Personally, I think it is strange the US patents got accepted. Laser open hardware fast high resolution laser error scanning interferometry can be used for flow velocity measurements through disturbing interfaces. Coating can be made easier with a resolutino which is more suitable for viscous, i. More technical details are available in the whitepaper or the business case pitch. I only spent 10K dollars on a working system and paid taxes.

Process uses laser induced forward transfer or laser catapulting. Methods of using emulsion-PCR derived beads by the present assignee have been based on the fact that the bead itself serves as a decent ablation substrate for the approx 1 microJoule nanosecond laser pulse used to induce transfer.

Beads from 1 to 10 micrometers are easily and specifically ejected by focusing light into their plane. Although ejection optics disclosed by the present assignee can target features as small as nm, it is desirable to generate slightly larger, more disperse 1 micron clusters for use with initial prototyping. I have made an assembly design of the laser scanner in Freecad using the new assembly 4 workbench.

I am really happy with this workbench. It really helps with the open-hardware concept of the project; without these tools it would not be possible to give other people the ease of use to adapt and add their modifications.

Companies like Prusa Research are open source but not open-hardware as they don't provide access to the assembly drawings. They might do that in the future with these new tools. As described on Hackaday and Sci-hub , a new volumetric printing method has been described which uses two colors. A light sheet with a nm laser diode and DLP projection between nm. The prism scanner can also be used to accomplish this. Basically, you can intersect the projection of the prism scanner with a laser sheet or line.

The prism scanner could operate at nm and the light sheet at nm. It would allow you to solidify resin at the intersection and not at the top of the resin bath. Note that if you project a resin bath from above say from air.

The top surface of this resin bath is NOT even. In fact it is wobbly, due to all sorts of surface effects. This would be circumvented by this new technology, as the top of the resin bath is not solidified.

An alternative for this would be to use a process akin to Continuous Liquid Interface Processing CLIP here you also don't solidify the top due to oxygen interaction.

The patents claims something very similar to what Xolo is doing. Austin Russell is the world's youngest self made billionaire at age Luminar's lidar scanners use a combination of a rotating polygon mirror with a galvo mirror. The laser source uses a wavelength of nm. This allows one to use a higher laser power without risking damaging the retina.

Luminar currently has a good patent position in the US market and a very weak one in the European market. Luminar seems to have a monopoly on using laser sources between nm and repetition rates up to MHz. These have all been rejected due to lack of novelty. Personally, I think it is strange the US patents got accepted. There was already prior by Trimble , see my earlier post , this system also operates a wavelength of nm and has an even larger scanning range. It was announced at Intergeo in Low profile lidar scanner with polygon mirror: USB2 Patent which protects a certain embodiment which uses a rotating polygon mirror with a galvo mirror.

No patent seems to have been filed in Europe. Group of software patents ; USB2 , USB2 , USB2 There is a collection of US patents which protects scan patterns, adaptive pulse patterns and monitoring the vibration of the car to improve the scan patterns. Software is not directly patentable in Europe.

It seems likely that it will result in some sort of patent. Summary I have looked into a lot of patents of Luminar Technologies, but couldn't find a single one which is accepted in Europe yet. Most patents are rejected, maybe one or two will be accepted in a much weaker form. So far, building and selling your own car Lidar scanner in Europe still seems possible in the US, a non-free nation with respect to Lidar scanning, you would face many legal problems.

The large aperture, wide scan angle up to degrees for reflective , linear scan speed and high scan rate of polygon scanners has provided long range and high resolution for surveying Faro , terrain mapping Riegel and mobile applications Valeo Scala in the Audi A8.

A challenge of a polygon scanner is its resonance frequency; ideally this is above 2KHz. Due to the larger size than MEMS, polygon scanners have lower resonance frequencies. Mirada Technologies claims to have solved the resonance frequency challenge by immersing the polygon in a liquid and move it with a magnetic field. MEMS manufacturers claim to have a lower price point and be more reliable than polygons.

Infineon is active in mobile applications. MEMS have a smaller scan-angle. A large mirror requires a larger cavity which is hard to fabricate. A scanning prism could also be useful in LiDAR. The operation would be very similar to reflective polygon scanners. Two configurations can be envisioned. The one used by Hexastorm for a short scanline and scanning a point or the setup used by the SX10 Trimble where a collimated bundle is scanned with a prism.

For car LiDAR, this bundle might diverge in one direction and be collimated in the other direction. A transfer substrate simplifies the application of a layer. Coating can be made easier with a blade which is more suitable for viscous, i. Lithoz uses a rotating disk in its LCM technology, see video. Admatec uses a foil see patent. This most likely failed due to a patent from Charles Hull, US In any case, we do want to list a explicit example of how a foil could be used in combination with a transparent polygon scanner.

The foil would be made in contact with the part during the illumination. The two images show how the foil should be applied in up projection or down projection.

The rest would be very similar and easy to implement for a skilled observer, see TNO's description or Hull's description. The coating layer applied on the foil might be applied very precisely so areas are not coated twice or to block interaction between the foil and an already coated section; see figure 4. It is also straight forward to outline how this could be used in the case of multiple laser diodes. The scan head is still moved over a part. The scan head is moving relative to the part.

The foil is moving however and as result the the foil and part are static with respect to each other. The foil may be made from Teflon or Teflon AF. It might also be beneficial to add a glass plate between the foil and the laser to create a flat reference substrate, see figure The polygon facet can be detected by giving a facet a marking and detecting this marking while the polygon is rotating. This marking could be created by coating the edge of a single facet and measuring its reflection with a second photodiode.

If the facet number is known, one can correct for scan errors which are facet dependent. Not for all lasers it might be possible to measure the laser bundle directly with a photodiode. In these cases, it might be beneficial to add a second lower power laser bundle on the same facet and in the same direction or on a different facet for instance orthogonal to the high power beam.

That position could then be monitored with a photodiode. The smallest feature you can pattern with a light source is dependent on the wavelength. Typically the smallest feature is in the order of half the wavelength. The wavelength is dependent upon the medium the light travels trough.

Companies like ASML temporarily coat the substrate with a liquid to lower the wavelength and increase the resolution, also known as immersion lithography. As such, it might be beneficial to use a similar technology in the case of transparent polygon scanner.

For example a liquid could be applied on the foil shown before. This liquid would not be used to get solidified but would only be there temporarily and used to increase the resolution. Another option would be to remove the whole foil and move a transparent plate over a substrate which is coated with a liquid. A transparent polygon scanner would then illuminate through this transparent plate.

The Aether1 is an example of a bioprinter. The Aether uses UV light to solidify liquids during printing, see video. Currently, the UV light not only exposes photo-polymers but also the cells.

The UV light damages the cells. I claim that the Hexastorm is used as an UV exposure source in a bioprinter. The Hexastorm could ensure that only the photo-polymers are exposed and not the stem cells.

The printer would deposit liquid or cells with syringes and selectively expose them with the Hexastorm. I claim the prism is contained in a vacuum chamber or a chamber with a low drag gas as compared to air like helium. Optical windows could allow for the laser bundle to be coupled in and out. This encasing can have curved corners to reduce drag of the moving gass. The prism might be levitated by a magnetic field or kept in place by two magnetic field to minimize friction via contact.

Alterations in an electromagnetic field could be used to detect the position of the spinning disk. The current prism is placed on a metal axis. Another option could be a glass axis or extend the axis to both sides.

The prism could have the shape of a sphere where only the equator is shaped like a polygon. The temperature or pressure might be monitored in the prism housing. It might be beneficial to make both the polygon axis and the polygon prism out of of glass like quartz. Similar to a reflective polygon, the prism can then be clamped instead of glued on top of the polygon base. Low drag environment in prism housing have been used by the TU Twente and Cordin. The TU Twente built the Brandaris It is a fast imaging camera which use a rotating mirror at 1.

This was an experimental project so I don't believe you can buy one commercially. Cordin does sell them and they have mirrors rotating at RPS which is like This is quite nice as it serves as an example of how fast prisms could rotate. These cameras with rotating mirrors are used in research and have been used to detect nuclear explosions etc.

As alternative to a laser diode, a quantum dot laser, C02 laser, femto-second laser or fiber laser can be used. The usage of a different laser source might be beneficial for laser cutting, printing or sintering of metal, plastic or any other sort of powders. Optical Coherence Tomography OCT is an imaging technique that uses low-coherence light to measure samples based upon the principle of light interference.

It is used in the medical industry to detect cancer in tissues and diseases in eyes, e. OCT is typically used to obtain information from a sample. In 3D printing it has been used to verify a print. For example, Photoncontrol used Optical Coherence Tomography and Raman spectroscopy to test the quality of bioprinted tissue, see 1. A startup, called Inkbit MIT , is using it to create samples accurately. They print droplets with an inkjet head and then verify the position of these droplets using among others OCT.

OCT has also been used to detect the adhesion between layers in a 3D printing process, see Non-destructive testing of layer-to-layer fusion of a 3D print using ultrahigh resolution optical coherence tomography. Due to the interest in this area, I decided to elaborate upon how OCT can be used in combination with a transparent polygon scanner.

I claim that in figure 2 a transparent polygon scanner is used instead of a galvo scanner. I claim that in the optical path of the Hexastorm a beam splitter is placed after the aspherical lens and before the first cylindrical lens to enable the scanner for optical coherence tomography.

I claim the use of a transparent polygon scanner for wavefront measurement in Ophthalmology and Optometry. The vertical measure of an eye ball, generally less than the horizontal, is about 24 mm.

The current scanhead has a scanline of maximum 24 mm, making it already close to dimensions required for eye ball measurement. I claim that possibly two transparent polygon scanners are used in ophthalmology and optometry, to move the bundle in two directions. An OCT enabled transparent polygon scanner might also be useful for 3D printing. Imagine that a small percentage of the bundle is scattered to the reference mirror and most of it used to go to the sample.

It will then be possible to sinter powders or polymerize liquids at the sample location. A small portion of the beam will be reflected and refract back to the beam splitter and interfere with the reference beam at the photodetector. This allows one to measure the photopolymerization or sintering process during printing. I can imagine this is especially usefull if the layer height is less than the wavelength. Another application could be to detect the position of droplets. This might be quite useful for companies who print optical components with droplets like Luxexcel.

I claim the use of a prism scanner in photogrammetry where an object is reconstructed from images from multiple angles. Another option would be to use the prism for printing in computed axial lithography see volumetric additive manufacturing via tomographic reconstruction and USA1.

In axial litography a 2D image is projected from multiple angles. The patent gives a digital light processing device or an array of oleds as example. I claim the 2D image information is created with a combination of two prisms see 2D imager.

I can imagine that a 1D line scanner can also be used if the scanner moves out in a spiral. The scanner might be submerged in a liquid to achieve this. While submerged, a moving teflon or teflon AF sheet might be used to produce laminar flow in front of the window an prevent the solidication of polymers against the window while the scanner is submerged.

Another option would be to use a non-linear process such as dual photon. The permeation of oxygen through the window creates a persistent liquid interface, nicknamed "dead zone" where photopolymerization is inhibited between the window and the polymerizing part.

Oxygen inhibition was an effect that was already shown to play a role by Denkari et al. The "dead zone" in silicone release coating is so small that a peeling is needed to release the part from the transparent window.

Hessel Maaldrink sped up the process by adding a force feedback sensor EPB1. Using Teflon AF and a polyuerethane Tumbleston et al. As such, the part does not have to be peeled of from the optical window during the process and stair stepping is minimized. This allows for the production of flexible parts.

Furthermore, the "dead zone" speeds up the viscous flow between two parallel plates, part and window, for the application of a new layer, see WOA2 , improving the print speed. I will now try to create prior art to support circumventions of the Carbon patent to extend the freedom of application of the scanning prism marketed as Hexastorm. In the European patent, EPB1, claim one states ".. As such, I claim irradiating said build region with for example a transparent polygon scanner while not concurrently advancing away the part, but discretely.

The part is exposed and moves after full exposure. Moving during exposure is also not possible as Hexastorm exposes a line and not a plane. Laser diodes can achieve a refresh rate in the order of MHz. At With a laser diode, the refresh rate is so much higher that it might be possible to alter the polymerization over much smaller distances. Stair stepping would be minimized even though the part is moved disretely.

If it is not possible, the procedure would still allow for the production of flexible parts. The US patent, US B2, is wider in scope as claim one specifies "A method of forming a three-dimensional object, comprising the steps The formulation using "steps" in US patent differs from "concurrently" in the European patent.

In the US, the process is also under patent if the part is not moved during exposure. Carbon as a result markets its intellectual property as "digital light synthesis technology", although Continuous Liquid Interface Processing CLIP seems more applicable in the European union. Key in the US patent is that parts are produced upside down and moved away from a build surface which is not air. This is peculiar as the original patent by Hull in specifies both up and down projection in figure 3 and 4 respectively.

A possible reason could be patent USB2 by Envisiontec. As such, I claim the use of oxygen-inhibition in down projection, where Open Hardware Fast High Resolution Laser Module the top of a part is up, using a scanning prism. Again, the fast exposure of a laser diode might minimize stair stepping and the "dead zone" will simplify coating. Additionally, using air instead of teflon AF layer reduces costs.

After studying the following literature, dip and blade coating patent US of Charles Hull, flows in thin film coating by Christian Kushel , Zerphyr coating as described in US , curtain coating as described in EP and the book Liquid Film coating by Kistler , I claim the following. Firstly, the use of a "dead zone" in 3D printing to facilitate the coating of liquids in down projection photo-polymerization where the top of the part is up.

I will now explain this. Boundary conditions during coating are important. During for example blade coating the coater can collide with the part. A dead-zone would prevent this and create a more consisting wetting of the substrate during e. Zephyr coating as it is entirely liquid. Secondly, I claim that an array of transparent polygon scanners is integrated in the Zephyr blade.

I claim that possibly in the Zephyr blade a Teflon AF film is partly applied between the liquid and air interface. I claim that in the Zephyr blade the pressure of the air is monitored. I claim that an opening is provided to actively supply liquid to the Zephyr blade using a pumping mechanism. Thirdly, I claim that the teflon AF film or part moves parallel to the plane of illumination and not only orthogonal as in the CLIP patent.

Especially, I look at the figure provided at the front page of US I claim that the film in this figure denoted by 10 is teflon AF and the exposure module denoted by 9 is an array of transparent polygon scanners.

I claim the use of a transparent polygon scanner in so called swarm printing. Liquid can be applied via various ways such as extrusion. Via a scanning prism you can create a line from a laser bundle, i. As a result, with a second scanning prism which has its rotational axis orthogonal to the first you can map the line to a plane 2 dimensions. The second rotating prism would be thicker and typically rotate at a lower speed. This would partially mitigate the disadvantage, that it is much thicker.

A point as in the Hexastorm or a collimated bundle could be moved. The challenge solved by this thermal imaging camera was how to scan [over a wide area] using a single, very expensive, and liquid nitrogen cooled infrared detector.

The solution was to pass the beam through two rotating [octagonal] germanium prisms, one horizontal and one vertical, see Inverse Problems in Engineering Mechanics, A. Kassab et al, page Companies like Bird-X use lasers to scare birds at public air ports. Birds can get accustomed to the pattern and the pattern might be dependent on the type of bird.

As such, it might be beneficial to alter the pattern of the laser with a transparent polygon scanner for bird prevention. Companies like Inmarsat use laser bundles for optical communication with satellites, see video.

The transparent polygon scanner can be used to transform a 0D laser spot into a 1D line or 2D plane. This plane or line can then be transformed with lenses and used to communicate with other satellites.

For a DIY example with a microphone and a speaker see video. To get microwaves meals pass the FDA , a prototype meal with egg whites is typically made. These prototype meals consist out of salt and liquid egg whites. After microwave exposure, the FDA slices the prototype meal and checks whether the exposure is good enough. These microwave meals are made by hand. The Hexastorm could expose the liquid egg white with infrared radiation and trigger a maillaird reaction.

If the process is combined with inkjet or needles more complicated egg white meals can be made. A layer of liquid egg white is coated an solidified with the Hexastorm. A 3D omelet can then be made by stacking multiple layers. Companies like LAP laser use reflective polygon scanners to measure tube diameters.

Industrial giants like Vallourec use a combination of two of these scanners to inspect high collapse tubes.

In a similar fashion, a transparent polygon scanner could be used to measure the diameters of tubes with a diameter smaller than the line length.

Two transparent polygon scanners could be used to measure the diameter of larger tubes if they expose only the edges of these tubes. It must then of course be known that the tube diameter fluctuates less than the line length. So a tube with a diameter of mm can be measured if the diameter fluctuates less than e. Keyence sells a module with 3-cmos chips and without a polygon scanner for details see the folder of the LS This process is also known as UV led curing. I claim the use in a commercial machine of one or more transparent polygon scanner with a UV inkjet head.

The transparent polygon scanner could be used to vary the UV dosage. It could also be that materials are applied to the substrate which are very sensitive to UV light.

In this case a transparent polygon scanner could prevent that these materials are illuminated. It could also be that different materials require light of different wavelengths. In that case multiple transparent polygon scanners with possibly lasers of different wavelength could be used to apply the right wavelength and power to the right material.

This claim applies to both 2D and 3D printing processes. Lasers scanners can be used in particle analyzers. A bundle is projected on a cell and the resulting image is measured with an image sensor. In specific, I claim that a transparent polygon scanner is used to move the laser bundle in such a particle counter or analyzer. Finally, I claim a transparent polygon scanner is used in a so called flow cytometry. To inspect defects in rail roads laser scanners are used.

The Hexastorm produces a shorter line length than most scanners. This could be mitigated by inspecting smaller things; e. Like in rail road scanners, I envision that multiple scanners are used to illumate objects form multiple sides.

The distrubed line would then be imaged by a camera. The image is then be used to calculate the shape of the substrate.

I also envision a scanning system which consists out multiple scannes. An object shape is measured by a first scanner and a camera, the object is then marked by the second scanner. Furthermore, I claim the laser scanner first sends out a low-intensity line. This line would be used to record information of the substrate. The second line produced by the same scanner at higher power would be used to alter it.

I can envision that this is beneficial for among others laser engraving and 3D printing. Instead of the Videojet 2-Watt UV laser marking system, the hexastorm with a UV laser is used to deliver high-contrast cold marking permanent codes enabling product lifetime track and trace for pharmaceutical, medical device and cosmetic manufacturers.

Possibly a camera is added to detect the products to be marked. Also the Hexastorm could be used to print medicine with selective laser sintering. The Yes! Delft startup Tocano is developing Inkless printing, see video. Tocano plans to print paper without ink and carbonize patterns into the paper with laser light using scanning mirrors, see USB2. Key to their patent is that they apply a transparent sheet onto the substrate to lower and control the amount of oxygen at the paper substrate.

As scanning prism could also be used to carbonize paper and move the laser bundle. A higher throughput can be created if multiple Hexastorms would be used in tandem to illuminate a substrate such as a piece of paper; wavelength could be 1 micrometer or nm. Ideally, wavelengths are used where the absorbance of paper is high. In microscopy laser scanners are used to illuminate the substrate.

The reflected light, which can be of a different wavelength, can then be imaged by a camera. I claim that a transparent polygon scanner is used to move a laser bundle over a sample in a microscopy. Possibly, a semi-transparent mirror is added to analyze reflected light. This mirror can be added between the sample and the transparent prism possibly after the last cylinder lens.

No it wouldn't work.. I am not shipping out prism at the moment as they r not balanced yet working on this. I am also working on a FPGA toolchain, will post an update on my progress here soon. Can you recommend a specific polygon motor module on alibaba? I don't know if there are any differences and I'd like to order one. It uses the NBC chip. I had problems with other motors. Make sure you buy at least 2, although they are quite hard to break. Dude, this is some pretty awesome work.

I'd love to help refine some of the manufacturing and board designs, let me know how I can best help. There are two other people who have shown interest. I need at least 10 people to do a run as I have to buy the prisms in bulk. Turn around time would be significant.

Producing the prism takes at least a month. I am fixing the low hanging fruits at the moment. It is hard to help with these as you don't have a laser head. I am building a new one but there is still only one in the world Things you could look in to;. This task seems rather complicated but I guess this knowledge could be really help full.

The statemachine now runs on pru of the beaglebone and is limited at around 2 MHz. You could also try to figure this out with a regular polygon motor. Add an imbalance and try to analyze this.

Remove this problem, optimize the code. In the mean time, I am cleaning up the code, building a second head and still have to do more experiments. I am also waiting for news on the hackaday prize. That's also why I have been quiet on the blog. I'm wondering if there isn't a BLDC motor that could be substituted for the polygon motor, hopefully something that is more available. And then I'd need an encoder. I'll take a look at this, although I suspect going greater than 20k rpm requries air bearings and a custom design.

The rectangular prism does seem to be a challenge. I'll let you worry about that. Out of curiosity, do you know how much it'd cost for a custom order? An FPGA should be able to handle the state machine. It might be overkill though.

The ICE40 may be better and cheaper. I might be in the minority in that I'm not sure this is a huge priority, as your electronics are pretty cheap. It's probably a pretty significant time sync to rewrite the assembly for the PRUs into a state machine. I suspect someone else might be better suited for that. At work, we have specifications for balancing motors for EVs. The most relevant standard is ISO Let me know if that's useful for you. Usually a balancing machine is used to detect vibrations while the part is rotated.

They're pretty rare and fairly expensive though. They do make some simple ones for balancing quadcopter props you could look into. Usually you have to add or remove material in a specific spot to make it work.

I already have some of the parts you've used. Perhaps it won't be as hard to duplicate some version of this as I expect. Rotating polygon mirrors are produced in the tens of thousands. Motors can handle up to RPM. This is more than what is needed at the moment, RPM, as the beaglebone can't go faster.

You will need time Robert, thank you for supporting me! Winning the prize would be amazing. My current target is to get other people to try out the technology, I am really trying to make it more accessible.

I hope I can show an improved prototype of the scan head soon. What material is the prism made from? How is it manufactured? Can i make it in my "maker lab"? You will have to discuss details with manufacturers in China over Alibaba. I'm also interested in the possibility of using a motor from a hard disk drive instead of a breaking down a polygon motor. HDD motors are cheap to buy and as I understand it, contain an encoder and have screw holes which makes affixing things easier.

HDD seem too slow. They typically spin at or RPM. At the moment, I can go up to RPM with polygon motor. For some applications, I would like RPM or Also the motors are not too expensive, they are like 20 euros. I understand 20 euro's can still be a lot but if you look at total costs; you can better pay attention to other components.

Oh, I had no idea you were planning on high speed. Where can you get the motors in the 20 euros range? You will need at least 50K RPM.

An option would be to encase the prism and remove the air. This will reduce the drag. You could also fill the encasing with Helium as it has low drag and a high thermal conductivity. My suggestion for this project is to isolate the scanner from the 3 axis robot part so that the scanner could be made into a tool that can be changed out.

I intend to isolate the scanner, and design it for specific machines. I like the idea of having a dedicated chip. I can imagine there are even better options. The problem is that developing a dedicated board costs time, money and a lot of experience. Zeller made a very accessible code for the Beaglebone, so I went with that. You are looking at a proof of concept. It's a technology demonstrator. Anyway if you have recommendations; or some example code; feel free to share. XS1-L4A would be a good fit.

I don't know the rate of data throughput you need but it may be easier to just cache to workload on a local FLASH chip than stream it. XS1-L4A is nice Sorry about that. Consider enlisting help to make a board as there is a good chance it will alleviate timing related issues.

Good luck! This is a good idea, but honestly I think the best thing is to focus on getting the precision as perfect as possible. It's crazy we are still using tonner transfer and UV exposure. But yes, would be nice down the road to have the scanner head removed for another tool You've certainly done your homework very thoroughly, and I see that in your application with very small optical cone angles large focal ratio , the optical aberrations and field curvature appear to be tolerable.

That's great. One question: You say that previous scan techniques require a large and therefore expensive, you argue f-theta lens, which must have one dimension at least as wide as the scan line. Since either shape would use identical materials and fabrication processes in volume production i. How is this line of reasoning flawed? A telecentric f-theta lens requires one dimension at least as wide as the scan line. A non-telecentric f-theta lens does not require that. In my approach, the polygon must have one dimension longer than the scan line.

The second dimension is 2 mm. An f-theta lens consists out of multiple lens elements, e.

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