Yes, these times sure are amazing. Let’s write out the cost formula for my 3D laser scanner, in the most cost-efficient implementation.
- $0 paper mache armature
- $2 laser diode line generator
- $3 battery holder (or other portable power device)
- $5 Raspberry Pi Zero
- $5 Raspberry Pi Zero FPC camera connector
- $11 32 GB MicroSD card
- $25 Raspberry Pi Camera
Total: $51 dollars.
And the best thing about this is? The cost for setting up an equivalent Scanning By Heating system is identical. Alternatively, if you want to reuse the as many parts as possible, then it only costs $27 to buy the additional infrared camera and laser diode parts for Scanning By Heating.
Now, let’s consider the alternatives.
- $0 paper mache armature
- $3 battery holder (or other portable power device)
- $11 32 GB SD card
- $25 laser diode line generator
- $25 Raspberry Pi Camera
- $35 Raspberry Pi 3
Total: $99 dollars.
Wow, that’s considerably more expensive, about twice as expensive as the alternate solution. On the other hand, it only costs twice as much, not ten times as much, so that’s worth consideration on an order of magnitude scale.
So what were you saying? 100 Euro is too expensive for a 3D scanner? Maybe that’s not so. Maybe it’s just that the design was built using only the parts that were available a few years earlier, but certainly within the meantime, the costs have dropped considerably. Yes, that’s definitely true. It appears the system was first designed back in 2011, so that would explain the higher costs.
But you know what? I’m surprised. I’m surprised that despite the fact that the core computation part and laser diode of the system has experienced the greatest drop in price, the overall expense of the system is still pretty high. I guess that’s because we’re still waiting for corresponding drops in price on the camera sensor. Now, what if we could have a high resolution camera sensor for only $5, and the MicroSD card for only $2?
- $0 paper mache armature
- $2 4 GB MicroSD card
- $2 laser diode
- $3 battery holder (or other portable power device)
- $5 Raspberry Pi Zero
- $5 Raspberry Pi Camera
- $5 Raspberry Pi Zero FPC camera connector
Total: $22 dollars.
Wow! That’s an amazing price! And all I have to do to get to that price is find some way to reduce the price of the camera and the MicroSD card. Also, let me get this straight: I am monitoring the cost primarily of the specialized electronics that require remote manufacturing. For any materials such as external casing that can be easily made locally, that cost I do not consider, as that is an entirely different economic equation.
However, I must note a very important fact for this use case. Network communications will be paramount for routing out the 3D scan data to a higher-capacity storage device. Otherwise, the 4 GB MicroSD card will quickly fill up to its maximum capacity and you’ll have to halt the scanning to offload the data. However, that workflow might not be too bad for low-cost scanning applications. A good compromise, as I would say.
Now for a cheap keyboard and monitor. What were you saying? Use projection displays? Oh, that actually makes a lot of sense. Use a projection display for both the monitor and the keyboard. The keyboard is located at the bottom of the projection display, so typing on the keyboard will not obstruct your view of other things happening on the monitor. Of course, what will work best with this low-cost computer is speech-based input. Speech-based output would also be most convenient so that you don’t have to be looking directly at the display to get information off of it, you just have to be within the vincity of the computer to hear the information.
So why the higher cost for the laser diode? I think it must be due to the solid brass structure. That would definitely make sense as to why the cost would be considerably increased.