“This open-source software, Franklin, enables a user to control their 3D printer or any other 3D device from any web connected device – a cell phone, tablet, or laptop from anywhere in the world,” explained Michigan Tech professor Joshua Pearce, who is part of both the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.
Not only is Franklin completely open source, but so are the metal 3D printers developed by the Michigan Tech and America Makes team. The CAD files, schematics, bills of materials and PCB layouts have all been released to the public, who are encouraged to download them and build their own technology around them. The Michigan Tech team described the technology and software in a new study that they just submitted to the Journal of Open Research Software.
“Franklin was developed as a software platform. It is scriptable – it is not a single-use piece of software. It can easily be integrated into anyone else’s projects. It makes your computer a general purpose machine that can help you make anything you can think of,“ Wijnen explained.
The Franklin 3D software package takes its name from Benjamin Franklin, who is one of the United States’ founding fathers and a prolific inventor and scientist. His inventions would go on to be the basis of many of the technologies that led to advanced computing, manufacturing and programming. Franklin made sure that all of his inventions and discoveries were available to anyone who wanted to use, improve or continue to develop them. In his autobiography, Franklin explained why he would always refuse patents on his inventions, including a safer and more efficient design for a stove. He famously said “That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.” That is, of course, the philosophy of the entire open source movement.
“As this is open source anyone in the world is welcome to build off of it to improve their own applications. For example, we have used it for plastic 3D printing on Cartesian and delta machines, laser welding, PCB micromilling, digital microscopy, vinyl cutting, plotting, food printing, embroidery and of course weld-based metal 3D printing,” continue Pearce.
While America Makes is not without its flaws or drawbacks, any time any advanced technology is made to be open source it benefits the entire technology community. The metal 3D printer plans developed by the Michigan Tech team are available from Appropedia for download here. The Franklin 3D printing control software package is available for download from Github. And here is the team’s research paper describing how the software works on Open Research Software. Discuss further in the 3D Controller forum over at 3DPB.com.