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).'"

Comments

Can I run this from a Raspberry Pi?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would also like to pay using Bitcoin. Thankee-san.

Re:Can I run this from a Raspberry Pi?

[DKlineburg]

But you can't mod parent up now, you posted.

It's not like much manual control is needed.

[Animats]

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.

Re:It's not like much manual control is needed.

[jockm]

While it is true you don't need more than that, it is very very nice to have more than that. I routingly move the bed and printhead to aid in cleaning the bed (and not always to the same location). I like to raise the Z axis before a print to make sure I get any stray material from the head. There is the big red stop button (which Pronterface really needs to add), and then there is loading and viewing models, interacting with the printer, etc etc etc

We technically don't need a lot of things, but doesn't mean they aren't really nice to have...

"No assembly, soldering, firmware modding?"

[ciaohound]

So, where's the fun in that?

A pronterface?

[Chas]

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?

Don't we just call that a computer?

[jockm]

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.

Linux companies

[weegiekev]

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.