SLA 3D Printer Project Log 8: Why cut butter with a broadsword? Or alternatively, the AMD Athlon 5350 APU!

Around two weeks ago, I took delivery of a new PC; a machine that is Ivor the Engine to my Gordon of a CAD/Gaming rig and my Edward of a laptop (Peter-Pan Syndrome?  Perhaps...).  This centres around an AMD Athlon 5350 APU, which provides an all-in-one solution to CPU and GPU at least halving power consumption.  The current testing setup is shown below:

I would say that desk space is too mainstream, but I have no desk space ;(

I originally intended for touchscreen operation, sadly the monitor's touch didn't work, neither could I find drivers.  Perhaps a wireless keyboard with built-in touchpad?  Also note the brightness of the projector - that is from a 2200 lumen bulb and the image size is roughly 12.8cm x 8.0cm, or my target print area (the plywood panel is 30.5cm square).

Note the presence of the RAM, or it's stealth capabilities in any case.

Before we move on I just have to sing praises about noise levels - that mini fan on the APU is 50mm across (smaller fans are notorious for noise), yet it can barely be heard with my ears 15cm away.  The fan on the PSU doesn't even spin and I suspect it may not need to given that it's a 300w model and the fan begins at 120w.  Compare that to many budget laptops which can be heard across the room and only feature Celerons and Intel Graphics (for those not in the know, both of those are considered bottom-of-the-barrel).

For the sake of tuning I ran a few tests with the APU running stress-test programs to max out power consumption on both CPU and GPU, varying the Windows power plan each time:

1. Power Saver:  Idle = 17.0w, Max Load = 36.4w
2. Balanced:  Idle = 17.6w, Max Load = 36.9w
3. High Performance:  Idle = 17.5w, Max Load = 36.4w

Astonishment is a perfectly apt way to respond - I know I was!  None of the power plans made any significant difference, and temperature was similarly unaffected:  Idle was around 12 Degrees Celsius (sub-ambient cooling from an HSF?  Black Magic!) while Load topped out at 37 Degrees Celsius.

Idle state on Power Saver (admittedly I replaced the TIM on the cooler with Arctic Silver 5)

Load state on High Performance, with Furmark on the left (the other stress test was Prime95)

So you say "This is stellar news!  But how well does it *actually* work?".  That is a very good question with a compromising answer, in other words, my CAD rig will do a much better job but this will do us well especially given the reduced power consumption - my main rig will sap 150w from the wall at idle!

That gives a crude representation of the UI in action, with an 800x600 resolution (not great) and a highly complex mesh (may be quite common in my line of work, but oh well).  I also managed to get a representation of how the image will look when printing is underway:

That gear was indeed 60mm across, just as designed.

So all in all, a promising start; still have to figure out how to stop the projector from curing resin during start-up or when idle (the desktop extends to the projector in these cases), but I believe this is a much easier and user-friendly solution overall than the Pi even if you suspect I'm being lazy... which I am...

Until duty calls again...

SLA 3D Printer Project Log 7: Underframes? Thought I did those in Creo...

I've been working on underframes, I know, it's a bit soon to resume work on the wagons but I'm on about the mounting system for my 3D printer; until now I had components floating in space - not an ideal proposition for accuracy.  That has now been fixed, and I was in for some wake-up calls.

Don't worry, there'll be 10mm bolts holding the basin in place.

The dimensions were envisioned as a worst-case scenario of 1m³, which would give me plenty of wiggle room to add insane features like gull-wing doors and water-cooling for the built-in pc, but the dimensions as they stand now are 412mm x 380mm x 626mm.  I reckon I can now aim for a desktop model, and this means a few changes:

• I'll probably ditch the case, and just use a black cover when not in use to prevent the resin from curing - this will probably save me a lot of bother when maintaining my printer.
• A Mini-ITX PC is essential - I can no longer use the bulk of the unit to house an ATX motherboard.
• Get more sensible with the design - I (and possibly you) am going to use this printer frequently, I need something serviceable.
• Mounting the touchscreen just got a lot harder...

A few ancillary developments have happened in my life recently; I've got a new job at a composite manufacturer running cure checks for them, and one of the things I observed is that the Autoclaves run standard PCs alongside their massive built-in computers to run the UI; maybe I shouldn't follow the leader, so to say, but it gives me reassurance that my plan to use an x86 PC to control this thing isn't insane after all.

As much promise as the Pi had, I am not a coder, and Raspbian didn't run how you'd call slick (Risc OS did, but it doesn't support wireless internet which makes things a hell of a lot harder these days); if I'm going to use it everyday, which I may do for a few weeks of each quarter, I'd prefer a rapid system as well as one which has a GUI.

I intend to install Windows 7 Basic to run Creation Workshop by PacManFan, a program which can slice the STLs as well as operate the printer with the help of RAMPS board.  This program uses little CPU power, so the Pentium E2160 I possess can be used (I bought it for a secondary gaming rig, to use whilst home from University), but it does use a lot of GPU power in it's Model View, which runs on OpenGL; I bring up OpenGL because it means that Workstation Cards, designed largely for OpenGL-accelerated CAD programs, could give stellar performance.

I'll expand upon this further when the time comes, I'm getting tired in one of my few windows of time I have to do CAD and blog, in spite of the much-needed money.

Regards.