SOFTWARE
In order to test the LumiBee, Lumi Industries’ CEO Davide Marin, developed an App to be installed on mobile phones. To begin, he chose Android studio (so no Apple devices is supported at the moment). The App is very basic, and the code is available on GitHub.
He did not want to give a cloud-based solution, but used instead a stand-alone approach, to avoid the need of intrnet connection and make it as more accessible as possible. We are using free Chitubox as software for 3D model preparation for 3D printing. Profiles are already available, so all 3D model supporting and slicing is done on the PC, with a software most user are already familiar with and probably, have already installed. Then sliced layers PNG images are transferred on the phone.
(Not) For every smartphone
Several Chinese low-cost smartphones have been tested, like Ulefone Note 7: good brightness, Android system, 6.1” screen, price below 50 USD. Screen contrast, however, is not as high as on other phones, like LG or Samsung.
At the moment, the best phone we tested is a Samsung S6 Edge plus.
Some encountered issues and some “clever” fixes!
When programming in Android Studio and starting the LumiBee testing, we found out an small, but not so small, issue that needed to be taken care of.
It seems that even in full manual mode, the luminosity of the screen is still affected by the ambient light sensor of the phone: so the actual intensity of screen light, even when set at maximum, might differ if the phone is in a dark place or in a bright room, and up to our knowledge, there is no way to avoid this. On a cheap Chinese phone, the Ulefone, this was not happening, because it is so cheap it does not have any ambient light sensors!
Davide developed a simple device to test actual screen light of your smartphone using three LDR sensors. It proved very useful to test screen luminosity. Plans to build it are also available for download..
To avoid smartphone ambient light sensor affecting the screen maximum brightness value, a quick “Maker” solution was found! We are using a tiny SMD Led, taped with black electrical tape and held in place with a 3d printed clip just over the ambient light sensor. In this way the light sensor will be tricked and it will “believe” to be in a bright room, so the screen will keep at the maximum possible luminosity on!
SMD led on smartphone external light sensor.