Update 51 - Version 1.0 Peachy Printer!

[Chayat]

should be able to get below 0.001mm without too much difficulty

You're right to a point but as you try to get smaller and smaller Z-steps you'll run into issues with the meniscus. There were some ideas around raising and lowering the level (like up 3 drips, down 2 drips) before the laser does its thing but I don't think this is a stock feature of the peachy.


In fact, I'd be interested to know if any special printing methods were used for that rook. Maybe Rylan will tell us...

[rylangrayston]

lots of good questions hope you dont mind if I answer in point form, all in one post.

curious aardvark:
- peachy printers are priced in usd ( the Canadian dollar took a real dive and we by all our parts in usd, hence the change )
- The web site says 3d scanner and we still plan to make that a reality. Whats working now is to rudementry to say its up and running.
- as for peachy having a resin distributor in the uk, im sure we will but i hope you have your printer before we get that set up, because im sure its a year out.

bre358:
- z resolution... lets see.. We typically lay down 100 layers per mm, all the prints in update 51 were done at that z resolution so for example the rook is
8cm tall so it has 8000 layers (Were pretty hard on slicers lol). Its interesting to note that the human eye cant see our layers at this resolution, when you see rings or layer like artifacts in our prints you are not seeing layers your seeing some other artifact that is happening repetitiously every 10 - 100 layers, were still tracking down the causes of these artifacts and every time we find another one the prints get a little more like glass.

- also what harpo99999 said is correct, thx harpo99999, just to add some real life numbers to your point:
When we print in a 2 litre pop bottle its normal to get 260 drips per mm of height rise With the standard dripper
or in other words 2.6 drips per layer. If we were to dim the laser, 2.6 times dimer, or move the laser 2.6 times faster, then we could get a print in the same time( printing at the same drip rate in drips/second) to have a Z resolution of .0038mm ( 1mm/ 260 drips = .0038 mm. )
Thats getting close to .001mm and you could easily pick a container with more surface aria to get more resolution.
But there is another way I think we can get to .001mm in the same 2 liter pop bottle, make smaller drips.
Typical peachy printer drips are about 1/10th of a ml but ive read that there are medical "micro drippers" that do 60 drips per mL.
making the drips smaller with the peachy dripper is easy, you just bend a little wire on the dripper making the gap the drip falls in smaller.
If you can get the drips to be 1/40 of a mL then you would hit that .001mm mark in a 2 litter pop bottle.
and you could lay down 1000 layers every mm. blar im getting sleepy Hope whatever math i just blurted out += up.


- another thing worth measuring in the z is how short of a hole can you leave in a vertical wall, because the laser light penetrates the resin deeper than one layer height.
I think (if i remember correctly) I have left holes in a vertical wall as small as .25 mm but .5mm holes are repeatably achievable. This is something that can be controlled by uv blocking ingredients in the resin like pigments for example. Further more software that intentionally dims the laser when travelling over a hole could improve this measure of resolution alot.

- lastly our z accuracy is good with a peristaltic pump add on +/- 1 percent no problem, but quite bad with a dripper more like +/- 5 percent.

[rylangrayston]

You're right to a point but as you try to get smaller and smaller Z-steps you'll run into issues with the meniscus. There were some ideas around raising and lowering the level (like up 3 drips, down 2 drips) before the laser does its thing but I don't think this is a stock feature of the peachy.

In fact, I'd be interested to know if any special printing methods were used for that rook. Maybe Rylan will tell us...

Right so when we talk about getting 1000 drips per mm and how that gets us a "resolution" of .001 mm
thats probably a miss use or at least an over simplification of the word resolution, there are all kinds of sources of noise in the system
that push and pull the one thousand layers you just did up and down side to side etc.... at the end of the day we print with 100 layers per mm because that's
about where it gets tricky to measure any improvements from doing even more layers.


The rook was done with the standard setup no hacks or mods or anything to the printer, it was printed in a 2 litre pop bottle with the top cut off.
We did tilt the stl 15 degrees in the slicer to give overhangs more layers and added a small base or raft which we cut off before filming.
The print had 8000 layers probably 1000 of which were in the base that we cut off. Theres not really much more I can say about it... we were just as impressed
and shocked when we saw it for the first time too.

[curious aardvark]

so how long did the rook take at that resolution ?
I think I printed my best one in about an hour and a half on my creator.

I presume with the laser and constant dripping the layers build up quite fast. But damn 100 layers to a mm !
That's ridiculous :-)

[spooky]

I was wondering (and apologize if it's been answered before) - Since it's essentially adaptable to various reservoir sizes, how big do you think you can get with the default assembly before it starts causing possible distortion or artifacts in the prints?

I would love to print raspberry pi cases or perhaps something like an iphone case for instance. Some of the smaller reservoirs I have seen so far appear to be a bit too small for these objects. So if I were to put a larger bin in, say, 10 inches in length, would this be acceptable for the printer? or would it cause issues?

I would love to see larger build platforms / slightly larger jar shapes or examples of something with a slightly larger base. I don't plan to print giant objects, but if it's something with a little lenght, I am curious how the peachy would fair.

[jontelling]

I was wondering (and apologize if it's been answered before) - Since it's essentially adaptable to various reservoir sizes, how big do you think you can get with the default assembly before it starts causing possible distortion or artifacts in the prints?

I can't answer that, but for fun, if you were to project your build and use a 0.3mm aperture (assumed to be focused to infinity) and each point was were only just touching (no overlap) x and y could be 78M. But really you will be having at least 50% overlap. Side note, at a projection of 40degs to get to 78M you would need to place the laser 92M up.
I have a feeling that canoe is going to need some planning. :P

[spooky]

Hahaha! I couldn't imagine trying to print a canoe!

[Chayat]

As the build area is a cone will we see increased resolution in the XY as the Z increases?

[jontelling]

As the build area is a cone will we see increased resolution in the XY as the Z increases?

I don’t think so, it’s best to imagine the XY resolution in terms of points per degree of projection.
You don’t gain any increase resolution by being further away from the laser, you may gain some detail though due to the increased distance between edges as the meniscus will become less of an issue.

[rylangrayston]

The last few post have some great questions about max print size...
I just thought id mention that no one at the peachy team really knows the answers to them yet.
We have done some bigger prints than we have shown but That might be in the next update so ill let everyone see it there, ether way even our bigest prints dont really push the boundaries
of what I think we may discover the peachy printer can do.