3D Printing

Pegasus Touch brings lasers to desktop 3D printing

Pegasus Touch brings lasers to desktop 3D printing
The Pegasus Touch uses lasers to print objects
The Pegasus Touch uses lasers to print objects
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The Pegasus Touch has a color touchscreen
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The Pegasus Touch has a color touchscreen
Lasers allow the Pegasus Touch to handle fine detail
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Lasers allow the Pegasus Touch to handle fine detail
The Pegasus Touch is the focus of a Kickstarter campaign
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The Pegasus Touch is the focus of a Kickstarter campaign
The Pegasus Touch can access 3D models online
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The Pegasus Touch can access 3D models online
Examples of objects printed with the Pegasus Touch
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Examples of objects printed with the Pegasus Touch
The Pegasus Touch uses lasers to print objects
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The Pegasus Touch uses lasers to print objects
The company claims that the Pegasus Touch has performance comparable to much more expensive machines
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The company claims that the Pegasus Touch has performance comparable to much more expensive machines
The Pegasus Touch is up to 10 times faster than filament printers
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The Pegasus Touch is up to 10 times faster than filament printers
The Pegasus Touch incorporates a Linux computer
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The Pegasus Touch incorporates a Linux computer
The Pegasus Touch has a desktop-friendly footprint
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The Pegasus Touch has a desktop-friendly footprint
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Whether it’s light shows or interplanetary communications, lasers just seem to make things better. And that’s apparently part of the thinking behind Las Vegas-based Full Spectrum Lasers’ (FSL) Pegasus Touch; a desktop 3D printer that uses lasers to print objects faster and in finer detail than most other printers in its price range. Available for as little as US$2,000 via a Kickstarter campaign, its performance is claimed to be comparable to machines costing 50 times more.

In recent years, 3D printing has come into its own. In everything from horseshoes to Tornado fighter jets, the technology finds more and more applications. The thing is, not all 3D printers are the same. There are several different principles for various printers, and one that uses melted plastic is very different from one that uses titanium. It also means that some printers are very fast, very accurate, and very expensive, while others are not as fast, not as accurate, but much cheaper.

This is where the Pegasus Touch comes in. Instead of building up an object by melting plastic filaments and depositing the liquid like ink coming out of a printer, the Pegasus touch uses what’s called laser-based stereolithography (SLA). Instead of melting filaments and depositing layers of plastic, the Pegasus touch uses pulsed 500 kHz ultraviolet lasers moving at 3,000 mm/sec to solidify curable photopolymer resin. As the object rises out of a vat of resin, the laser focuses on the surface, building up layer after layer with high precision.

The Pegasus Touch is the focus of a Kickstarter campaign
The Pegasus Touch is the focus of a Kickstarter campaign

So far, there’s nothing out of the ordinary, since the technology has been around for many years. What is different is that FSL has shrunk the printer down and made it more economical. Normally, SLA machines are huge and cost in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, the Pegasus Touch measures just 11 x 14 x 22.5 in (280 x 360 x 571mm) and costs only a few thousand dollars.

FSL says that part of the reason for the low price is that the wide availability of Bluray players made UC laser diodes much more affordable. In addition, FSL is a company already established at making laser cutting and engraving machines. This allowed the company to base the Pegasus Touch on modelling software and electronics already developed for these machines. According to FSL, this allows the device to operate at tolerances equivalent to a $100,000 machine.

The Pegasus Touch can access 3D models online
The Pegasus Touch can access 3D models online

The Pegasus Touch has an on-board 1GHz Linux computer with 512 MB memory that can do much of the 3D processing computation itself. Files that need to be transferred are relatively small and there’s no need to keep a PC connected while printing. There’s also an internet-connected 4.3-in color touchscreen, which allows the user to access pretested models that are printer-ready, plus the machine comes with multi-touch-capable desktop software.

FSL claims that the Pegasus Touch produces the highest quality printing for its price range. It has a relatively large build area of 7 x 7 x 9 in (177 x 177 x 228 mm), which the company says is one of the largest in the consumer 3D printer market. It also says that the Pegasus Touch is 10 times faster than a filament deposition modelling (FDM) printer and up to six times faster than other SLA printers, and that is has finer control than an FDM, which produces a better finish and more detail.

The Pegasus Touch's Kickstarter campaign is running through February 3, and is aimed at funding an expansion of Full Spectrum’s assembly line. The printer is available for preorder by pledging $2,000. When and if it goes on sale, the asking price will be $3,499.

The video below introduces the Pegasus Touch.

Sources: FSL, Kickstarter

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4 comments
4 comments
asdf
1GHZ 512MB ram Linux computer? Sounds like it could be a Raspberry Pi. Wow, super nice. Now we just need a cheap supply of resin :D
The Skud
The resin should be quite cheap, I used to, as part of my trade, make printing plates for a large (letterpress) newspaper press using this type of material. Ours came deposited on thin steel plates for mounting on the press rollers, it was hardened by shining light through a double-page negative (the camera was a thing of beauty), and then the unhardened polymer was hot water washed away, but the principle is the same. Mind you, the long plate washer was a trial to clean, but the process replaced a lot of risky melting and casting of metal, namely a lead/antimony mix mainly.
coresnake
It says it right there that its $100/l, cheap my ass.
science ninja
well not so fast the peachy printer does the same and cost 99 bucks