John from Williamsburg Virginia

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lasersafe1
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John from Williamsburg Virginia

Postby lasersafe1 » Sat May 21, 2016 6:47 pm

Hello everyone. John Hansknecht here. I'm an engineer, entrepreneur, and inventor. I have built a CNC gantry type mill, a CNC laser engraver, a soldering reflow oven, and a few other items here and there. Tools I have at my disposal are the mill, A 40 watt C02 cutter/engraver that use to make solder stencils and other things, a TM245 Pick & Place machine and my reflow oven. After reading this forum a bit, I'm thinking perhaps there might be a need for a pcb with a big array of surface mount UV LED's, so that could be a good use for my pick & place machine if there is a real market for a product. Of course I could never make it cheaper than China can.

I do a little bit of artwork on side with my engraver mostly for fun, because it doesn't pay any bills.


I can tell you that for the longest time I didn't see what all the fuss was about over 3D printing. Sure, lots of people can print chess pieces or copy other peoples designs. And people can 3D scan and steal other peoples art. That kind of put me off. But then I designed a bezel for an LCD. I paid $150 for the "proof" copy that was 3D printed and it was so lame compared to what we have today. Based on that proof, I had extrusion molds made and mass produced it. I'm skilled with Sketchup, Autodesk Inventor, and Solidworks, but I certainly am not an artist like so many of you that can make these neat mythical creatures. Last year I saw the kickstarter campaign for the TIKO 3D printer and for $179 I decided it isn't a huge investment to see if I like it. Then I saw the Carbon, and realized in that moment that my Tiko will soon be a dinosaur. I'll probably put it on Ebay as soon as it arrives because printing piles of plastic wool when something goes wrong isn't my interest.

So I'm going to build a SLA system. I haven't decided which type yet. Perhaps coming in on this fresh without any pre-determined bias might let me think outside the box. Oh, that reminds me, you might find this interesting.. I designed it but never completed the build.. I have a few other videos of related builds under my name.

I only discovered this site on Thursday and I have a LOT of reading to do. If someone feels like they have a really good unbiased view of the present technologies and would post an overview of "the present state as of May 2016", it could be very useful. I saw the PacManFan post "A few points to consider when building a commercial machine" and I wonder if his opinion has changed since 2014 on the best avenues to pursue. As an example, he seemed to discount the resolution and speed of a laser scanning build in favor of the DLP. Yet I am seeing some very high end machines appear to be laser scan based. Certainly the lower wavelengths can have tight focus better than a 1080P projector, but it is work to build. And the idea of printing right from the face of a tablet sounds interesting and could certainly make the printer compact.

Oh so many questions, but I will try to look for the answers before posting a dumb question that has been asked 1000 times before...

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PacManFan
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Re: John from Williamsburg Virginia

Postby PacManFan » Sun May 22, 2016 9:28 pm

Welcome to the board, look around and let me know if you have any questions.
-Steve


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