Metal 3D Printing - An Update | Metal Matters
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Development of an i3 based metal 3D printing platform, printing 316 stainless steel.
This project aims to establish a cost effective opensource metal 3d printing platform. Subscribe for future developments & announcements.
CAD files pending development. Total build cost estimated to be around $1500 USD.
Forum: www.metalmatte...
Laser Profiler Software: www.opticsforh...
Your scientific approach leads you to succes.
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All should be in a chamber which is full of some gas; inert gas?? for flame or heat dissipation and distribution。 l have none experience but just guess。
@@ray-charc3131 you should watch the video, It's pretty good...
Hi, Metal SLS Printers typically use a hardened rubber wiper blades to prevent build collision failure. The wipers flex and push off powder where the melt pool has wicked extra material and grown above the build surface, while settling and leaving powder beneath it uniform for a flatter, less blobby, surface finish. Also funneling your powder onto the build surface THROUGH the cylinder just ahead of the leading edges of the blade would allow you to drop powder and wipe in both directions, reducing build time by half. I was an installer and test engineer for an SLS manufacture who worked with GE, Ford, NASA, and LARA/DOE. respond if you'd like further input and assistance, I'm impressed with your progress, would like to help jump the many hurdles ahead of you.
Thanks for the insight!
I will most definitely be watching your progress. As I'm sure many are doing. Who wouldn't want a low cost solution to metal printing. You should concider a donations link...
Videos like this are rare here on UA-cam these days. Interesting, educational and fun to watch.
Na, you're not looking in the right places then mate . No offence 👍
I’ve noticed that some metal 3D printers use a low power first pass prior to sintering to degas the material and preheat. The powder will literally jump out of place without some preheating due to the sudden change in temperature.
Or just heat the whole print and only go melt the needed layer with laser.
@@635574 exactly. General Electric uses that strategy.
Depends on the laser used. Certain wavelengths are better than others, aka the absorbtion ramp rate is more linear. Some frequencies jump 70-80% in microseconds.
Creality will be cranking these out in ten years for one grand a pop.
hope so!
Although the beam profiler is great and allows you to make a quantative assessement of the beam profile, it's a little involved for focussing the beam; something we used to do with the lasers in litho plate setters with a visible laser was to allow the beam to hit the plate surface (a semi-smooth surface) and let the scattered reflections hit a white wall; this generates a speckle pattern which is very sensitive to focus, it will go through a region where the speckles are very large, this is where the focus is optimised; in your case, the bed surface adjacent to the cylinders would probably work well. One caveat though, this worked well for ion lasers with extremely narrow spectral lines, I'm not sure how well it will work with the broader line of a diode laser, but it's free and worth a try.
nice project! regarding the recoater getting stuck on the print.. you could try using a flexible rubber blade, like a from a car windshield wiper.. I know of some commercial machines, which are actually using something very similiar and it seems to work lol
Ohhh man, this is a huge and hard task of enginering, I hope you success on this
What a time to be alive. Ten years ago would you have thought you would be watching a video on open-source metal 3d printing? I can't imagine where additive manufacturing will lead us in the next few decades. What is beyond? So exciting :)
Can't wait to see where this project goes in the future
Dude this is insane, you're going to change the world, keep doing this.
Btw when this printer is done you should make a contract to sell, just imagine a world where you can print anything, even metal things
I know in welding, the type of shielding gas used depends on the type of metal being welded and the heat penetration you are wanting. Gases such as hydrogen, CO2, helium, argon and various mixes of these gases are used. A mix of argon and CO2 is common. The difference in the finished surface can vary greatly depending on the gas/mix used.
@zomgthisisawesomelol The choice of gas does depend on the process but also what you are trying to accomplish. You can Tig with pure argon, or you can use an argon/helium mix to get better penetration and more fluid weld puddle. Same process, but different gas mix.
As far as surface finish.
"A range of argon mixes is available combined with hydrogen additions of between 1 - 5%. These gases concentrate the arc and can increase welding speed but they are more often used to give a better appearance to the finished weld." - Peter W Muncaster, in A Practical Guide to TIG (GTA) Welding, 1991
I thought that when dealing with stainless, you'd sometimes add 5% O2 to the argon (or sometimes NO) which technically makes it MAG rather than MIG.
@@charleslambert3368 I think adding just a bit of helium could help as well.
And what about surface tension of the melted metal ?
There is no surface tension when the metal is melted. Tensions appear during cooling down. So if you lay a long weld at once the heated metal will expand, posision itself comfortably, and after when cooling down it will pull itself towards begining of the weld. This can be a serious problem here. Ill bet the theoretical contraction would be much higher than the ABS one.
This is truly cutting edge, and we're privileged to witness it. People like Metal Matters will make metal printing as common as word printing in 5-10 years. I appreciate your hard work, struggles, and persistence to make things easier for all of us. Liked and subscribed!
Your work needs more exposure. I hope someone will get it the coverage it deserves. Wonderful work and progress.Congratulations! Slow and steady wins the race.Your methodical process is winning.
Interesting to see the progress. All metal 3D printers I know use some sort of protective gas in a closed print room. Some have the concept of heating up the powder, so the later power to reach the melting point is lower.
Hey everyone. I've put together a forum at www.metalmatters.co. The forum is skeletal at the moment but I'm hoping to build an archive of information on this subject and see some of your builds. If you're interested in contributing something, make yourself known!
I just found your series here. been working on a machine myself the past few months. Tried to join the forum but it has some issue with multiple ip's and not letting me register. not sure if someone else is having this issue. for my cylinders I have needle bearings to ride the cylinder walls and everything is machined steel.
@@hyperformancellc I think I might've fixed it for you. Someone with a very similar IP to you signed up just before you. You should be able to login now.
Hi, thats a pretty interestung idea! Do you use constant laser light or impulse one?
@@metalmatters awesome thank you!
@@user-lr6tr2ry6q Continuous wave
Build it on a mill. Hobby structure gives you hobby results. You can get a mill for around $1k.
DUDE! This is awesome! The fact that you are printing in SS for such a homemade (and I mean that in a good way) machine is wildly impressive.
Looking forward to your next update. Love watching this
you can switch the position of your print with the powder storage so that you can bring in the roller from the opposite side. the advantage will be you can bring in the laser faster on to the print bed. In the current design, you need to wait till the roller retracts completely for the laser to move in
so glad i stumbled upon this channel. this is amazing work!!
I just subbed a few minutes ago lol, this is inspiring, keep up the good work and keep us posted on potential patreon or something. PS maybe some transducers to settle the particulates and maybe some sponge-like rolling pin capable of lifting the powder up, over, and on top of the part.
do a Patreon or a donation link! many will benefit from your progress...
Awesome to see the step by step process!! Improvements are significant with every video too!! Wow!
What humans can do at home nowadays will never cease to blow my fucking mind
That's some damn fine work. I look forward to the next iteration.
Amazing work. People like you directly effect our technological advancement
Nice, Its fantastic to see trial and error of your step by step success 👍
Woa. Nicely done. Your engineering professors would be proud!
I can't help but wonder just how much can be attributed or mitigated with software. Applaud your diligence and I wish you the best of luck on this journey.
Thank you for sharing such an interesting project! It feels like we are at the beginning of something here. I’ve already watched all your videos and I can’t wait to watch the next. Please, let us hear the voice of the engineer, you will certainly enjoy it.
You can use high temperature silicone as a lip for the Scraper blade. It allows close contact to the buildplate when adjusted correctly but has a bit of play when parts stand out of the layer. You can find silicone profiles for seals quite cheap. Many commercial machines use them for the scrapers
This is an awesome project, I wish you lots of successes and eureka moments.
Just found this channel, and absolutely love what your making. A metal 3D printer is so close i can practically taste it! Maybe one day ill finally be able to print 3d metal miniatures, and when that day comes, I'll buy you a pizza (probably, actually considering it)
Also subscribing cause, why not?
Awesome job! can't wait to see more progress on it, I'll follow the forum for sure, really want to learn more about the process to hopefully try building one too! Bravo!
Very interesting. For testing purposes though, you should be doing 1d lines until you can get a more stable line. Welding in person requires building the pool and dragging it across. With 3d printing you are in a way heating it from the top down to the bottom and it pools up to down also from where you are dragging. You have to imagine it on a microscale as if it were pyramid sized and think about how that heat dispersion would work. This would probably require more than just pwm. Realistically if you can find a way to do this, you would want micro steps to move the laser or bed .01 mm and step it back and forward per x movement. Then a stable pwm would work better, but should still consider something like a high, low mid pattern (ex 250,225, 235) or the opposite depending on material (and realistically top down might require low to high to mid) (creating profiles per material and motion).
Another example would be 250, 248, 246, 242, 238, 234,230,226,222 where you sweep it down to account for the fact that the metal pool is already built, but you dont want it to "harden" so you just cool it off enough so that it doesnt pool over. Then step up, heat it hotter (250) so that it melts the new section but starts cooling it off quickly so that it bonds and cools.
The jittering motion of the table will also help establish that pattern as you move away from the hottest part of the bead and heat up new material. Just my thoughts. I have been thinking about doing something likes this for a while and would love to do a project like this. Nice job. As a mechanical designer I find it ridiculous that a machine costs 1million to buy when I know that with materials It can be designed for around 13-20k built. (a big boi).
Edit to add:
Another thought would be to PWM it to hot for a fraction of a second when starting on new material and drop it back to low as it hits the new material and sweep it back to mid then hot, low, mid. continuing the low, mid high. also with then 3d printer think of a jitter frame, heat frame, move frame in the process. Not sure how easy the jittering would be, almost would make more sense with ultrasonic vibrations or something along those lines.
Man, it's Awsome! Good start, professionalism, and i like the music. I wish you to get it! ✌️
Have the same idea that keeps me up at night, glad that someone else is doing this project instead of me. SUBSCRIBED
introducing an inert gas flow system across the build surface will help with your agglomerations. Basically all metal printers (as I'm sure you know) have some sort of gas flow setup to shield the melt pool, but it is also very important for carrying ejected powder and vapors away.
This is so cool. I deeply admire the approach and results. Keep on improving!
This is a massively underrated channel
Seeing the progress on each video, amazing work 👍
Worked a little but at a lab that worked on metal 3d printing, although I mostly just helped a grad student with some EE type of stuff. This diy project looks really promising for this sort of thing!
Very nice work! The argon gas atoms surrounding the SS power are rocket exhaust when laser heated moving the SS powder around. Perhaps laser preheating of the powder could reduce the localized argon gas density first and then follow up with a fusing pulse.
-Peter
Core xy with moving mirror and continually adjusting focal length would be lightest to keep the accuracy
Renishaw had to use a voice coil to get the focus fast enough to match usable speed on surface of powder.
Can you get mirrors with a high enough reflectivity (in the bandwidth of the laser) that you don't need to cool them? Because adding cooling to the mirror, leaves you with a heavy part again. A mirror will also make the beam-path-length variable over the surface of the print, not an insurmountable problem, but it does add some complexity to keeping a tight focus.
You don’t need core xy it’s a slow machine speed not a fdm printer it’s all about tolerances print 45 deg angles not square on the build both x y steppers working together at 45 deg yield much better dampening and accuracy
Muy interesante!me suscribo! Quiero ver cómo sigue esto!
You got it man, keep up the good work!! This will be a much needed contribution to society!
I hope someone funds this for you...well done!
Kickstarter, or something
I really think the code to cracking an inexpensive DIY/home-built sintering laser will come in the form of a Galvo Laser Head and the form factor of those cheap laser marking machines. Granted, as sold they only ship in either 20w, 30w or 50w configurations. But since it's really more about the laser power supply, that can be sourced out and upgraded. But the software is there, has plenty of tweaks that can be done to it. The build platform could easily be built into the cabinet underneath and it's just a matter of constructing an air tight cabinet around the whole thing. Pulling vacuum, and filling the chamber with argon will be the way for best results. Again, all those are off the shelf components.
This is such wonderful work, looking forward to exploring the github repo when its available. Best of luck
Hey man this is great, just started up my own printing business start of last year once I finished school, cant wait to get up to your skill level, keep up the good work 👍🤙
In commercial machine the spreader bar will often spin which kicks the powder away from the junction and prevents it from compressing the layers
Very nice idea! Well done! You could try maybe upgrading to linear rails and ball screws for accuracy? Also, I think the bed or "Z" axis should move up and down like with the CO2 lasers I've seen on UA-cam.. The powder spreader should work better if it were "V" shaped or inverted "V" shaped, the excess powder could fall off the sides of the table into gutters and be funneled into a reserve tank and then vacuum transferred back to the supply somehow.
This has inspired me to try and make my own! Thank you your work is absolutely awesome keep it up man!
Very impressive, glad I found the channel!
Maybe scanning the build area instead if moving the laser like a fdm printing head could help with the excess heat on the perimeters?
Great video and project, thanks for sharing!
You don't probably need the camera to measure the focus. You can use simple solar cell (eg. BPW34). I would expect that solar cells have limited power per area. So the more you focus the less effective they are and less power you will get (just make sure your focus is not completely out of the area). If this trick is not enough, you can glue very thin wire on top of the cell. Then you will scan your laser beam across the wire and you will notice drop in the cell voltage. that way you know you are spot on the wire. Later you can change the focus until the laser dot is so small it gets almost completely blocked by the wire. droping cell voltage even further. (you can repeat the scan and focus process twice for even finer results, because you will already have good focus during wire-searching scan that way)
Nice project, very interesting ! Thanks for sharing it
This is absolutly amazing! Cant wait to see you making even more progress :D
Rad of the rad dude!
It’s getting really interesting now.
Push on.. keep it up... so close!!
Happy new year!
🇦🇺🤜🏼🤛🏼🍀🍀🍀😎🤓
This project is awesome. But imo, you should focus on a CoreXY type design. I just think that moving print bed is going to be problematic for leveled powder top surface. Moving bed will cause tall prints to be lower quality.
Fantastic work! Been waiting for the next video drop, glad to find the forum to stay updated.
We have a metal powder printer at the school I go to and the one thing I see missing is cross-flow fans to remove sparks. Also for the powder distribution, it uses high temp rubber strips that need to be swapped out after every print. (just a few thoughts to add to your design.) Good luck
I am actually prototyping the same thing but not nearly as far as you are. I would go with a heated chamber for your setup. It will help the powder be closer to the transitioning temperature which will definitely help improve consistency. Other than that you are going darn good work! Keep up your efforts, you are getting there!
the thing I can't get my head around is how people even managed to actually do this in the first place with having to deal with the surface tension of the liquid pulling in more powder than the laser is supposed to melt (and also causing beads to become round)
This is awesome. Really interested in you future videos
Pushing boundaries!
Please succeed. If there is anything I can do to help.
I love what you are doing but it's really hard to watch the great details and read the text too. I hope you will consider narrating!
Hello Metal Matters, I saw a bit closer those professional machines and how they work, laser is directed with mirrors, exactly as disco dancing lasers do, more power obviously and I think smaller spots whyle it makes a pattern as chess for no overheating. Great project though. I really ejoy it growing
WOW!! You are the cutting edge keep it up!!
Amazing work. Think about scanning system with mirrors for laser. Admire your consistency and scientific approach.
awesome, looking forward to see you succeed
Wow.. Very nicely done. Been following your progress. Very methodical. Love the approach.
Woah this is so cool, can't wait to see the next steps!
Have you considered an "0" drive and brushless motor? Lighter, smoother and more powerful than a stepper motor. Love how you're approaching this like an engineer
No I hadn't. I would like to keep cost down where I can but I may actually have a use for that. Cheers!
your persistent some day will paid off, well done
Fantastic !..I will be keeping an eye on this ...cheers.
Your setup is really very impressive
did you try pre adding fine limestone powder to the metal as its flux to assist localised fusing/flowing, and using half line steps (as in move only half the thickness of a given single laser metal line) per pass
fascinating... love the problem solving.
Nice job man! I've started my first 3D prints with homebrew FDM machines the same way and same results ;-) And look at brands like Prusa right now! So a can't wait! This is going to be a new hit!
Very under-rated channel. Btw, great work!
Go with spiral outward, or preheat with lower laser setting to achieve equilibrium
Did you see the lecture where they built a metal 3d printer inside an xray machine so they could see how the powder melted underneath?
Very very interesting.
www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03734-7 ?
I've never tested it, but grblHAL firmware (as well as its ancestor GRBL) has so called laser mode, which enables constant power per traveled distance. so when you change direction or have to go slower for some reason you will not get too hot.
Великолепно. Талантливые люди двигают прогресс.
Hey eveyone. Just to address a few reoccurring comments:
#1 What kind of laser is it? - A NUBM31
#2 You should use a chamber - That'll be in the next video.
#3 The roller needs to counter rotate - I'm aware. I wanted to include that functionality while integrating it into the bed but was concerned about how cumbersome the bed itself is becoming, the effect of fan out, and the fact I had more success without it in my previous design. I think I've struck good middle ground in the meantime but will explore it when refining the design or earlier if need be.
Is there a way to donate? I’d love to see this take off enough to become a literal product
Not at the moment, I don't want to incur any obligation but appreciate your generosity. Turning something like this into a turn key product is extremely expensive due to the hazardous nature of it, requiring extensive certification and in turn large capital to make it possible. I would like to support this as a finished product only in discrete components ( powder bed, scanner, electronics hardware etc), negating the expensive overheads to keep costs reasonable .
@@metalmatters
Would love to see this as a "kit" with everything but the laser to save you from the liability concern. You might be able to team up with the guy from MPCNC. He runs a nice business so if you weren't interested in that part you might be able to work out distribution with him.
Create a patreon so we can all chip in some extra cash.
Very nice initiative and project!
Subscribed. Thank you for your work. Metal 3d printing at home will be possible. BTW have you considered using mirrors to direct the laser? Or optic fiber to translate the laser to a lighter setup, eliminating the wobble due to weight.
My first time here. Audio comments would be nice especially for non-English people. Otherwise awesome, subscribing.
Cool stuff! Could you allow more reading time of your text message? I find I have to pause to read the entire message and I don't think anyone would mind if the video became two minutes longer.
cheers,
m
I'll try and make them longer next time around : )
Keep up the good work !
Great work! It looks so clean too!!!
Have you considered using SLS instead of SLM? I'm not sure what your goals are for this project but SLS should reduce most of the issues you're having with surface tension, warping and porosity.
Dude!! You are awesome!!! Keep up the good work :) :)
Good Work man, more steps and you will get it, Keep going 👍
You could try a galvo system to eliminate all the vibrations, perhaps you'll get even better results then let your gas flow through an open ring and let the laser shoot through the ring
I believe stir friction, like stir friction wielding is the future of metal 3D fabrication... treat it like putty.
Keep up the great work man, printing with Metal Matters!