Olo - resin 3D printing with a smartphone

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

Anyone notice at 3:10 from their video, the time-lapse shot?  The part is covered in bubbles. Ive never seen resin do that. That was supposed to be over many hours........ It's almost as if it's a pre-printed part, quickly pulled out of the resin and then a timelapse video effect applied...must be their specially formulated resin   



Or how but their app, which mysteriously has another status bar underneath the cellphone status bar



Or how about no need for gloves. Must be a their specially formulated resin again.

[ConKbot]

While I find the whole using the cell phone portion of it to be a bit of a cheap novelty. But something like the LG G4with a 500+PPI QHD display, or one of the apple screens of similar pixel pitch, retrofitted with deep/royal/dental blue LEDs for the backlight could be quite serviceable with more normal resins rather than daylight curing ones. Even if light bleeds out to the side and doubles the effective pixel size, you're still looking at 5 mil/127 micron resolution.

[ArdRhi]

I backed this thing. If it works acceptably, I can see myself using it to make prototype cases for things. I'll likely try using an old phone (we tend to keep them around when we upgrade) rather than tie up my current phone, probably with a Ting SIM card if I even need it, as it'll do wifi just fine.

[MadModder]

I also backed it. But I'm not sure the thing even exists. 
Also the app won't work on older iOS than 7.1.
Don't know about the Android version requirement.

[edit]
I canceled. Too many red flags. 

[edy]

Hi folks,

I have access to and use photo-polymerizing resins every day. Ask your dentist and he/she will have a pile of it, used for white dental fillings. The concept makes sense, however the implementation does not. There are many reasons (already mentioned in this thread) that are technical challenges that need to be over-come.

For one, the energy for photo-polymerizing resins has to be high. In the dental office, they use a specific intense UV blue light. Theoretically you could partially cure the resin with a weak light and then place it in a curing oven (which has intense lights) to complete the process once the soft structure has been weakly bonded together. But your object may collapse or distort if it is very fine.

Other resin-based printers I've seen use a laser to cure the resin from underneath, usually a blue one of the proper frequency. Mirrors deflect the laser beam, just like if you were doing a laser light show but drawing on the bottom of the tank of resin.

Theoretically you could also do this with a matrix of tightly-packed bright blue LED's, light up the LED's to form the cross-sectional shapes of the object you want to print, then lift the "printing ceiling" (as it prints upside down) and cure the next layer, and so on. Each cure bonds on to the preceding layer above it.

There is one more thing.... something called the "oxygen inhibition layer". When curing resin, the surface that is in atmosphere will still retain the ability to have new resin bond to it. That allows you to add more material and incrementally cure it. If you take a solid block of resin that is already cured and has been polished or cut, you will not be able to cure new resin to it (there is a process needed to prime it again).

So the resin printers I have seen all find a clever way to create an oxygen inhibition layer at the bottom of the tank. Usually there is a membrane that is small enough to allow air molecules to interact with the material yet prevent the resin from pouring out.

See this:

https://3dprint.com/51566/carbon3d-clip-3d-printing/

https://youtu.be/VTJq9Z5g4Jk

[MadModder]

Besides one update telling everyone how to purchase more stuff via backerkit, there has been no interaction with a single backer since OLO was funded. According to the comments. No answers, nothing. Just silence.
That's reassuring... 
I'm not regretting I stepped away from that one.

[Macbeth]

Besides one update telling everyone how to purchase more stuff via backerkit, there has been no interaction with a single backer since OLO was funded. According to the comments. No answers, nothing. Just silence.
That's reassuring... 
I'm not regretting I stepped away from that one.

Oh come on! They have got $2,321,811 pledged of $80,000 goal. That is $2,241,811 exceeding their initial expectations.

Do you realise how much coke and hookers it takes to burn through that much cash?

Give the guys a chance, I'm sure when they get back to their $80k budget everything will proceed as planned. Though they still appear eager for more cash with some "BackerKit" thing?

[MadModder]

Yes. They totally denied anyone to up their pledge to add extra resin bottles and such. They want to handle all extra stuff via backerkit.

This made me laugh! 
(attached picture)

[frenky]

Perhaps this is not a vaporware after all?

[Holmes34]

It's possible that they are using a photocatalyst to cure the resin which somehow has a high enough turnover so they do not need to include very much of it, whereas regular resin's are regularly photosensitive themselves. If this is the case it would not make the resin look coloured due to the catalyst but should in fact work with visible light. I'd expect the resin's to be very expensive though, and the process would likely be a lot slower than "traditional" DLP's.

This theory is impossible to prove though as they use white light for their projection which gives no hints as to the photosensitive reaction going on.

The more likely explanation is that it doesn't work.