I’m looking for collaborators. Builders, Hackers, Anyone with experience repairing or designing Laser Printers.
I’m hoping to build a new kind of 3D printer that I designed that uses a photoconducting drum to transfer and lay down substrate instead of by extrusion.
The link is to a short explanation and animated gif of the printer.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/111941757262461281068/posts/CDeXobwFG7E
What build rate do you expect with this configuration?
@Tony_Hine_Nifty_Acce Complicated Answer: Substrate particle size and mass depends on material and electrostatic pull from photoconducting drum. Revolution speed of drum is dependent on laser i/o speed, and probably has lower limits with substrate fuse properties.
Short answer: No Idea.
Best Guess/Proposed Goal: Each revolution should take about the time a desktop laser printer prints a single sheet of paper (about 1-2 seconds). If each revolution prints .1 mm substrate height, then a 3 centimeter print will take 10 minutes. The beneficial part of the printer is that 10 minutes will print all 6 of the gears AND the gearbox at the same time (see explanation above). Thus, even if an extrusion style printer could print a gear in 10 minutes, it would still take it 70 minutes to complete the 7-piece build.
My guess is from what you have said is; that to get your 0.1 millimetre thickness substrate printed, then you’re not going to be able to do this with a standard toner. If this is the case then I would’ve thought the safest route would be too adapt a standard printer so that you could experiment printing with different materials. When you have perfected this then you could think about developing the conical roller.
I fail to see how you would be able to do bridges and overhangs with this method. There would be nothing to press against.
Thanks @Tony_Hine_Nifty_Acce , that is a general development trajectory. Care to help me out? Know anyone who knows anything about laser jet printers?
@ThantiK , you raise a good point, but one that I anticipate can be solved in at least two ways. Let me rhetorically ask you: how are overhangs created with extrusion-style printers? Two common solutions are to print one layer slightly overhanging, but still touching the lower layer, hoping that the upper layer is sticky enough to adhere without falling off; and printing a second material simultaneously to act as a support material, which can be later removed.
Both of these approaches can be used in the 3D laser printer. The substrate particles may be smaller than your typical filament, but they are still sticky coming off the drum, and can still stick to a lower layer even if they are only partially stuck to it. Further, the drum you see in the GIF is one of about 3 or 4 that can be arranged around the circumference of the center vertical. Thus, 4 different toners can be laid down in quick succession for every revolution of the spindle. If just one of those toners is a support material, this leaves 3 other toners to play with color, or material properties of the build. This is a significant improvement over the current state of the art.
@Jacob_Cigna I’ve actually done quite a few bridges that spanned 20mm or more. FDM printers just pull the plastic across the bridge, no support material needed.
Also, toner doesn’t act like plastic filament, it doesn’t generally stick to itself on the drum. It’s very flaky. If you print with one layer slightly overhanging, but still touching a lower layer, the overhang is going to just tear off with toner.