Mcor Paper Printer

Just saw this pop up on the various tech blogs out there...

[www.mcortechnologies.com] (there are writeups at fabbaloo and hackaday)
is making a 3d printer that uses A4 paper for feed stock (just like a normal printer). It puts down glue over the area for each slice, puts down a new piece of paper, and cuts out the outline around the glue.

It'll be interesting to see how much the printer is (couldn't find any numbers). The building costs (by volume) sound very encouraging.

I was just about to post this myself. It'd be interesting to get a few sample Darwin parts printed to see how they measure up.

... twenty years ago this technology was called LOM (short for "Laminated Object Modelling" or "Layered Object Manufacturing") - i saw at tech-fairs how complete engines with atached exhaust manifolds were printed by glueing paper from a big roll layer by layer on a big table moving up and down and a CO2-laser cut the contours and some cross-hatchin lines (for better disassembling) in the topmost sheet.

Look here [builders.reprap.org] for a glimpse and imagine hundreds to thousands thin layers for bigger objects with higher accuracy ...

A german company sells 3D-printers for 15.000 Euros with a similar technology where the fabbing material is a thin sheet of resin from a roll and it's fused with a solvent and cutted with a knife-pen.

Viktor

This is a very interesting technology/machine. For one thing the build precision is amazing in the photo gallery. The build precision seems to allow for 0.1 mm features which means that snap together and press together items are possible, making it easy to create hollow and larger than build area items. While the model to waste ratio is likely to be depressing, paper is almost infinitely recyclable. The material would have properties very much like wood in terms of uses and finishing, but thin areas would be flexible as well. Another property would be the ability to invest and burn out the model for casting.
Could this be hacked by mounting a crickut type knife cutter on the same rails as a printhead full of glue? What about the possibility of color printing with a third (ink) head? How much would we have to revamp our software to do this? How Open/Hacker friendly is this company?
Would the process work with different paper type materials like Tyvek (waterproof and flame retardant)or Teflon (for medical uses) or what about sheets of PMC or Fimo? What about copper film cut to produce circuit traces? What kind of glue is used? Is it or does it need to be water soluble? Flexible or rigid?
Anyway this is a fascinating machine.

Edit: Here is a slightly more Techie article: [www.rapidtoday.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2008 11:10AM by BDolge.

If we came up with a paper feed mechanism and a gluing head (already done) the darwin could do this.

the paper feed mechanism is of course complicated, but not impossible.

idea:

A new bed that slides down into an A4 box. Off to the side of the darwin, a paper feeder.

The paper feeder slips in one sheet after gluing has finished on the first.
The box will take care of the paper alignment. The feeder will require one or two moving parts, one to slide out sheets and possible another to raise the paper level, ie as the bed moves down the Z axis, the paper in the feeder should move up. However, if the paper were feed in from above that part would not be necessary (ie the paper feed of a normal printer).

I wonder, just how small a step can those steppers do?

Also, of course the paper could be manually fed... if you love putting sheets of paper in a box.. individually.... for hours...

I wonder if an old printer could be modified into this paper feeder? I think my parents still have our old 24pin dot matrix in their garage... a blank sheet ran through pretty fast on that.

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David