Hint at a New Prusa Printer?  

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

I suppose oil companies investing in solar power is a big red flag that oil is going to no longer be used for anything...

Or maybe they just like diversifying their product line, to prevent the "all eggs in one basket" scenario.

But I am probably just being premature with my post. 😉

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

I suppose oil companies investing in solar power is a big red flag that oil is going to no longer be used for anything...

Fortunately, PLA is made from vegetable byproducts. 😀

The less oil that is used for fuel leaves that much more available for petrochemicals. Could be a win-win; I doubt that it will be, but it could be...

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

Well, Shell said around 10 years ago that they don't consider themselves an oil supplier, but rather an energy supplier. And that, if they want to remain in that business, they should look for alternatives. Don't know how much they adhere to that statement, but I thought it a nice statement.

Regarding the new printer question... Isn't it almost time for a MK3s ? 😀

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

Well, Shell said around 10 years ago that they don't consider themselves an oil supplier, but rather an energy supplier. And that, if they want to remain in that business, they should look for alternatives. Don't know how much they adhere to that statement, but I thought it a nice statement.

Weasel words. I think they were actually talking about things like fracking and shale oil rather than renewables.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

Weasel words. I think they were actually talking about things like fracking and shale oil rather than renewables.
I did some work for a power company recently. Despite any political posturing, they are actively moving away from coal-fired plants. Those remaining are scheduled to be shut down, and they're going to wind & natural gas as quickly as they can. It sounds like those alternatives are not only cleaner, but more efficient to operate from a business perspective, and more scalable to meet changing demands.

I suspect Prusa is being equally pragmatic. They've got an FDM history, but ultimately want to make 3D printing available to the public in an accessible yet profitable way. Staking the company on one position is foolish, especially with the rate of change today. I'm sure there were companies making excellent 24 pin tractor-fed dot matrix paper printers right up to the end, but that didn't help when the world shifted to other technologies.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

Weasel words. I think they were actually talking about things like fracking and shale oil rather than renewables.
I did some work for a power company recently. Despite any political posturing, they are actively moving away from coal-fired plants. Those remaining are scheduled to be shut down, and they're going to wind & natural gas as quickly as they can. It sounds like those alternatives are not only cleaner, but more efficient to operate from a business perspective, and more scalable to meet changing demands.

I suspect Prusa is being equally pragmatic. They've got an FDM history, but ultimately want to make 3D printing available to the public in an accessible yet profitable way. Staking the company on one position is foolish, especially with the rate of change today. I'm sure there were companies making excellent 24 pin tractor-fed dot matrix paper printers right up to the end, but that didn't help when the world shifted to other technologies.

Actually, in the United States, 63% of power comes from fossil fuels. Thirty percent of which is coal. The conversion is stabilizing in many states outside of the West coast, the numbers are not decreasing. Russia, China, India, and the United States are too large to convert away from coal completely at this time.

In general, I agree with you, but this statement is far too sweeping.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

[...] Actually, in the United States, 63% of power comes from fossil fuels. Thirty percent of which is coal. [...] In general, I agree with you, but this statement is far too sweeping.
They're not "going green" but they are swapping one fossil fuel (coal) for another (natural gas). They still have large power coal-fired power plants mind you, so they're currently matching your figures, but they've scheduled all of their remaining coal plants for shutdown in the next 5 years. This wasn't meant as a sweeping generalization of the power industry so much as an illustration of "even those with vested interests" in one technology being pragmatic enough to realize that things change, and planning accordingly. They don't want coal for business reasons, not for any altruistic reasons. Prusa sticking with FDM with all of the other technologies on the horizon would be shortsighted for the same business reasons.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

That is good for PRUSA, but at least on the east coast of the US, they are beginning to ramp up plans for new coal capable plants.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/epa-to-unveil-new-plan-which-reverses-obama-era-coal-power-plant-regulation

My cousin and brother are engineers that work with the designs generators for power plants. They are looking to increase both Nuclear and fossil fuel plants. The good news is they plan to use greener designs that produce less CO2 and pollutants. Most of the new designs can burn oil, coal, or gas with slight modifications.

It is good to start to move toward less harmful designs but we need to be careful that we do not hem industry in with unrealistic expectations. I am glad to see PRUSA is doing their part.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

Charles, I was using a specific circumstance of a company with a vested interest in one technology being pragmatic enough to see advantages in using others. I have no interest in a discussion of the energy industry as a whole. It does sound like the companies your family works with are diversifying technologies, even if ultimately picking different ones. Companies that bet everything on one technology often wind up regretting doing so.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

I suspect Prusa is being equally pragmatic. They've got an FDM history, but ultimately want to make 3D printing available to the public in an accessible yet profitable way. Staking the company on one position is foolish, especially with the rate of change today. I'm sure there were companies making excellent 24 pin tractor-fed dot matrix paper printers right up to the end, but that didn't help when the world shifted to other technologies.

Very wise of them.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

Well, Shell said around 10 years ago that they don't consider themselves an oil supplier, but rather an energy supplier. And that, if they want to remain in that business, they should look for alternatives. Don't know how much they adhere to that statement, but I thought it a nice statement.

Weasel words. I think they were actually talking about things like fracking and shale oil rather than renewables.

It was the time when they were the main sponsor of TU Delft's solar challenge car... So at that time (in Netherlands) they seemed to follow up on their claim. Now it got all silent around that again. Fracking is not really a thing here in Europe; in some countries (I believe Poland) it would be possible, but at the same time they are still worried enough about the impact. Many countries here are betting high on renewables (windfarms and solar panels). Belgium's record day for solar generation was on February 21 of this year, where solar panels generated 21% of the energy demand (average power generated by wind turbines in 2015 was at 8%); Netherlands, Germany and Spain have plenty of windfarms. In other countries, it is more of an issue: Poland for example uses co-generation coal powerplants that generate electricity, heat for houses, hot water and distilled water (sold to factories); any replacement with something renewable has to supply all of this which is more complicated (aggravated by the fact that they don't have much wind and not much sunlight in winter). Still, the randomness of generated power from renewables (clouds, lack of wind, ...) limit how much you can transfer to them; energy storage helps with that and may be sufficient for households but it does have it limits. (probably you can guess I'm a researcher close to this topic 🙂 )

On the printing thing: I doubt SLA will appeal to the broad audience, mainly due to the mess in post processing the prints. I checked Sparkmaker, as they actually have a resin that is water-cleanable (so no post-processing phase with alcohol needed).
I do wonder if there are no combinations possible: deposit a resin like you extrude a filament and heat it locally with a laser to fix it in place. Not a chemist or physicist , but it may not be impossible. Not sure if it would be useful though as it would still need post processing as if it was an SLA print.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

The IEEE did an in depth study as to how much of the planet's surface would be needed to generate enough electricity for our current needs, if we used current renewable energy sources alone. They determined there would be a need for more surface area than our planet currently has. No room for people, trees, animals, etc, just 100% energy generation equipment and it still would not meet our current needs.

Renewable is nice, but it is not something we can currently, or in the forseeble future, use to replace carbon fuels or nuclear fission.

My problem with SLA is all the waste it produces, as well as the toxic nature of it.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

The IEEE did an in depth study as to how much of the planet's surface would be needed to generate enough electricity for our current needs, if we used current renewable energy sources alone. They determined there would be a need for more surface area than our planet currently has. No room for people, trees, animals, etc, just 100% energy generation equipment and it still would not meet our current needs.

I'm extremely skeptable [sic]. I would like to see the study before accepting those conclusions--It just doesn't sound right, and it's way too easy to find contradictory statements:

According to the World energy Coucil, the total amount of solar energy falling annually on the earth surface is 1,059 E15 MWh, while, according to OCDE, the annual primary energy use of the mankind is 15 E10 MWh. The total solar energy potential is then about 7'000 times the human actual use. Of course, we cannot use the total potential, buit there is a good margin. In addition, the geothermal energy, i.e the heat generated in the earth core by natural radioactivity, could also be used. Its potential is about 30 TW or, annually, 2.63 E 11 MWh. This also cannot be exploited totally, and estimates of the electricity generating potential of geothermal energy vary from 35 to 2000 GW depending on the scale of investments or, annually, between 3 E8 and 178 E8 MWh.

Supporting documentation can be found on Wikipedia.

Obviously, the 800 lb./363 Kg. holy graillila in the middle of the room is fusion, but since that's been "only 20 years away" for the last 70 years ±, thorium fission might be a more palatable intermediate alternative.

That said, this is really a discussion for elsewhere. Shall we get back to speculation, rumor, and innuendo about a new printer (or line thereof)? 😀

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

I'm extremely skeptable [sic]. I would like to see the study before accepting those conclusions--It just doesn't sound right, and it's way too easy to find contradictory statements:

Yep, my idea as well...

That said, this is really a discussion for elsewhere. Shall we get back to speculation, rumor, and innuendo about a new printer (or line thereof)? 😀

Ok, here goes:
2015: Original Prusa released
May 2016: Prusa i3 mk2 (+ 6-18 months)
March 2017: Prusa i3 mk2s (+ 10 months)
September 2017: Prusa i3 mk3 (+ 6 months)
Additional info: marlin 1.1.9 is the final release for 8 bit (link), and on the blog-article on inconsistent extrusion (link) Prusa tested their printer using a Duet board.

I know that the mk3 got updates in the printed parts, but..., isn't it about time for a mk3s ? 😀

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

isn't it about time for a mk3s ? 😀

Before the speculation about SLA technologies, I was thinking perhaps they would add a corexy or h-bot printer to the family. I've been doing a little (very little) reading about those types, and about the use of rails instead of rods.

Then I stumbled upon linear motors... (well, they're new to me) 😆
The potential advantages for 3D printing are (IMO) provocative.
Everything I've seen thus far mentions prohibitive expense, but the articles were all several years old, and technology does tend to come down in price over time...

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

Before the speculation about SLA technologies, I was thinking perhaps they would add a corexy or h-bot printer to the family. I've been doing a little (very little) reading about those types, and about the use of rails instead of rods.

Could be interesting... For some reason I like the CoreXY layout, has a more "clean" look to it, but of course in the end it is the print quality that matters.

I feel that if they come out with some SLA like printer, it will just be a parallel product line. The two techniques are too different in application fields and post-processing and I think they - at least for now - can coexist. But at the same time, many of the components are the same or similar (e.g. the Z-movement), so any advances they do to in one type could benefit the other.

Then I stumbled upon linear motors... (well, they're new to me) 😆
The potential advantages for 3D printing are (IMO) provocative.
Everything I've seen thus far mentions prohibitive expense, but the articles were all several years old, and technology does tend to come down in price over time...

Oh... hadn't though of linear motors... Problem is that they will be expensive as you need more material: either you line the track with coils or you line the track with magnets. The plus side is of course that you remove belts and gearings... Interesting idea, but I doubt useful for consumer devices any time soon.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

Interesting idea, but I doubt useful for consumer devices any time soon.

It's being considered, discussed, and experimented with; isn't that how this whole hobby/industry began?

Gotta start somewhere!

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

The IEEE did an in depth study as to how much of the planet's surface would be needed to generate enough electricity for our current needs, if we used current renewable energy sources alone. They determined there would be a need for more surface area than our planet currently has. No room for people, trees, animals, etc, just 100% energy generation equipment and it still would not meet our current needs.

At the risk of continuing an off-topic discussion, I'd like to get the correct facts out there. The above statement is completely wrong, by many orders of magnitude, but like many misunderstandings there is a kernel of truth inside which turns out to be much more interesting.

The truth is that there is plenty of renewable energy potential even with current technology. Using the solar panels currently mass-produced cheaply in China, if you could cover the Sahara desert with solar farms you could in theory supply all the energy needs of humanity several times over --IF-- you could store and distribute that energy when and where it's needed, and convert all current energy consumption to electricity.

That "if" is a big one of course, since energy storage and dispatch is a big problem that's only partly solved. But even before we solve that issue, we can move a huge amount of energy usage to renewables using existing technology and much deeper adoption of demand response.

So here's there really fascinating part (to me anyway). There really was an IEEE study about four years ago (more correctly, an article published by IEEE), here's the link: https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change . But the study wasn't about whether there's enough potential renewable energy available, it was whether it would be possible to get the cost of renewable energy to less than the cost of coal, and if so, whether the cheap renewables could be built out fast enough to make a dent in climate change. The authors concluded that renewable energy wasn't going to get cheap enough fast enough to make a big enough difference.

But that report was written four years ago. Since then the price of both solar panels and utility-scale batteries have plunged much faster than anyone thought would be possible. And today new solar farms in many locations are actually cheaper than the cost of fuel to fire existing fossil fuel plants. And in many places the cost of a utility-scale battery bank is cheaper than the cost of building and operating a new "peaker" plant to dispatch power at peak usage times. Nobody thought this would happen so fast, and a lot of people still don't believe it, but the systems are being built and keep getting cheaper.

So that's really cool. But actually making a dent in climate change is a whole different ballgame. There's a huge amount of energy infrastructure already in place, most of which is likely to get replaced on a 50-100 year cycle. Plus there's a lot of transportation infrastructure which is only barely beginning to switch to electricity. It's going to be hard (maybe impossible) to convert all that to renewables fast enough to make a difference in the 30-50 year timeframe. So maybe in 100 years the entire planet will be running on renewable power, but in the meanwhile we still have to deal with the near-term effects of climate change.

So, sorry again for continuing the off-topic thread. If you want more information there's lots of fascinating articles out there--just make sure you find sources published within the past year or two, since things are changing incredibly fast in this field.

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

It's being considered, discussed, and experimented with; isn't that how this whole hobby/industry began?

Of course!
But I would guess it needs a bit more time to mature for market adoption.

So, sorry again for continuing the off-topic thread. If you want more information there's lots of fascinating articles out there--just make sure you find sources published within the past year or two, since things are changing incredibly fast in this field.

Very well written (the entire text)!
On the demand response thing: the benefits of it are somewhat limited. The example of a washing machine is a common one, but in practice it is not so convenient as end-users lose control over when it finishes. In a related context, we did research on demand side management in a microgrid (basically allowing the grid to power down or power up individual consuming devices) for energy balancing and shaving peaks. The main reason for this was to keep the microgrid in island mode, even when there is insufficient power or when there is too much energy; these results can have benefits in man grids as well. Recent studies have shown that the installation of energy storage for 30% of the users is sufficient to shave the peaks and facilitate balancing, somewhat negating the need for demand response in the end-user devices. The demand-side management becomes interesting in that concept, as a person does not care when his battery charges, but he might care when his washing machine finishes. So in short, local energy storage, which is a rather novel thing, solves a lot of the balancing issues... 🙂

Re: Hint at a New Prusa Printer?

On the demand response thing: the benefits of it are somewhat limited. The example of a washing machine is a common one, but in practice it is not so convenient as end-users lose control over when it finishes. In a related context, we did research on demand side management in a microgrid (basically allowing the grid to power down or power up individual consuming devices) for energy balancing and shaving peaks. The main reason for this was to keep the microgrid in island mode, even when there is insufficient power or when there is too much energy; these results can have benefits in man grids as well. Recent studies have shown that the installation of energy storage for 30% of the users is sufficient to shave the peaks and facilitate balancing, somewhat negating the need for demand response in the end-user devices. The demand-side management becomes interesting in that concept, as a person does not care when his battery charges, but he might care when his washing machine finishes. So in short, local energy storage, which is a rather novel thing, solves a lot of the balancing issues... 🙂

I feel bad about continuing to hijack this thread but not so bad that I won't do it 😉 . You're probably right that there's modest upside to demand response in the short term (5-10 years). But longer term (10-30 years) I think demand response doesn't get nearly enough respect.

The reason being that a large fraction of energy usage is simply for heating and cooling, and it costs almost nothing to time-shift heating and cooling by up to 24 hours. You just heat (or cool) a big pile or rocks or a tank of water and distribute it later as needed. This has been commercialized since the 80's but it's not common because most people don't get enough financial incentive to bother. But if the right incentives can be put in place, just making heating and cooling a dispatchable source of demand can help renewables become a much larger piece of the overall energy picture.