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3D Printer Controlled With a Touch-Screen Linux Tablet
New submitter drachensun writes "Francesco Santini was looking into the possibilities of stand-alone printing with the Solidoodle. He choose the PengPod 700, a tablet that runs a full Linux distribution and turned it into a standalone interface for the SD2. 'So, in summary, I now have a fully-functional touchscreen pronterface installation that can drive the Solidoodle, for a total cost of 110$. No assembly, soldering, firmware modding required. Just a little bit of fiddling with Linux (if required, I can post a step-by-step guide, or prepare an ad-hoc linux image).'"
This is the result.
Technically, 3D printing is VERY cool. Practically, this 3D printing does not produce anything really functional. Let's not oversell.
I would also like to pay using Bitcoin. Thankee-san.
If you rivetted the printer to a desktop, wouldn't that be just as "stand-alone?
Since there are 3D printers controlled by four buttons and a two-line character display, the touch screen interface doesn't have to do much. Much modern industrial equipment has a touch-screen interface, simply because it's cheaper than building panels full of buttons and dials.
The emergency stop button on industrial machinery is always a physical big red button.
So, where's the fun in that?
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
New submitter drachensun writes "Francesco Santini was looking into the possibilities of stand-alone printing with the Solidoodle. He choose the PengPod 700, a tablet that runs a full Linux distribution and turned it into a standalone interface for the SD2. 'So, in summary, I now have a fully-functional touchscreen pronterface installation that can drive the Solidoodle, for a total cost of 110$. No assembly, soldering, firmware modding required. Just a little bit of fiddling with Linux (if required, I can post a step-by-step guide, or prepare an ad-hoc linux image).'"
A pronterface?
So this is an NSFW project we shouldn't expose our children to?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Hideki!
Don't get me wrong it is very cool, but since the tablet is just running a fairly stock Linux, isn't it really just a computer at that point?
I control my PrintrBot LC with an older model TabletKiosk UMPC. It means I don't have to dedicate a more powerful computer to the task, and gives me touchscreen control. And do not discount how useful that is.
I really like the UI customizations and am going to have to do something like that to get the temp display into a more useful location. So I am not saying what he did is uninteresting, far from it. But it isn't that hard of an accomplishment. The software being iOS or Android based and customized to that kind of UI would have been more interesting. To me at least.
What do you know I wrote a novel
Where's the elegant, intuitive interface which effortlessly converts a sketch into arcs and lines for G-code output? And I don't mean by faking it as polylines. Best list of software I can find is: http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Advanced_Software and I'm reduced to hand-coding G-code: http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/File:Circle-diamond-square-50mm.txt 'cause nothing works well on my Fujitsu Stylistic --- at least it works well for using Grbl controller: http://zapmaker.org/projects/grbl-controller-3-0/ to interface w/ the machine.
I'm hoping I'll be able to grok the Python code in xasy the Asymptote front-end and tweak it into something I find as comfortable as Macromedia Freehand.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
There was a thread recently on slashdot about the negative image of "Linux Inside". If you needed any kind of example of why that might be the case, just look at that tablet.
I hadn't heard of them until now!
Their tablets and linux USB stick look promising, the A10 notwitstanding.
Yet another Slashdot article presenting 3D printing. More specifically, homebrew 3D printing. It's been quite the rage on Slashdot lately. Almost, though not quite, as much as Bitcoin stories.
I chose to provide what so many of these stories fail to provide, a picture of the complete product. This particular picture comes from the same person that the story was about. On his picture site are pictures of his printer, the PengPad and output for the printer.
The linked picture of printed output clearly shows a crudely finished object made from stacked layers of strings of molten plastic. It is obviously poorly finished, akin to a skilled amateur's wood carving. Upon observing the extensive layering, one cannot escape the conclusion that it has poor strength. Perhaps most damning of all, it is clear that the tolerances of the finished product are very limited and unreliable.
These are all just observations of the finished product from yet another, seemingly over-hyped article on 3D printers. My post was simply intended to ground the hype in a little dose of reality.
What is bizarre is your butt-hurt post of apparent defense of 3D printers. Apparently, you have a serious problem with anyone that points out that homebrew 3D printers aren't 'all that'. But, if you'd like to provide an actual example of a finished homebrew 3D printed product that disproves my examples, I strongly encourage you to do so. Let me get you started with this, oh so useful, iPhone tripod bracket. Super handy(?). How about something more useful like this lens cap holder.
So far as I can see, my original point remains. 3D printing is very cool, but actual results are of poor quality and questionable use. The reality is not matching the level of hype.