Foton 3Dprinter
Release status: unknown
| Description | All-plastic intergrated mechanics
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| License | unknown
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Overview
The foton 3D printer's is a redesign of the origional Mendel printer currently being developed by Fotonlabs
The primary goals in the redesign to this date have been to:
- reduce assembly time
- reduce the time and materials demanded in production
- build upon the printers esthetic value.
- reduce the technical barrier to domestic 3d printing
All of which have aimed at making the Mendel printer more accessible to a wider group of people both economically and technically.
Materials
The mechanics of this this printer are almost entirely made from a single polyurethane liquid plastic, whilst the fasteners and threaded bar are made from nylon and bearings of stainless steel. Having simplifying many of the mechanical parts it is possible to use more commonly found materials such as MDF or plywood for the making of parts, which makes this design well suited for those on a very tight budget with good DIY skills, for those interested images of the parts with their dimensions can be found here.
Production process
The majority of the parts are made from an open cold
casting process, which is both time and cost efficient and opens the printer up to the possibility of mass production, with production time of parts currently down to as low as one hour.
Assembly
Intergrating many of the mechanical parts has led to a large reduction in assembly time and complexity, with assembly time currently bellow five hours. One of the primary aims has been to create a design with as few parts as possible resulting in a quick and easy to assemble printer suited to the no technically minded person.
Distribution
This design is primarily aimed at an "Ikea style" form of distribution, easy to mass produce parts that can be made into a flat pack for shipping and assembled by the average person. This is a classical form of distribution current in the world to day and has many advantages most notably economy of scale. The other form of distribution that this printer also lends its self well to is the self-replicating model and is a medium to long term goal of this design with the possibility of making the frame scalable currently being developed.
