Zeus, the Greek god known for transforming into animals and doing ungodly things to mortals, has reinvented himself once again, in the form of a prototype for a highly capable 3D printer. Produced by the company AIO Robotics, Zeus is meant to fulfill the acronym’s namesake as an all-in-one machine.
Last week, I covered two different “all-in-one” machines — the Microfactory and FABtotum —which combined additive and subtractive manufacturing capabilities into a single product. Zeus’ all-in-one angle is a combination 3D printer, scanner, copier and fax machine. It’s the office copier of the 21st century and it can copy much more than pieces of paper! Using “HD camera pictures from a swiping laser” and cloud processing, Zeus is trying to be the first true Star Trek replicator making it so that you can digitally send 3D objects from one part of the world to the other. After introducing the product to the RepRap forums, here are the specs that I’ve been able to gather. AIO’s Zeus will have:
a 7 inch color touchscreen- an onboard ARM processor, for stand-alone operation.
- a CNC’d aluminum casing and interior turntable (for scanning!)
- automatic platform leveling
- a lower price tag than the combined price of the Digitizer and Replicator 2
- an approximate 12 inch (300 mm) turnable for printing and scanning
- 100 micron resolution, but AIO believes that they can push it to 75 or 50 microns.
- A single extruder, with promises of a multiple extruder upgrade
- Cloud processing and 3D object reconstruction, with the option to process locally at a higher price.
- An API/”open source package that makes all sensors and motors accessible” so that, with the users can modify the device.
As Zeus is still in the prototype stages, we’ll have to wait a bit to complain about running out of plastic and extruder jams as we mindlessly fax 3D objects to corporate. But, if/when this thing hits production, we’re going to see a lot more hilarious Dilbert cartoons the likes of this:
Source: RepRap Forums
