

Our 3d printer is better than yours - anigbrowl
http://www.tuwien.ac.at/en/news/news_detail/article/7444/

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regularfry
While this is firmly in the "holy crap" territory, I dread to imagine what the
consumables costs are.

I can't wait until microfluidics people get hold of this. It'll be (ahem)
huge.

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VladimirGolovin
Judging from the video, the resolution / dot size is about 1 µm (one
micrometre). For comparison, the thickness of the tape in a 120-minute compact
cassette is 9 µm, the diameter of a typical bacterium is 1–10 µm, and the
diameter of the nucleus of a typical eukaryotic cell is 7 µm
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_micrometre>).

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deadsy
Right. There's a bit of use of the "nano" prefix in the article, but it really
should be "micro".

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tomkin
Am I the only one who thinks about the implications of these 3D printers? I
read somewhere that an entire cell phone built with a 3D printer (circuits &
all) will be possible soon. No "put it together yourself" stuff, either -
entirely built and assembled at once.

Doesn't that create a disruptive influence for any company creating smaller
products and devices? Not suggesting that it's a catastrophe...but where does
this road eventually lead?

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kiba
I doubt the CPU and many other components will be produced by 3D printers, or
at least cheap 3D printers, any time soon.

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tomkin
While I do see it being possible _sometime_ , I agree that it's probably true
that we won't see that for a while. The Ikea model would work well at this
stage where you'd expect a small booklet that guides you along the way: "When
the printer's green light is flashing, open box A5 and place chip on the area
shown in Figure F2. Then press the green button on the printer's console."

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sbierwagen
See also:

(March 31st, 2011) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snOErpOP5Xk>

(November 11th, 2011)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV0BpoRTv38&feature=rela...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV0BpoRTv38&feature=related)

Dramatically lower resolution, of course, but probably $100,000 cheaper. No
granite optical tables required, for one.

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Someone
_"The mirrors are continuously in motion during the printing process. The
acceleration and deceleration-periods have to be tuned very precisely to
achieve high-resolution results at a record-breaking speed."_

Isn't this a solved problem in laserprinters by using polygonal mirrors?

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tintin
With polygonal mirrors you have to wait for the perfect moment to pulse the
laser.

I think these are just galvanometers. Seems like they have to 'predict' the
motion of the mirrors for accuracy and speed.

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dbcooper
So, if it takes ~ 90s to fabricate a 300x130um element that is 100um thick
then how long to do a 1cmx1cmx100um thick element?

Scale factor is 10000/300*10000/130 = 2564, so it takes ~ 64 hr.

i.e. it takes a long time ...

I will stick to CNC machining and photolithography for now. ;-)

If they speed it up then perhaps 3D elements could be added to microfluidic
networks with it.

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icefox
Hmmm, well for some things 64 hours isn't as bad as I first thought... This
could be sped up and hopefully is highly paralyzable so with some more
research you could have something while slower the resolution quality would be
so much better is would be worth it for some situations. Imagine printing
watch parts or pieces for musical instruments, etc.

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brico
I wonder if this technology will be used to add "watermarks" to objects, to
guarantee authenticity, like print a logo on a clockface of your rolex

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D_Alex
Surely not, the "watermark" is more easily added using methods suitable to
mass production. Possibly it could be used to produce counterfeit watermarks
though...!

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schmidp
hey jan, if you read this. great work! all the best, philipp

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senthilnayagam
somebody tell steven spielberg "innerspace" is within reach in next couple of
years.

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m_for_monkey
Their title is better than yours.

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cobychapple
Sure beats the hell out of the RepRap!

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tintin
Well the Ultimaker already did (<https://shop.ultimaker.com/>).

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MartinMond
And we're one step closer to the Singularity.

