Whether you're passionate about 3D printing or not, you'll be amazed at the new type of printer based on a smartphone. Thanks to a special photo polymer, it allows the user to create small objects in resin, using a simple mechanism connected to the smartphone.

This brilliant new technique, developed by Jeng Ywam-Jeng, professor of mechanical engineering at Taïwan Tech, and his team, uses the light emitted by the phone to irradiate and harden (called irradiation curing) the photosensitive resin, without UV lamps or a darkroom; it's sufficient just to turn off the lights in the room.

A holder containing the resin is placed on top of the screen of the smartphone, and an application synchronises the light of the screen with a motor that moves the printed object along the Z-axis, layer by layer. Obviously, it's in this synchronisation that most of the cleverness of the process is found.

The low level of light emitted by the smartphone does slow the process down compared to a real 3D photo polymer printer, but the system seems functional, valid and practical.

Judge for yourself!:


The inventor says he has printed hollow spheres with a wall thickness of 100 µ. Research is in progress to adapt the printer to larger screens (tablets, HD TVs) and to increase their light output.

Eventually this type of printer may be linked with a 3D scanner, so that an object can be digitised and easily printed.

No less astonishing than the invention itself is the the price of the small printer, announced at less than 100 € (about 110 US$).