Can the Lix 3D Printing Pen Actually Work?

szczys (3402149) writes "Brian Benchoff used science and math to prove that the performance shown in the Lix Kickstarter video is questionable at best. Check his evidence and see if he's done an appropriate job of debunking the functionality presented." From the Hackaday post: "While we know the video is an outright misrepresentation of what any USB 3 powered device can do, We can’t figure out if the Lix is a viable product. We’re turning to you. Can you figure out if the Lix pen actually works? All we know is the Lix pen has a 4.5 Watt power supply from a USB 3 port. It’s possible for a USB 3 powered 3D printing pen to work, albeit slowly, but the engineering is difficult and we don’t know if the Lix team has the chops."

Comments

I would be more convinced

[Lumpio-]

If they hadn't cut small parts out of their video every time the pen was shown in action.

Re:I would be more convinced

[xclr8r]

Other than the power charging elements.. this doesn't seem too much more complicated than a "hot glue gun sculpture" . Search engine it.

Re:I would be more convinced

[xclr8r]

http://www.wired.com/2013/10/t...

Re:I would be more convinced

[Anubis IV]

It really isn't, but the issue here is that the differences in the properties of ABS plastic and the power source mean that this simply isn't possible as presented. A glue gun is powered from a wall, whereas this device is powered over USB. And typical glue in a glue gun melts at a fraction of the temperature that ABS plastic melts at.

Re:I would be more convinced

[thunderclap]

There are UBS wall outlets now so your comment is moot. Also, there was an assumption that it was powered by a macbook although the editing didn't show that. Sadly, Hackaday is about re-purposing electronics in new different ways. A skilled person could make a windows laptop inside a macbook shell, sand off the apple, put a pear on it (its a Nickelodeon thing) and then do the same video. That shows how pointless his argument was. The pen does have the ability to get hot enough to melt abs. USB specs for 3 and 3.1 allow for more than enough power to power it properly. It was all specious handwaving over whether HE believed it was a macbook even though the video never showed the pen being powered by it. Sad hackaday devolved to strawmen.

Re:I would be more convinced

[ShieldW0lf]

Hot melt glue guns have to melt the end of a large-diameter cylinder of plastic. The lix melts just the tip of a 1.75mm cylinder. Much less wattage is needed. I don't know if enough wattage is available from a USB connection, but it may be. I can easily imagine a 2 or 3 watt light bulb melting the plastic fast enough. I think the USB spec is 4.5 watts at 5v.

The lix is still just a hot-melt glue gun, though a smaller version than commonly seen. There doesn't seem to be a claim on the lix website that it is controlled in any way by the computer, only that it is powered by a USB source. It could just as easily be powered by an external battery or power brick. Any resulting sculpture would be created in real time in the user's hand, and would not be designed before hand.

This. The novelty is the ability to extrude by pushing a button instead of shoving the material in manually.

The disclaimer above the video clearly says that portions of the video have been accelerated. Which is normal when watching demos of 3D printers, and also normal when watching artists demonstrate their process via video. So, you could hardly claim it was misleading or deceptive.

There's nothing indicating that there isn't a warm up time involved in using the pen, just like any other glue gun. It would seem pretty self evident to me that there's some sort of thermal mass inside the pen, surrounded by an insulating sheath to protect the users hands, and that you have to let it sit and warm up before you use it.

Did anyone else realize Brian Benchoff's not exactly "Mr Wizard' when they read the second paragraph of his post?

The device is powered through a USB 3 port. In the video, the Lix team is using a MacBook Pro. This has a USB port capable of delivering 900 mA at 5 Volts, or 4.5 Watts. Another 3D printing pen, the 3Doodler, uses a 2A, 12V power adapter, equal to 24 Watts. Considering the 3Doodler works, and they both do the same basic thing, there’s something extremely odd going on here.

All I could think was "Did you see that nerd pick up that pen? That nerd is a scrawny wimp. A football player is much stronger. Considering that football players can pick up a pen, there's something extremely odd going on here."

Re:I would be more convinced

[laird]

Kickstarters have delivered thousands of products successfully, so they're clearly not all scams. There have been a few scams that made it onto the site, which were shut down as people dug into their claims - the "crowd" doesn't passively hand over money, they dig with impressive thoroughness when they think they're being taken advantage of, and Kickstart shuts down projects as a result of crowd investigations. Of course, Kickstarter also filters out many projects (presumably including most scams), so if you look at Kickstarter, the projects generally look plausible. Not all a good idea, of course, but that doesn't make them a scam. The result, for me, is that of the large number of Kickstarts that I've backed, only one was a scam (or massive incompetence) - the vast majority deliver, and the ones that don't are people who (as far as I can tell) honestly got in over their heads and couldn't pull it off, which is the risk that you have to accept when contributing to a startup. Kickstarter is not a store.

I can compare to the VC route. I've done two VC-backed startups (both ended in successful acquisitions, woot!), so I can make a comparison. If anything, because there's usually a lot less money in a Kickstarter than a VC-backed company, there's less incentive to scam, and greater transparency from Kickstarters than from people pitching VCs. And because Kickstarters are mainly shooting for modest goals, rather than VC's "shooting for the moon", the success rate for Kickstarts is a lot higher than VC-backed startups.

Even though they're both ways to fund things, Kickstarter and VCs are very different worlds. Kickstarter's average successful project raises $40K, and nobody gets equity. Most VCs aren't interesting in any deal that doesn't have a lot more zeroes in it, and of course they get tons of equity in return. Anywhere there's money on the table people will try scamming, but both Kickstarter and VCs have mechanisms to protect them from abuse, that work well enough that overall the systems work.

We've reached 3D apotheosis

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else sick and tired of the overblown hype, the ridiculous promises and the fanboi delusions? It's molten plastic. I have a hot glue gun already, thanks.

I am baffled at what problem this is solving, what need it addresses and who would buy it?

Duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it can work, just not continuously at that feed rate.
Ever had a cheap hot glue gun where you had to wait north of a minute after not even half a stick so the internal thermal mass can heat back up to working temp? Same idea.

Wrong math

[Doub]

Hackaday's maths are wrong, they build it on the assumption that a length of filament clearly shorter than two fingers width is 13cm long. Hackaday's news quality has been going down lately, I wonder why Slashdot is quoting them more and more.

yes

[Charliemopps]

Ok, I don't know if USB3 has enough wattage to do that. I've no idea what kind of plastic they're using, and that's going to be the most important factor here. As far as we know the things they created will melt if left in the window on a warm day. If that were the case, I'm fairly sure USB3 would have enough wattage.

When I was much younger I worked for a time running injection molding machines. As with most things in a factory the machines were getting old and had issues. One of them was that they'd leak after they were put into standby. 2 very heavy steel molds would come together and a nozzle would come forward and put 30 tons of pressure behind hot plastic. When it was break time I'd put the machine in standby which would keep the plastic and nozzle hot but relieve the pressure. Well, not all the pressure was gone so the nozzle would leak rather slowly. I quickly learned that if I took a piece of cardboard I could manipulate the flow of plastic out of the nozzle and make neat shapes. They looked almost exactly what they made in those videos. I find that a bit too much of a coincidences, so I'd have to say there's at least some credibility to what they're doing.

That being said, notice you can never see their other hand? I believe they are having to manually feed the plastic. Also, I don't think they are building vertically as it appears. The plastic probably wouldn't cool fast enough to allow that. I believe they are laying the plastic out on the paper, letting it could, then moving its position and tacking it there with a spot of new plastic. This was what I'd do. I made screwy flow pots, vases, coasters, etc... Finally, I want to point on that the ability to make stuff pretty much ends with what you see in the video. There wasn't much else you could do with it. Making anything that was robust enough for actual use would be nearly impossible.

So many possible answers

[xonen]

* It preheats some element or reservoir for a limited time duty cycle
* It just draws more power from USB ; powerbanks happily support 2A and the '900mA specced USB port' on their macbook might also capable of delivering much more.
* The pen includes a rechargable battery capable of delivering more peak current. The pen could easily hold a 1Ah 3.7V lithion cell.
* They provide an adapter to plug it in 2 USB ports
* *

You're all missing the obvious

[Concerned Onlooker]

This isn't so much a hand-held 3D printer as it is a hand-cramp generator.

The numbers don't lie- if there isn't enough power

[mark_reh]

it can't melt the plastic fast enough.

It wouldn't have to have a motor to drive the filament. It may work like a mechanical pencil where pushing a button/lever under your finger will feed the filament into the hot-end. It would certainly be simpler and smaller that way.

What scams?

[SuperKendall]

Kickstarter has hardly had any scams. Pretty much everything I've backed has been delivered, sometimes much later than planned but delivered eventually.

If you can't tell what is probably a scam and what is not, that's a problem that will haunt you in many other ways beyond just Kickstarter...