Delivery No.1 - Build blog of the first V1.0 Peachy Printer in the Wild

[Builder1]

I spent last evening at the local Makerspace. I chatted with those there about the issues with the drip system and the Peachy in general. MANY ideas flowed back and forth. It was a great night !!

The one thing that struck me about all the conversation is that everyone wanted to keep the drip system. Why? Because of the crazy high Z resolution it enables. I STILL want a stepper based system where there is NO specified time span per layer and I believe that a similar or same resolution can be achieved. We will see.

What's apparent is that there's lots of room left in the dripper system!
I sat down and outlined a bunch of stuff around this today. Here it is for your enjoyment ;-)

Peachy Z-Axis Dripper Thoughts


Dripper Problems


Layer Draw Time
-Limited by time to cure resin
-Limited by speed of rising Z-Axis
Drip Speed slows over time
-As the water levels change in the two bottles, the siphon strength drops
Drip Spikes when raising drip bottle
-Placing objects under the bottle to raise it
Drop size inconsistent with drip speed
-Fast drops are smaller
-Slower drops are bigger
Wasted time on simple layers
-Drip speed must be low enough to allow printing the most complex layer. All other layers will have to wait for the resin level to finish filing before the next layer can start.

Dripper Advantages


Super Inexpensive
-Readably available parts
Simple
-No electronics required
Insanely thin Z layers (0.02mm)

Possible Improvements for the Dripper System


Build Container


Increasing the surface area of the build container will dampen (but not resolve) Drip Spikes(2) and increase Layer Draw Time(1)

A Look at Surface area change

2 Liter Pop bottle (4" diameter)
Area = Pi * R^2
Pop bottle area = (3.1415 * (10.16cm / 2) ^ 2)
= 81.07 cm^2

Glass cylinder I just happen to have ;-) (5 5/16" diameter)
Area = (3.1415 * (13.4cm / 2) ^ 2)
= 141.03 cm^2

That's 1.74 TIMES more surface area !! Quite a difference !!

Drip Bottle Lift

What's required is a way to SMOOTHLY lift the drip container to maintain / control drip speed.

Using a scissor jack (as mentioned on 3D Print board by Dezi) would allow the dripper bottle to be raised/lowered smoothly.
The jacks height may be an issue if it is too short.
Wasted time on simple layers could be reduced by raising the dripper bottle even more to speed up the layer. You just need to be aware of any complex layers coming up so that the drip speed is appropriately reduced for that layer. This would be a manual process.


I think that just these TWO changes could substantially improve the functionality of the Peachy printer !!