Cool! From HP! The robot only costs $1,500 but a two pack of extra sharpies for it costs $48,000. Before you can use it, you must install 5 petabytes of HP drivers.
HP gets a lot of crap for home printer quality and ink DRM, but does still have some neat products like this.
The industrial printers for example, especially the PageWide Web Press line are impressive. The T1100 is a huge beast.
Then there are the life science products that can do precision dispensing of fluids for life sciences and drug discovery. Some of them also do individual single live cell dispensing.
I remembered hearing a podcast about a startup robotics company doing the same thing; a little search and they actually have a comparison page between their product and HP's:
If you give it a big job, it freezes halfway and just spins its wheels as fast as it can until you unplug it.
It refuses to paint yellow lines when it's out of blue paint.
It asks you for feedback after doing any and every job.
It doesn't have good Linux support.
It has no off button. The only modes are printing, standby at half power, or unplugged.
When you want to just print a small blue square on the floor, it makes xxxjuukkktsssssruuuuukkkttt sounds for 5 minutes, pauses for another 2, zooms at max speed to the location on the floor, pauses for 10 seconds, and begins doing the actual job it was designed to do, but does it in a shade of blueish brown.
As a high-end residential GC, I'm very interested in this product. We have incorporated Leica Totalstation and BLK360 into our projects. It assists confirming layouts, as-built conditions, and communicating with design professionals working remotely.
I can only see this getting used by very large scale contractors. Framers for your standard house are probably just going to keep using chalk lines (maybe a laser line too these days). "Precision up to +/- 1/32 inch" really isn't necessary in framing.
I wonder how it avoids pipes stubbed up through the slab, or electrical EMT, etc. or how it avoids mistakes made during the rough-in.
What if the plumber missed a drain or supply by an inch? Guessing the robot doesn't adjust its outline. I.e. if a sewer stub is wrong by a few inches, the wall needs to be moved to fit the toilet, or the slab needs to be busted up and the sewer line relocated.
I suppose if it gets some of this wrong, it'll be obvious, and a human can correct it.
I could have benefited from this in the construction of our house. Riddled with inaccuracies, the engineer signed off on the foundations, but we found out when the walls were up that the builders used the internal dimensions as exterior dimensions. So our house is smaller by ~250mm on each side.
We had to make so many compromises and wastages as a result. Bathrooms now smaller if we want to keep other rooms the same, bathtubs couldn't fit, aw man.
Then when the house went up to 2nd and 3rd levels, the staircase was narrow and wasn't connecting between the levels. That alone delayed us by 3 months as we had to get the architect to build a 3D model of the affected area so we could figure it out. We have to hoist furniture up through balconies as it can't fit through the stairs.
I think having some machinery that minimises human error would be very helpful.
## How it works
### CAD preparation
1. You need a 2D CAD file. If you have a 3D model, convert it into a 2D .dxf CAD file.
2. Insert additional printing information and instructions and use the HP Plug-in to get a robot-ready file.
3. Save the 2D .dxf CAD file into the cloud. Maintain version control and share revisions with field operators.
### Site Preparations
1. Clear layout area as for manual layout. No need for a broom-swept floor.
2. Make sure that control points used for Robotic Total Station setup are accurately marked. The layout is as accurate as the control points.
### Solution setup
1. Set up the Robotic Total Station and shoot the control points.
2. Lock the Robotic Total Station to the robot tracking prism.
3. Connect the Robotic Total Station wirelessly to HP SitePrint through the user interface (tablet, phone, laptop, etc.).
### Job execution
1. Open the CAD file on the control panel, select the print area, and submit the job.
2. Maintain a line of sight between the robot tracking prism and the Robotic Total Station.
3. Choose between different inks for different types of layouts.
4. The robot avoids collisions with obstacles.
5. HP SitePrint is robust enough to work on rough and bumpy surfaces.
### End-to-End management
1. HP SitePrint cloud allows sharing of the latest CAD files with all stakeholders, so you can monitor job progress from the office and manage accounting reports.
Costs only $149.99 but refills are $279,415.37, but if pay a monthly subscription at a quarter of that they send you a new time-locked cartridge every month.
I read the marketing blurb twice but still have no idea what this is for.
It draws on the floor for construction projects? Why?
Either there's no building or there's a building. If there's no building, then where does it draw on? If the building is already there, then what's the drawing for?
39 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 50.3 ms ] threadThe industrial printers for example, especially the PageWide Web Press line are impressive. The T1100 is a huge beast.
Then there are the life science products that can do precision dispensing of fluids for life sciences and drug discovery. Some of them also do individual single live cell dispensing.
https://www.dustyrobotics.com/compare/fieldprinter-vs-sitepr...
If you give it a big job, it freezes halfway and just spins its wheels as fast as it can until you unplug it.
It refuses to paint yellow lines when it's out of blue paint.
It asks you for feedback after doing any and every job.
It doesn't have good Linux support.
It has no off button. The only modes are printing, standby at half power, or unplugged.
When you want to just print a small blue square on the floor, it makes xxxjuukkktsssssruuuuukkkttt sounds for 5 minutes, pauses for another 2, zooms at max speed to the location on the floor, pauses for 10 seconds, and begins doing the actual job it was designed to do, but does it in a shade of blueish brown.
This one called Dusty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pq2ZG19hGg
Oh nice someone else mentioned it
https://www.rvpartscountry.com/32326-thetford.html
What if the plumber missed a drain or supply by an inch? Guessing the robot doesn't adjust its outline. I.e. if a sewer stub is wrong by a few inches, the wall needs to be moved to fit the toilet, or the slab needs to be busted up and the sewer line relocated.
I suppose if it gets some of this wrong, it'll be obvious, and a human can correct it.
We had to make so many compromises and wastages as a result. Bathrooms now smaller if we want to keep other rooms the same, bathtubs couldn't fit, aw man.
Then when the house went up to 2nd and 3rd levels, the staircase was narrow and wasn't connecting between the levels. That alone delayed us by 3 months as we had to get the architect to build a 3D model of the affected area so we could figure it out. We have to hoist furniture up through balconies as it can't fit through the stairs.
I think having some machinery that minimises human error would be very helpful.
3d printed houses are here and make this irrelevant
Can only be used with special DRM'd HP pencils. Must download and register with the app after it draws 25m of lines to continue use.
> Uploading to HP SitePrint Cloud
No thanks.
It draws on the floor for construction projects? Why?
Either there's no building or there's a building. If there's no building, then where does it draw on? If the building is already there, then what's the drawing for?
https://logothings.github.io/logothings/AppleLogo.html