Previous Next 1 of 15

For those of you who might’ve missed the product’s debut, here’s the lowdown: OLO is designed to take your smartphone and transform it into a fully functional 3D printer. No joke — you seriously just fire up the app, choose the object you want to print, pop your phone into the device’s base, and pull out a completed part a few minutes later. It’s like magic, and the whole thing costs less than a pair of Nikes.

Here’s how it works: The printer consists of three main parts — a reservoir, a special photopolymer resin that you pour into it, and a mechanized lid that contains the build plate and control electronics. At the bottom of the reservoir, there’s a piece of polarized glass which you place your phone underneath, facing upward.

Previous Next 1 of 5

Basically, once you place the lid on top and the printer starts going, the app makes your phone’s screen light up with a specific pattern. The polarized glass then takes all this light (which shines outwardly to give your phone a wider viewing angle) and redirects it so that all the photons are traveling straight upward. So as your phone’s screen beams light up into the reservoir, the directed light causes a layer of resin to harden onto the build plate, which slowly moves upward as each new layer is created. It’s basically a tiny DLP printer that uses your phone’s screen instead of a projector — which is absolutely brilliant, because doing so replaces the single most expensive part of a stereolithography printer with something cheap and very common.

Pretty clever right? I mean, OLO probably isn’t going to steal too much thunder from more serious 3D printers like Ultimaker and Makerbot, but it could be a boon for democratizing 3D printing technology — especially since the whole thing retails for just $99. That brings down the barrier to entry considerably, although you’ll still need a smartphone for it to work. Also, depending on the size/complexity of the object you’re printing, you’ll likely have to surrender your smartphone for anywhere from one to four hours at a time — which is likely out of the question for most people.

Unfortunately, by the time you read this, most of the “early bird” backer rewards will have already been snatched up — but even if you’re late to the party, you can still get your hands on an OLO for a $99 pledge. If all goes according the plan, the creators expect to finish up production and begin shipping to backers as early as September.

[amz_nsa_keyword keyword=”Mini 3D Printer”]

Editors' Recommendations