Peter Pancake – a Pancake 3D Printer That is Catching on in China

We’ve sees 3D printers which can print in plastics, metals, concrete, silicon, and just about everything else. This even includes pancake batter. There are several 3D printers currently available on the market that can actually 3D print and cook pancakes. The most notable is the PancakeBot, but there are plenty of DIY models as well.

For one young man in China, named Wu Yili, he believed so much in the idea of creating his very own pancake 3D printer that he even quit his high paying job at IBM to pursue the endeavor. Along with his fellow classmate from Tsingua University, Shikan Yue, he set out to build a business around the machine which he calls the Peter Pancake. Currently these pancake 3D printers are available at a food chain called 食好运 (roughly translated to “Good Luck Food”).

Looking at the Peter Pancake you will notice that the machine looks very similar to a desktop 3D printer, with the exception that in place of the extruder it has a container full of pancake batter which is pumped out onto a griddle.

Yili says that in order for the machine to function correction, a lot of attention must be paid to how the batter is made. It needs to be just right. If it’s too thin it will leak out, and if it is too thick it won’t even come out of the nozzle. Once the batter is made and it is fed into the container, the printer is connected to a tablet via an app. The app allows you to select the pattern you’d like to print out. After the griddle is heated for a few minutes Peter Pancake begins printing the design. The pancakes must be flipped over manually, and a good deal of attention needs to be paid to the level of heat.  After between 30 and 90 seconds a pancake is complete.

As for how they taste, Yili says that they taste great, a bit like pancakes you will find in the Western World and a bit like waffles. In the future, they plan on adding more flavors as well as more designs and the ability for customers to upload their own designs to be printed.

The price for each pancake comes out to 10 Chinese Yuan (approximately $1.61). Chains and businesses can rent the robot for 10,000 Yuan ($1610.00). There are currently 2 models available; the Home Edition and Business Edition. The Home Edition features a 25,600 mm2 build area (160mm x 160mm), 1 printing nozzle, and a 0.3mm nozzle diameter, while the Business Edition has a large 60,000 mm2 build area (200mm x 300mm), the ability to print with 1, 2, or 4 nozzles at once, and a customizable nozzle diameter of 0.2mm, 0.3mm or 0.5mm.

Other specifications of both machines are as follows:

• Operating temperature – 20-65 degrees celsius
• X/Y-axis positioning accuracy – 6.2 micron
• X.Y-axis average error – Approximately plus/minus 5%
• Print Speed – 30-90 seconds per pancake
• Net weight – 15Kg
• Control Interface – USB 2.0

Anyone ordering a Peter Pancake gets a free batch of the pancake batter, so that there is no worry when trying to mix the ingredients. What do you think about these unique machines? Discuss in the Peter Pancake Forum thread on 3DPB.com. Check out some more photos below.