[HN Gopher] First chip-based 3D printer is smaller than a coin w...
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First chip-based 3D printer is smaller than a coin with no moving
parts
Author : rbanffy
Score : 72 points
Date : 2024-06-10 12:19 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
| cdaringe wrote:
| I thought "surely this title is a typo or clickbait."
|
| Nope, it is correct. Pretty wild, albeit still very much a POC.
| asynchronous wrote:
| Except it is pretty much just a laser, and requires a vat of
| resin to actually produce anything. Still impressive actually,
| but it's no tiny FDM.
| jmholla wrote:
| Yea. This is more of a printer head. It'd be neat to have a
| bunch of these in one printer and drastically speed up print
| speeds.
| criddell wrote:
| The missing punctuation in the HN title had me wondering what
| coins have moving parts?
| mypalmike wrote:
| Except it really is clickbait. It's a really cool development
| in 3D print technology, but it's not a tiny printer.
| smusamashah wrote:
| Original linked MIT article[1] has a little better explanation of
| how this light beam is controlled. The
| researchers use electrical signals to nonmechanically steer the
| light beam, causing the resin to solidify wherever the beam
| strikes it. the researchers used liquid crystal to
| fashion compact modulators they integrate onto the chip. The
| material's unique optical properties enable the modulators to be
| extremely efficient and only about 20 microns in length.
| A single waveguide on the chip holds the light from the off-chip
| laser. Running along the waveguide are tiny taps which tap off a
| little bit of light to each of the antennas. The
| researchers actively tune the modulators using an electric field,
| which reorients the liquid crystal molecules in a certain
| direction. In this way, they can precisely control the amplitude
| and phase of light being routed to the antennas.
|
| [1] https://news.mit.edu/2024/researchers-demonstrate-first-
| chip...
| kunalgupta wrote:
| perfect thank you
| sandworm101 wrote:
| So this is more of a 3d _printer head_ rather than a proper 3d
| printer? It would still need external moving parts to handle
| the resin and such.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Correct, the resin is not part of the chip.
|
| It controls the phase of the light as well as the intensity,
| which is novel compared to a galvo. The paper suggested
| holographic curing, which sounds like a joke but it seems is
| a real thing where they use three photons to cure and
| controlling phase lets them do that somehow. But it's only
| kind of mentioned offhand, so I'm not sure how serious they
| are about it.
| timschmidt wrote:
| Sounds similar to what these guys are up to:
| https://xolo3d.com/
|
| They have a novel photoinitiator which requires light from
| two different wavelengths to initiate polymerization. They
| currently scan a plane of laser light through a static
| resin vat while projecting a 2D video through the same vat.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Looks very cool, thanks! Yeah, that's the kind of thing I
| mean, it sounds like there are a few ways to do it.
|
| The paper cites
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.3c01263 which
| is triplet even, though who knows what the research group
| would do if they actually implemented it...
| xg15 wrote:
| From what I got, it replaces the printer head _plus the
| entire positioning assembly_ of the head. It 's still not the
| entire printer, but it would massively simplify the
| mechanical construction.
| phkahler wrote:
| So it's a non-mechanical galvanometer replacement for steering
| a laser. Very cool, but that's like one small part of a 3D
| printer. Also wonder if it can steer in 2 dimensions, or if you
| need 2 of these, or is that not possible? Can it be used for
| ILDA laser shows?
| ItsABytecode wrote:
| I think still need some moving parts for the build plate if you
| want to cure more than 1 layer of resin
|
| Edit: from the MIT article, it sounds like the goal is to
| eventually use a hologram to cure the entire print at once.
| Related video: https://youtu.be/Ha0QA7iLGy8?si=wWSqex16ybyUDWxE
| aftbit wrote:
| AIUI, resin 3d printers currently either use a UV laser and a set
| of galvos to steer it across the build plate, or a bright UV LED
| and an LCD to selectively admit and block light to various parts
| of the plate. The laser approach is higher performance but more
| fiddly and expensive, while the LCD approach is simpler to set up
| but has a shorter service life (due to UV degradation of the LCD)
| and produces lower light intensities at the build plate.
|
| I have often wondered why nobody uses the DMD approach[1] common
| to digital laser projectors. This sounds something like that,
| albeit with the mirrors replaced with this LCD magic.
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_micromirror_device
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Carbon3D use micromirror arrays IIRC.
| themoonisachees wrote:
| Plenty of brands offer DLP-based printers, like the elegoo mars
| 4 DLP.
| kragen wrote:
| a dmd has thousands or millions of moving parts though; i think
| this is a phased array instead
| etrautmann wrote:
| This is cool but the miniaturization and integration of the
| optics doesn't result in a functioning printer. You still need
| the bath of resin and the printer. The headline is like saying
| you'd have a coin sized printer if you only focus on an inkjet
| head.
| lawlessone wrote:
| It's just a laser diode?
| robust-cactus wrote:
| The form factor here is cool, but as someone whose been resin
| printing a bunch lately, the pitch to carry it around in your
| pocket sounds questionable.
|
| 1. Where are you going to store the resin? It isn't good to touch
| it. Are they also expecting people to carry around somewhat toxic
| resin in their other pocket and then make a little puddle on the
| ground to print? Resin printing is messy and cleaning is hard.
| Make sure to carry isopropyl alcohol in your other pocket.
|
| 2. It produces toxic fumes while printing that you need to
| exhaust. So you at least need a mask.
|
| 3. It takes hours to print on a large machine: you need a model
| file, to edit the model to print in resin well and then the
| actual print can be multiple hours long. Not to mention multiple
| print failures which is often the case.
|
| Everything mentioned about the surgical application sounds
| possible today, but it's still not fast enough or reliable enough
| in that scenario. Also... Resin isn't that strong, you want to
| graft it to a bone, what?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Raw materials aside, a tiny printer can go places a large
| printer cannot. Space? Deep sea? Inside other machines? Or on
| the tip of a robotic arm to do print little parts right onto
| their permanent place like a spider placing silk? Who knows!?
| 99% sure the "in your pocket" statement is more like "smaller
| than a breadbox", as in, it's plain-as-day comparisons of size,
| not use.
| robust-cactus wrote:
| The size of the printing mechanism is an innovation for sure,
| but I think after you add up all the other components to make
| a functioning printer you end up at nearly the same size: a
| resin vat, space to print, various leveling mechanisms,
| filters, UV light shield etc - the form factor doesn't really
| change all that much.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| If you think 3D printing is always going to be on a flat
| bed of the same size using the same amounts of material,
| then yeah, minimizing the printing mechanism sure seems
| like a non-necessary improvement. But that's not the
| intended use case anyway. It can only print small things.
| Maybe it can add tiny details or structures to large prints
| though
| araes wrote:
| > Maybe it can add tiny details or structures to large
| prints though
|
| Combine it with their rather enthusiastic article on
| printing your own children
|
| https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/elegoo-
| making-3d-pr...
|
| > Just imagine printing a piece of furniture, a near
| life-size statue, ...
|
| "Such a lifelike figurine, with real plastic spaceship
| accessory"
|
| https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/zPi4gpbczzvoGR34Rds7D8-
| 120...
|
| If the Galaxy Quest aliens happen to glance this way
| lately...
| robust-cactus wrote:
| Hmmmm interesting. I can see a use case for like a drone
| or small robot to have one of these attached to add
| details all over the place. Ok you've convinced me it's
| cool lol
| dgacmu wrote:
| Imagine the equivalent of endoscopy: being able to insert a
| small tube inside of an object and print structures larger
| than the tube inside of them.
|
| Obviously, that requires a lot more than just this, but
| it's intriguing to think about being able to perform
| internal repairs of nearly-sealed objects.
|
| Or print a kitten inside a bottle, for those old enough to
| catch the bonsai kitten reference. ;)
| imtringued wrote:
| Resin isn't toxic. The problem is that resin can cure under
| your skin and the only way to get rid of the resin is for your
| immune system to do it. So people develop allergies against
| cured resin, which tends to cause more damage than the resin
| itself. Even after you have developed a resin allergy, there is
| generally no long term damage as long as you stay away from it
| and don't trigger your allergy.
| bn-l wrote:
| That does sound pretty toxic to be fair.
| kunalgupta wrote:
| can't read article without constantly clicking ads, blocked toms
| hardware
| jjk166 wrote:
| Optical phased arrays are a really cool emerging technology, and
| this is one of the silliest possible applications for them.
| iamleppert wrote:
| Thinking machines, super computers. Your Scientists Were So
| Preoccupied With Whether Or Not They Could, They Didn't Stop To
| Think If They Should !
| barfbagginus wrote:
| What is neat is that this could potentially project a
| configurable hologram!
|
| You could partially cure the bottom layer, pull that layer up,
| then finish curing that layer while forming the next layer. This
| could significantly accelerate the print speed!
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