Potential resolution

[Feign]

Regardless of the precision of the mirrors, the laser used in the Peachy is at least half a millimeter wide from what I've seen. To make an analogy, trying to draw nanostructures in a surface with the Peachy's laser would be like trying to write your name in 10pt font in wet concrete using a bowling ball on a string. While it's theoretically not impossible, it's certainly outside the realm of common sense.

[Morten]

But I don't want to draw nanostructures, I want to draw microstructures. They're a lot bigger. I'm not actually expecting to be able to do this with a stock Peachy, but like I said initially it's fun to speculate. Can the diameter of the laser be adjusted with an iris or a lens of some sort?

[Davo]

... would be like trying to write your name in 10pt font in wet concrete using a bowling ball on a string.

That's great. I tell people it's like signing a check with a caulk gun, but I may borrow this from you.

[Yourtime]

Regardless of the precision of the mirrors, the laser used in the Peachy is at least half a millimeter wide from what I've seen. To make an analogy, trying to draw nanostructures in a surface with the Peachy's laser would be like trying to write your name in 10pt font in wet concrete using a bowling ball on a string. While it's theoretically not impossible, it's certainly outside the realm of common sense.

I agree with you and I like the analogy, but he also said modified peachy, theroetical is it possible to use a more thin laser to reach the micrometer level?

[IsThisSparta]

I agree that the laser looks about .5 mm wide, but I hope and pray that the focused point at the center is bright and small enough to do this

[Anuvin]

The laser point is determined by the user. The user can place a cover on the laser, and poke a hole the size they like. What's the best way to put the tiniest hole in a piece of soda can?

(The aperture disk in the beta kit is essentially a disk of thin aluminum)

[bovalis2037]

But by changing this aperture would it affect any calculations the team has done and already built in to the printer?

For example if they said to poke a hole with a tooth pick rather than a pin the aperture would be different, and the laser would cure different amounts of resin than initially expected and change the wall size of the print. If you were to somehow make the hole smaller than initially expected the laser could possibly be moving to fast for it to actually solidify any of the resin.

Our am I just going crazy waiting for this thing to get here

[Anuvin]

I don't think so. However, I don't think anyone knows yet how small a laser point you can use to cure resin. Another test to add to the list.

[Morten]

This printer http://oldworldlabs.com/product/owl-nano/ seems to use a laser and (10x?) lens to get to .1 micron - why couldn't we mount a peachy on a microscope? Vibration dampening is probably a concern but a laser can demonstrably cure resin at far higher resolution than we need to do structural color

[Feign]

The OWL printers use a rather complex lensing system to reduce their laser footprint. After watching someone's beta assembly video, it looks like there's plenty of room in front of the Peachy's laser for a small lens stack. Just making a smaller aperture would not necessarily make the beam tighter, as you start getting dispersive lensing effects at very small apertures for physics reasons that I can't remember the names of.

Of course, that would be something for an upgraded or modded Peachy.