Hello again, X1Plus friends.

I spent most of this week’s update-writing time behind the camera again, well, behind the editing console anyway. But I’m pretty happy with what came out! I wanted to show off a unique feature of the X1Plus Expander, that’s possible only because of X1Plus’s tight integration with the X1 printer’s firmware: time lapses!

The X1’s built in chamber camera is fine, but not fantastic. One of the things we built X1Plus Expander to be able to do is to drive a mirrorless camera (or DSLR)’s shutter synchronously with G-code; that is to say, in such a way that you know that the shutter will fire exactly when you want it to and not a moment sooner or later. In combination with the ‘smooth timelapse’ support in slicers, you can get a beautiful time lapse from whatever angle you want, in as high a resolution and detail as your camera can give you.

Above, you can see my first attempt at a timelapse with a comparison against the built-in chamber time lapse. My video skills are fine-but-not-great, but I know that a bunch of you have much better video equipment than I do and a lot more creativity!

I’ll conclude this rather short update with a bunch of things that I’ve learned about time lapses the hard way so far. Even if you don’t use my hardware, or even an X1 printer, if you’re shooting time lapses of your prints, you can learn from my mistakes!

• Make sure your camera has auto white balance turned off; that your camera is set for a fixed ISO, shutter speed, and aperture; and that your camera will not attempt to autofocus.
• Home the bed before printing and then move the toolhead out of the way, move the bed up, and focus on or slightly beyond the bed.
• Also, focus where your part is going to be, not somewhere else on the bed.
• If using a macro / zoom lens, you probably want to stop the aperture down more than you think to achieve a usably wide depth of field.
• You probably do not want to shoot 800 RAW photos, so if you normally shoot RAW, remember to set the camera to JPEG only...
• Unsurprisingly, smaller layer heights result in "smoother" time lapses. I unilaterally declare that interpolating between frames in your video is not cheating.
• The object will grow taller than you think. If you are zoomed way in, consider putting the build area for your part in the very top of the frame.
• Don't be afraid to take long exposures!
• You might want to add a one second pause before you trigger the shutter, since your printer might have transmitted vibrations to everything in sight, and it might be a good idea to let the resonances die down some.
• If you can, remember to connect your camera to external power (or use a battery emulator, if you're on a camera that has the shutter release occupy the same plug as a power adapter).
• Make sure your camera has auto-sleep turned off, if applicable.
• Did you remember to give your test image one last pixel-peep to make sure you aren't about to take a multiple-hour hour time lapse of garbage?

Anyway, I’ve been slowly making progress on manufacturing-related work, and it actually seems likely that I’ll be able to place the order just as soon as crowdfunding completes. Over the coming weeks, I’ll talk some about the behind-the-scenes manufacturing stuff involved, while I’m not too busy eating Thanksgiving turkey, that is. In the mean time, have you ordered your X1Plus Expander yet? Don’t wait until the last minute! My blood pressure will thank you!

Talk soon —

joshua