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New Robo3d printers.

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by Dbeal, Jan 5, 2015.

  1. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    I agree it's not "full color" At least until they show more multicolor layers than the first layer.
     
  2. k1e1v1i1n

    k1e1v1i1n Active Member

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    anyone know how these work? I watched the video but I still don't know how it could change colour at the right time every time.
     
  3. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    It looks like a bowden cold end. I don't really understand how it works yet. We'll see I guess if they open up that black box of theirs. Otherwise we wait until a maker gets their hands on it to deconstruct it.
     
  4. Wilco

    Wilco New Member

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    Since they're here in town where I live, I'm tempted to go knock on the door over at Spectrom and demand they let me beta test, or else just break in and "borrow" one.

    Per a writeup when they won a prize at the UW's Innovation Days:

    "Spectrom is specifically designed to work with fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printers, which are the most viable consumer 3D printers, thanks to their ease of use and lower cost of materials. Unlike the current state of the art in FDM color printing, which is limited to the spools of pre-dyed plastic filament, Spectrom delivers solvent dyes directly to clear plastic filament in a continuous, on-demand process. This allows a 3D printer to mix colors and function more like an inkjet printer, unlocking the full rainbow of vibrant colors to 3D printed objects."
    http://www.engr.wisc.edu/news/archive/2014/Feb14.html

    There are other articles from when they won that prize, some of which contain interesting shots of their prototype equipment:

    http://host.madison.com/business/co...cle_c2885a80-65ba-5959-abfc-4cdbd1c370b7.html

    What I've seen from them since they won the Innovation Days prize has definitely peaked my interest, and I hope they can follow through and deliver on the claims.
     
  5. Galaxius

    Galaxius Well-Known Member

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    Then someone will design an open source one because I bet it'll be expensive.
     
  6. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Yeah someone was saying it's probably natural colored PLA that's soaked/dyed with a color through inkjet cartridges. It's definitely a unique approach, but guaranteed to be insanely expensive
     
  7. Printed Solid

    Printed Solid Volunteer Admin
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    I doubt it will be that expensive or they would have partnered with a company with a higher prices product line.
     
  8. k1e1v1i1n

    k1e1v1i1n Active Member

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    buying ink for my paper printer costs a fortune. I guess we will find out soon.
     
  9. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Yeah if it's around $1-200 I could see it being reasonably priced. I get the feeling it's gonna be a $3-500 addon though
     
  10. Wilco

    Wilco New Member

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    I'd be willing to possibly pay up to $500 for the hardware if it's actually dying the filament on-demand with stable dyes and no side effects like the dyes being water soluble, etc.

    What we could see of the software in that teaser video looks like a modded version of Cura, which lets you specify an RGB value for a range of layers.:

    [​IMG]

    This (to me as a programmer) is completely logical as a place to start. That lets them do Z-based coloring of any regular STL. It's a very simple starting point for this solution.

    However if it can dye the color at any point then there's nothing stopping a next step of software to allow color changes in the same layer, for true full-color printing.

    What I'd love to see is how they're sending the data to the dyeing-cold-end unit, and keeping that in sync with the gcode. I almost wonder if it's not just a cold-end that dyes filament, but if it's also driving the printer. So you could generate "enhanced" gcode with their modified version of cura which contains commands for setting/changing filament color, and then if it's passing the rest of the gcode to the printer.
     
  11. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    I came across some videos on Spectrom:





    Using solvent based pens to deposit color.

    Still not seen how well the colors mix
     
  12. Wilco

    Wilco New Member

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    That's the design that they had which won the various prizes mentioned in the articles I linked up-thread, yeah. No clue what kind of changes they've made to the concept between then and the current beta project.

    I think the color output looks fine, based on the limited shots we've seen in the promo stuff. It looks like any other CYM(K) output to me, pretty much full color.

    I've got more questions about the durability and life of the dye in the filament. :)
     
  13. gstercken

    gstercken Member

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    I have only two questions related to the new printers:
    1. When will the R2 be available? When it was first mentioned back in May 2014, it was announced as "coming winter 2014". When I last asked about it here, I was told that "CES is coming up". Now CES is over... But do we know when it will be available for ordering, and when it will be shipping?
    2. What type of extruder(s) will it have - direct or bowden? That's another piece of information that I was looking for since the first announcement, and it's something you can't tell from the renders, and I've never seen it mentioned anywhere. I wonder if someone who saw the protoype at CES could shed some light here?
    The reason I'm asking is that I have those very two minimum requirements for my next printer: Dual extrusion, and the ability to print flexible material (e.g. NinjaFlex), which pretty much rules out bowden extruders. So far, I have been holding back on buying a different brand (Zeni Kinetic, Solidoodle, FLASHFORGE) since the R2 was announced for late 2014 / early 2015.
     
  14. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    They'll announce a release date when they have a release date.

    Looked like direct feed from videos, hard to tell. Bowden doesn't eliminate flex, just gotta run a little slower.
     
  15. gstercken

    gstercken Member

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    Obviously. :rolleyes:

    So, in other words: They don't have a release date again. No announcement has been made at CES, the previous "late 2014/early 2015" plans are cancelled, and the projected release date is now "indefinite"? I guess that settles it then - time to go ahead and order an existing dual extrusion printer. Thanks!
     
  16. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Their Winter 2015 was a guess. Product design takes a long time and they underestimated (who woulda guessed with their previous track record?!)

    I'd suggest the flashforge dual
     

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