14 DAY TRIAL // The Raspberry Pi credit card-sized personal computer has just been turned into the central driving component of 3D printers, solving one of the biggest issues with home-brewed additive manufacturing machines for the first time ever.
There have been some printers that used the board in the past, but they only used the Pi to send orders to an Arduino board, which subsequently had to do most of the work.
The new device, called Photon Elephant after its makers at Photon Elephant LLC, doesn't do that. Instead, the Raspberry Pi, running Linux operating system, controls everything on its own.
This solves one of the biggest problems with creating a 3D printer: software creation and integration. Since Raspberry Pi already has Linux, everything is already there.
Buyers and hackers only need to use the accompanying SDK (software developer kit) to modify the setup based on their own needs.
The Raspberri Pi GPIO pins drive the motor controllers, and the SDK allows people to control how they do it.
Photon Elephant LLC have launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign seeking to raise enough funds for their game-changing device. It's been about a day or two and already a third of the way to the goal has been covered.
You can get your own fully assembled shield board for $115 / €98.
