re: laser printing - the tech has been functional since the 70s. Honestly I don’t see it as fundamentally more ‘high precision’ than inkjet heads that require similar tolerances. It’s not as easy as their path, sure, but it’s hardly impossible.
I think the trick to both will be using already proven components on the market and encouraging third party ink, toner, print head etc manufacturers to supply an open source project, and it’s kinda in their interests imho…
hopefully this project succeeds and other avenues open.
Look, there’s very few processes available to us in the non-professional scope. The devices that fabricate these printheads and LED rays are ultra-high precision themselves. It’s giants standing on the backs of giants.
Yes, laser printers existed in the 70s. And an HP laser jet 2 would be about the best engine to try to replicate I expect. It had relatively few parts and they were all big enough that we could work on it by hand.
The software part we can do, rasterizing the data is straightforward and the tech has been there for years. We can turn a laser on and off with such precision that we could completely replicate how the commercial units do it.
Power supply, easy peasy. Chroma wire, no big deal. We’re going to electrostatic this shit out of that transfer roller.
Where are you going to get the materials to scratch make a transfer roller that can handle 300/dpi? It needs to be utterly perfect. It needs to be absolutely exact so in the light hits it, it knocks off the electric charge. You’re going to need a plastics lab in a clean room.
Let’s put a pass on that and let’s assume we’re going to use a toner cartridge with a built-in transfer roller manufactured for some printer that exists and they’ll keep making toner for it for some number of years.
Let’s talk about diy manufacturing the scanning mirror. A 3D print’s not gonna cut that. You need perfect segmented mirrors, beveled on the back to allow them to touch point to point. The positioning on them is going to be sub micrometer resolution. Even with the best 3D printing we have right now, you’re going to end up with a wobbly mess.
So, we’re going to move into a servo mirror. We put a fairly high-quality mirror between two servos and use them to make it go up and down. Teck here, it’s doable. Until you realize you’re going to need to have 300dpi. Now you need something capable of doing 2,500 steps over a few degrees of arc. You can’t get closer to the paper to fix it because you’ll end up with focusing problems.
Okay, so using a laser is probably a lost cause, but we’re not out of tech yet. We just need a really bright, fast, focused light source. Let’s move over to LED.
They put 2,500 LEDs and they strip 8 inches wide.
You’re not even going to find a pick and place service that can put 300 LEDs per linear inch.
DIY is getting better in leaps and bounds with 3D printing, software, and medium to small sized PCB manufacturing.
But we aren’t getting any closer anytime soon for true microprocesses. We’re not going to be making amoled screens, LCD screens, we’re probably not going to be making true processors. There’s just a lot of manufacturing techniques we need that aren’t going to happen outside of a lab or a clean room.
Until the death of humanity or the point at which we get molecular 3D printers.
You need a high enough intensity light at 300 LEDs per inch to knock some electrons around on a sheet of perfect plastic. Then you need a perfect source of toner, the moving the paper bit and the melting bit are the only parts we can do adequately.
To make it outside of a fabrication facility simply isn’t reasonable. It’s too small.
Its the same reason we’re not going to be making our own desktop monitors.
The only reason they’re able to pull this inkjet off is because the head is coming from a fab, we don’t have that kind of precision at home to make a inkjet head.
Laser printers exist today. We can’t make FOSS ones because of patent encumbered technology. Some day that will not be the case.
The printer from the parent particle has “off-the-shelf print heads and ink cartridges”. Why would a laser printer equivalent need molecular level printing instead of using off the shelf components that exist today?
How do you plan to fab the print element there? What part are you going to source? Just give me the smallest bit of a plan for this and I’ll give you a pass. Because I honestly think you have no idea what you are getting yourself into.
Freaking awesome start! I will revisit this when it gets to laser printing.
0 chance for DIY laser from scratch. 0 Chance for LED without someone’s printhead.
Those printers contain a lot of high-precision custom stuff that you can’t replicate without a substantial lab.
re: laser printing - the tech has been functional since the 70s. Honestly I don’t see it as fundamentally more ‘high precision’ than inkjet heads that require similar tolerances. It’s not as easy as their path, sure, but it’s hardly impossible.
I think the trick to both will be using already proven components on the market and encouraging third party ink, toner, print head etc manufacturers to supply an open source project, and it’s kinda in their interests imho…
hopefully this project succeeds and other avenues open.
There’s nobody making open inkjet heads either.
Look, there’s very few processes available to us in the non-professional scope. The devices that fabricate these printheads and LED rays are ultra-high precision themselves. It’s giants standing on the backs of giants.
Yes, laser printers existed in the 70s. And an HP laser jet 2 would be about the best engine to try to replicate I expect. It had relatively few parts and they were all big enough that we could work on it by hand.
The software part we can do, rasterizing the data is straightforward and the tech has been there for years. We can turn a laser on and off with such precision that we could completely replicate how the commercial units do it.
Power supply, easy peasy. Chroma wire, no big deal. We’re going to electrostatic this shit out of that transfer roller.
Where are you going to get the materials to scratch make a transfer roller that can handle 300/dpi? It needs to be utterly perfect. It needs to be absolutely exact so in the light hits it, it knocks off the electric charge. You’re going to need a plastics lab in a clean room.
Let’s put a pass on that and let’s assume we’re going to use a toner cartridge with a built-in transfer roller manufactured for some printer that exists and they’ll keep making toner for it for some number of years.
Let’s talk about diy manufacturing the scanning mirror. A 3D print’s not gonna cut that. You need perfect segmented mirrors, beveled on the back to allow them to touch point to point. The positioning on them is going to be sub micrometer resolution. Even with the best 3D printing we have right now, you’re going to end up with a wobbly mess.
So, we’re going to move into a servo mirror. We put a fairly high-quality mirror between two servos and use them to make it go up and down. Teck here, it’s doable. Until you realize you’re going to need to have 300dpi. Now you need something capable of doing 2,500 steps over a few degrees of arc. You can’t get closer to the paper to fix it because you’ll end up with focusing problems.
Okay, so using a laser is probably a lost cause, but we’re not out of tech yet. We just need a really bright, fast, focused light source. Let’s move over to LED.
They put 2,500 LEDs and they strip 8 inches wide.
You’re not even going to find a pick and place service that can put 300 LEDs per linear inch.
DIY is getting better in leaps and bounds with 3D printing, software, and medium to small sized PCB manufacturing.
But we aren’t getting any closer anytime soon for true microprocesses. We’re not going to be making amoled screens, LCD screens, we’re probably not going to be making true processors. There’s just a lot of manufacturing techniques we need that aren’t going to happen outside of a lab or a clean room.
bet ya a coke it comes in less than a decade.
0 chance in what time frame?
Until the death of humanity or the point at which we get molecular 3D printers.
You need a high enough intensity light at 300 LEDs per inch to knock some electrons around on a sheet of perfect plastic. Then you need a perfect source of toner, the moving the paper bit and the melting bit are the only parts we can do adequately.
To make it outside of a fabrication facility simply isn’t reasonable. It’s too small.
Its the same reason we’re not going to be making our own desktop monitors.
The only reason they’re able to pull this inkjet off is because the head is coming from a fab, we don’t have that kind of precision at home to make a inkjet head.
Laser printers exist today. We can’t make FOSS ones because of patent encumbered technology. Some day that will not be the case.
The printer from the parent particle has “off-the-shelf print heads and ink cartridges”. Why would a laser printer equivalent need molecular level printing instead of using off the shelf components that exist today?
How do you plan to fab the print element there? What part are you going to source? Just give me the smallest bit of a plan for this and I’ll give you a pass. Because I honestly think you have no idea what you are getting yourself into.