Audio calibration

I should imagine, calibrating the printer for various audio inputs could be challenging. Presumably an amplifier with AGC must be used, or the size of your print would depend on where you set your volume control. Even with an automatic gain control amplifier, there could be issues at low volume and high volume. At high volume, there is risk of clipping and hence inaccurate x and y due to clipping distortion. At low volume, the same applies (detail could be lost). I presume the Peachy must have some LED style VU meter, so that you turn the volume up until the LED goes green?? Maybe !!!!

You could achieve calibration manually by feeding Peachy with a calibration signal which creates a laser pattern against a calibration measure floating in the tank. Then adjust the volume until the laser just strikes the points on the measure.

it has been said that the peachy uses AM signal modulation, so probably does have an agc circuit after the band pass filter(s) for switching on and off of the laser.

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Originally Posted by harpo99999

it has been said that the peachy uses AM signal modulation, so probably does have an agc circuit after the band pass filter(s) for switching on and off of the laser.

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I do have some concerns about absolute printed dimensions in relation to the designed dimensions i.e. will the peachy output dimensions exactly match the design input dimensions. Since the base level Peachy is analogue, calibration becomes critical. It's no good printing a set of gears, if the dimensions are out, they wont mesh !!!! There are a lot of variables and the software will have to be quite clever to calibrate against mirror angle. A small change in the mirror angle when the beam is at a large deflection represents a much larger dimension than when the beam is vertical to the surface. So deflections will have to be progressively mathematically weighted (a reduction) as the deflection increases. I presume it is this factor which has dictated that all the example prints so far have had small deflections (small x and y). It's quite a complicated bit of maths to do the off axis deflection compensation to maintain absolute dimensions.

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Originally Posted by mike_biddell

I do have some concerns about absolute printed dimensions in relation to the designed dimensions i.e. will the peachy output dimensions exactly match the design input dimensions. Since the base level Peachy is analogue, calibration becomes critical. It's no good printing a set of gears, if the dimensions are out, they wont mesh !!!! There are a lot of variables and the software will have to be quite clever to calibrate against mirror angle. A small change in the mirror angle when the beam is at a large deflection represents a much larger dimension than when the beam is vertical to the surface. So deflections will have to be progressively mathematically weighted (a reduction) as the deflection increases. I presume it is this factor which has dictated that all the example prints so far have had small deflections (small x and y). It's quite a complicated bit of maths to do the off axis deflection compensation to maintain absolute dimensions.

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X and Y are proportional to tan theta multiplied by the height above the resin, where theta is the angle with the vertical. This is reasonably sensible for +/- 45 degrees, but above that deflection, tan theta goes a bit wacky......... +/- infinity at 90 degrees. So you would probably want to limit mirror movement to +/- 45 degrees for the function to remain sensible.

The off-axis correction isn't really a very complicated calculation, but it does have limits. If you let the beam go off at 90 degrees to the vertical then it's travelling parallel to the surface of the resin - which is a problem (especially because the resin curves around with gravity and the beam mostly doesn't, so they'll actually get further apart). Much better to just limit it to a small deflection (I was thinking more like +/- 15 degrees) and increase the Z height to get a larger printable region. The mirrors will also have mechanical limits, of course, which will prevent really large angles.

Getting absolute dimensions right will be a matter of calibration and fiddling, as it always is. I'm not sure, but I suspect that if you set up the Peachy just about anywhere, have it build a 1" cube, and measure the edge lengths exactly then you'd be able to fully calibrate the system in software. Obviously a larger cube or running the same test multiple times will help, but at the end of the day you'll have to live with "good enough" accuracy (which is probably limited by how accurately you can measure the cube).

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Originally Posted by Slatye

...especially because the resin curves around with gravity and the beam mostly doesn't, so they'll actually get further apart.

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What kind of print are you doing where you're taking the curvature of the earth into account?!

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Originally Posted by Chayat

What kind of print are you doing where you're taking the curvature of the earth into account?!

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As a matter of passing interest for the purists reading this thread and apropos of nothing....... the laser light is bent by gravity. I spent a bit of time looking at the maths and absolute accuracy will not be attainable without a tangent of theta correction. Depends how accurate you want the device to be.

Just looked it up...... there's a 1% error at 10 degrees.

In Slatye's defense, he says light mostly doesn't bend to gravity. On Earth, that is absolutely true, if he means it doesn't bend much.

1% error at 10 degrees is not really a big deal, is it? If the height of the printer is 12" above the resin, a 10 square inch print is more than 99% accurate, and smaller prints suffer even less error. Seems good to me.

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Originally Posted by Anuvin

In Slatye's defense, he says light mostly doesn't bend to gravity. On Earth, that is absolutely true, if he means it doesn't bend much.

1% error at 10 degrees is not really a big deal, is it? If the height of the printer is 12" above the resin, a 10 square inch print is more than 99% accurate, and smaller prints suffer even less error. Seems good to me.

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It's not at all bad, but it's not too difficult to put a tan theta correction in the software. I think if you want to print really large stuff, it would be significant. That sort of stuff can evolve as it is nothing to do with the design of the printer, it's in the conversion software.

I'd love to set up a peachy in my garage over the chassis of a car and have it print the bodywork in-situ. I'm sure for really big stuff it's going to be an issue...

Now that I think of it, I really hope some of the betas do stupid-big prints (with a time lapse video)

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Originally Posted by Chayat

I'd love to set up a peachy in my garage over the chassis of a car and have it print the bodywork in-situ. I'm sure for really big stuff it's going to be an issue...

Now that I think of it, I really hope some of the betas do stupid-big prints (with a time lapse video)

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Blimey, I love your ambition, and to be absolutely honest, printing car bodies will probably become routine in the future.

In hindsight, I dont want to soak bits of my car in a giant salt-water bath... unless there's a less damaging medium that can be used.
Also ignoring what I assume would be a stupidly complex issue of giving the software a positive mesh of the chassis for it to print around.

This makes me want to add metal to the resin and make my own thow-away air-cooled engines. Throw a rod? Print a new one! Need to port your heads for a new intake? Do some 3d work, print your new head.

I know, I'm dreamin'. But how cool would that be?

You can change the density of water with more than just salt. I bet it would work with cornstarch, which washes off.

@Anuvin

I would love to see that happen and I dont see why not! I am a beta tester and regardless of if you are or not I would love to work with you on something like that. Making extremely tough prints that have metal like qualities.

Bovalis2037@gmail.com

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Originally Posted by bovalis2037

@Anuvin

I would love to see that happen and I dont see why not! I am a beta tester and regardless of if you are or not I would love to work with you on something like that. Making extremely tough prints that have metal like qualities.

Bovalis2037@gmail.com

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People have already printed working sterling engines......interesting stuff. http://www.3ders.org/articles/201211...ng-engine.html ......... wonder what the melting point of the peachy resin is???

To get the mirror angle(theta) for any given x or y coordinate is theta = tan^-1 (x/h-z), where x is the required x coordinate and h is the starting height above the resin and z is the current drip height coordinate. (so that the current height above the resin is h - z). Applying this correction factor in the software for x and y coords, would result in very accurate prints.