forgot...

You can get it from the usual spot here: 

https://github.com/Pacmanfan/UVDLPSlicerController/blob/master/UVDLP/Published/CreationWorkshop_beta_12.zip

I'd love to hear about any constructive feedback / feature requests / bugs. Help me make this a great piece of software, and don't forget to donate :-) 

-Steve

More Pix

I took a few more pix and video of my machine in action. I was able to get a few more prints off the machine when it broke again.

My machine fell victim to UV resin-dissolving ABS-eater again. 

The 'before' pic

Some of the aftermath

I rebuilt the Z-Axis Build-Arm.

I used some 5mm aluminum plating I had laying around to re-build the z-axis build arm. I added some 5mm bolts with double nuts on the bottom to help adjust the build plate to parallel with the vat. Wingnuts tighten down the top.

Gender-bending required.

 I'm adding some basic serial control of the projector through an open serial port. I purchased a small F-F gender bender and started some programming. Instead of simply hard-coding some commands to control my projector, I took a more universal approach that allows the user to create new commands, give it a name, and assign a hex string to send to the projector.

The relocated power panel.

 I moved the power panel from the back of the machine to the side panel. I plan on adding another small panel for connection to the USB hub connected to the usb/serial connector to the serial port of the projector. I also have the Arduino connected to another port on the USB hub.

Goldberg Sphere. 50 micron accuracy Z, 100 micron X/Y, Dimensions are 15x15x15mm

I had a few more good prints out of my machine before it died again. I am very proud of the resolution attainable.

The rear bearing holder piece broke. I was sloppy with my dripping resin.

I really need to take more care and caution in dealing with chemicals. I've damaged several ABS printed parts to UV Resin. I printed another rear bracket. I just may soak it in UV resin and cure it to create a meta-material part.

The weird part about these parts dissolving is that they simply crumble into pieces. I've treated many ABS parts with acetone vapor, and parts simply 'Melt' a bit like cheese or butter, to smooth and harden parts. This UV Resin must be destroying the long CH bonds from the polymer molecules in the ABS. I think if I want to try a chemical UV bath and curing session for an ABS part, I should do it quickly before the ABS has a chance to break down.

 I'm already ordering parts for the next version of the printer. I'm going to name this version the "Mark I". The 'Mark II' version will have a much smaller projector that I recently ordered http://www.aaxatech.com/products/p2jr_pico_projector.html . My plan is to make a z-axis with a single linear rail and simplified build plate/vat design.

I also ordered a peristaltic pump. My plan is to have a simple forward/reverse switch connected to the pump to control the flow of resin in/out of the vat. 

We'll see what the next iteration of the machine will hold. For now, I'm going to fix my machine, keep printing, and improve my "Creation Workshop".

DefCon 2013 Re-cap

As a few of you know, I attended DefCon https://www.defcon.org/ this year in Vegas. I've been bugging my work to send me for the past few years, but thanks to my co-worker Jeff who pulled some strings, we both were able to attend this year. This post is going to be kinds picture heavy, so please bare with me.

Hacker Jeopardy!

Walking Bar

General shot of one of the convention hallways

I loved her dress!

Booth Babes!

SDR Radios!

A very tall Type A machine.

Add caption

Me and Eric from Hackaday.com

Here's a general shot of the vendor room.

There were a few 3d Printers there

At the Hardware hacking village

A hardware vending machine

There were a ton of interesting talks related to security. Some of the best parts were meeting random people in the hallways to talk tech. All in all, going to Defcon was a great experience, and I look forward to heading back next year. 

Creation Workshop Beta 10

Well, the time has finally come to release the next version of Creation Workshop. I keep saying this, but it's been too long since I made a release. Thanks to the help of dozens of users, I was able to make fixes and improvements to the slicing, generation of GCode, control of the printer, multiple profiles, and dozens of other items. Please see the ReleaseNotes.txt for a full list of improvements. The one things I really wanted to finish up - Automatic Support Generation is unfortunately not in this release. It will be coming soon, but I didn't want to delay this release any more.

I decided to move the software out of the Alpha stage and into Beta. It seems stable enough, and from what I've seen, dozens of users have been able to print some wonderful models with it.

I've taken the time to update the manual and add in a hardware guide to address many of the question I have about my setup.

You can get the latest Version 10 Beta from the usual spot here: https://github.com/Pacmanfan/UVDLPSlicerController/blob/master/UVDLP/Published/CreationWorkshop_beta_10.zip

Please take the time to play around with it and give some feedback. I look forward to hearing from you all.

-S

New 3D FDM FFF Printer - MendalMax 2.0

I've had my trusty MakerBot Thing-O-Matic for a few years now, and it's been my trusty workhorse. I've made various improvements to it such add a platform heat spread, LM8UU bearings on the X/Y/Z axis's, and changing to a custom accelerated firmware to print at 75mm/sec. However, there comes a time when upgrades are no longer possible or feasible.

My 'ole trusty Thing-O-Matic

I suppose the main limitation of the T.O.M. is the build tray size of 100mm cubed. That's roughly a 4" cube for all you Americans out there. Many of my designs and newer designs I've found on the web, require a larger build tray than 100mm cubed.

After paying off my crippling credit card debt and finding myself flush with some extra cash, I decided to splurge on a new Machine. Now, I've been looking at machines online for months, trying to decide what would be a good upgrade. 

I had a few requirements:

• Large Build Tray
• Heated Platform Bed
• Reasonable cost
• Good product support

The heated build tray was probably the deciding factor in my final choice. Machines like the Replicator 2 (http://store.makerbot.com/replicator2.html) have excellent customer support as well as multiple print heads, but in the end, the ability to print plastics other than PLA was more important.

My final choice came down to the MendelMax 2.0 http://store.makerstoolworks.com/printer-kits/mendelmax-2-0-standard-kit/ . It has excellent specifications, a heated build platform, and a large build volume.

I ordered one and it arrived far faster than I expected:

Mendel Max 2.0 in kit form.

After about 8 hours of assembly over the course of 2 days, the machine was assembled and calibrated.

The Assembled Mendel Max 2.0

Here's the machine sitting on my kitchen table, waiting to find a spot large enough somewhere else in my house.

My first 'Real' Print.

 After printing the end-stops and fan mount, I decided on a Buddha.

I'm sure over the next few years, this machine will help me build miracles. :-)

ABS plastic swell and print quality differences

      Something has been bothering me for a while. At first I thought it was all in my head, then I ran a few tests. Basically, I've been noticing differences in the print quality and characteristics of different color plastics. When I first got my 3d printer, I stuck with mostly blue and green, with the occasional red ABS filaments. I print primarily 3mm ABS, with the occasional PLA print. I've tried at least 8 or 9 different colors, and from what i can tell, each color has a different "swell" factor while extruding. Green, Blue, and Natural have minimal swell, while White ABS has a horrible swell. I've taken the time to measure the input filament diameter (in most cases it's around 2.9xxx mm). 

      White is the worst offender. Shown below is a simple knob printed on my Makerbot T.O.M.. In each case, identical print parameters and speeds were used. As shown, the Natural color ABS plastic looks almost perfect, while the White ABS looks horribly overfilled. Because the input filament diameter was identical (2.92 mm) and the identical GCode file was used, the only logical conclusion that I can reach is that the White ABS must somehow be expanding more than the Natural color during printing. I'm wondering if the dye or pigment used is causing this somehow.

      Out of all filaments that I've used, the Natural ABS plastic has the best printing characteristics. Red and Green are a close second, Red's not bad, White is a monstrosity. Anyone else have issue such as this?

Identical prints?

An update

So, I haven't made a blog posting for a while, but it's not because of lack of progress. Progress continues on my Slicing and building software https://github.com/Pacmanfan/UVDLPSlicerController .The main issue that I'm facing right now with my UV DLP Printer is the resin sticking to the bottom of the vat. The UV light cures the resin, and it adheres fairly well to the glass bottom of the build tray as well as the build arm platform. 

 The problem happens when the arm (and platform) try to lift the slice up. The printed resin slice is too firmly attached to the glass bottom of the vat, and the resin releases from the build arm platform instead of the vat platform. I've tried roughing up the bottom of the build arm platform for better adhesion, as well as greasing up the glass vat with silicone lubricant. No luck so far.

   Other designs I've seen use a mechanism for sliding and/or tilting the build vat. This allows the interface between the resin and the bottom of the vat to release suction before/during the lift sequence. 

One problem that I'm facing now is that my vat is fairly large, and I don't have room on the surface of my printer to add in a tilt/slide mechanism easily. The reason my vat is so large is because I didn't modify my projector optics for a shorter throw distance. I suppose the "ideal" throw distance would project the 1024x768 resolution of the projector onto a 102 x 77mm area on the bottom of the vat for a 10 pixels per mm resolution. My projector's minimum throw distance is a little longer, giving me a size of approximately 155 x 120 mm. This is fine by me, however; if I want to add in a tilt mechanism, I may have do one or more of several things:

 1) Adjust the projector throw distance to be shorter, so I can have a smaller vat, and more room for a slide/tilt mechanism on my existing machine.

2) Rebuild my machine with a larger top surface for additional space for the tilt/slide

3) Completely rebuild my machine - Now to be fair, I was thinking about doing this anyways. I want to have a smaller design that uses a horizontally mounted projector and a mirror to project the image to the surface of the bottom of the vat.

Well, I should just choose an option and stop stalling so I can get up and printing. 

On some good news, several people have reported to me that they've used my software along with their printers to successfully print!

I'm still in the process of adding more functionality to my application. Look for some good new features real soon.

-Steve

Resin tray rebuild and UV Resin testing.

Last week, I purchased some UV resin specifically designed for 3d printing from 3DInk http://buy3dink.com/p/59/uv-resin . It arrived yesterday and I immediately started conducting a few print tests. One of the first things I noticed is that the resin was much less viscous than the SolarEZ resin I tried before. The 3DInk resin flowed almost like water. Again, I put a few drops in a sandwich bag and placed it on my resin tray.

I fired up my software and picked a nice slice from the 'Goldberg Sphere'. The resin cured within seconds! Good progress so far. The next step was to test the adhesion (or hopefully lack of adhesion) to my polycarbonate resin build tray. I used a silicone spray and paper towel to grease up my build tray, and I place a small amount (few drops) of resin on the tray to be exposed.

The remains of my first build tray.

Unfortunately, The resin firmly adhered to the build tray. No amount of coaxing could remove it. I decided polycarbonate might not be the best choice, or I might have to use a thin film of Teflon coating on the polycarbonate. Either way, this build tray was toast. 

Shown here is the resin stuck to the tray.

I found a nice small pane of soda glass I had been saving, and re-tried with a few more drops on an un-coated pane. Even un-coated, the resin did not adhere very well to the glass. I was able to slide a few test prints off the pane.

Some test object slices of the 'Goldberg Sphere'

New build tray

I used some aluminum channel stock I had lying around along with the glass pane to construct a new build tray of the proper size. I used silicone sealant on all bottom edges and the corners to ensure a proper watertight seal.

I think this new build tray will do the trick. The last thing I need to do is finish the arm that connects to the ZAxis and dips into the resin. I've already added a leveling system to the bottom of the build tray on the printer. I may have to add a small leveling system (some screws) to the build arm.

Exposure Tests

I ran some exposure tests last night. I placed a small amount of UV resin into a plastic sandwich bag and laid it flat on the Resin tray. I went to a middle layer slice of a model slice and I let the resin expose for approximately 30 seconds.

Exposing the Resin to the projected image

As you can see, the resin set into the slice of the projected image. Exposure time took longer than I thought it would, and the resultant piece was still very soft and rubbery. I think I'm using a non-optimal UV resin for this printer. (I bought a quart over 2 years ago from www.solarez.com that was meant for surfboards). I need to bite the bullet and invest in a small quantity of of resin that is specifically designed for 3d printing.

The resultant created object.

If anyone knows of a site where I can purchase a small (quart or liter size) amount of UV resin specifically designed for 3D printing, please let me know.

Initial Alpha release of software

Well, I felt it's time to share the initial software release of my "Creation Workshop" UV DLP Slicing and control software. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. You can download the initial release from GitHub here : https://github.com/Pacmanfan/UVDLPSlicerController/tree/master/UVDLP/Published

UV Printer getting closer to completion

I spent quite a few hours this past weekend working both on my 3D UV DLP printer, as well as the control software for it. I took the time to take a bunch of pictures. This is going to be a picture-heavy post, so please bare with me.

In this pic, I'm attaching the z-axis arm to the top of the printer. I've cut a hole to allow for the DLP projector to shine light on the bottom of the plastic build tray.

Here's a picture of how it's attacked. I used 4x 5mm bolts to secure the z-axis and prevent any wobble.

Shown here is the attached Z-Axis with the build tray in place.

I have the projector mounted at a fixed location on the interior of the printer cabinet.

I remembered that I had a 4 axis CNC stepper motor controller board along with an Arduino Mega 2650 that I had used in another project. I plan on recycling some of it as a controller.

After debating what I should use as a power supply, I settled on using a power supply from an Arcade Cabinet (Yes, that one...http://probjectblogs.blogspot.com/2009/04/heres-donor-tv.html). It's a 5v 11amp and 12 V 4amp power supply. More than enough to power an Arduino and NEMA 23 motor.

I wanted an integrated 1-push power system, so I dug through my spare parts box and found a 3 prong power receptacle as well as a push on/off mains switch.

I quickly designed and printed a plate for the rear of the machine to hold the switch and power receptacle.

Shown here is the mounted power supply wired to the back plate and the DLP Projector. Now, one push can turn on the entire system.