OLO turns smartphones into portable 3D printers

The portable-sized printer works with a companion smartphone app that allows a user to select a model for printing. Once a selection is made, the phone is placed face up and covered with the base compartment of the printer, which is then filled with the liquid resin that comes included in the printer package. The top compartment of the printer, engineered with the actual printing machinery, is the life of the printer and once it is added, the 3D printing process commences.

Printing begins when the app activates the screen of the phone to light up and reflect the blueprint of the chosen model. This light is then directed through the polarised glass of the base compartment to harden the liquid resin, layer by layer, slowly tracing the form of the model until the object is completed.

Through the app, users can send messages with digital fabrication models to friends, family or acquaintances who also have the device, to 3D print. The OLO app has a library of products to choose from but the device can also be used with other 3D mobile apps, 3D scanning programmes or shared 3D designs.

The different resins available are suited to different needs so a user can print objects in a range of compositions from hard to soft and rigid to flexible. There is also a resin that can be fused with other materials so people can create objects in silver, gold or other metals.