The End Of Metal Tracks - DIY Metal 3D Printing
Вставка
- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- Development of a DIY metal 3D printer, printing 316 stainless steel.
This project aims to establish a cost effective opensource metal 3d printing platform. Subscribe for future developments & announcements.
Forum: www.metalmatters.co
BMAC: www.buymeacoffee.com/metalmatters
Artwork/Music:
HOME - Puzzle
/ home-2001
Papers referenced:
"Effects of sulfur concentration and Marangoni convection on melt-pool formation in transition mode of selective laser melting process"
www.sciencedir...
"A Computational Model of Melt Pool Morphology for Selective Laser Melting"
www.researchga...
"CALCULATION OF THE FOCAL LENGTH OF A TWO-LENS SYSTEM - AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENT"
www.researchga...
When people ask why I exclusively watch UA-cam instead of other streaming services, videos like these are great examples of why. Very interesting project, instant sub
Same, glad that I'm not the only one 👍
Same. I subbed as well xD
Only UA-cam videos? No other certain sites that are a ‘hub’ of videos
@@jabatheshort660 He said exclusively, not only YT 😅
I feel this very hard
Silly thought - would it possible to first run the laser out of focus over the printed region to partially sinter it to combat the powder being dragged in to the melt pool?
I second this thought. General Electric uses this strategy with their metal printers…
@@atari7001 Yes but those are electron beam melting machine, not laser melting machines, they have huge magnetic effect on the powder and thus needs this pre sintering. Denudation (removal of powder due to gas displacement) is inherent to this laser process. Process parameter have to be fine tune to minimise it, but it will always be here. I would suggest to go faster, limiting the heat applied to the melt pool and thus evaporation of material causing this powder suction
👍👍👍
That is metal 🎸🎸🤘
You need to make the machine as rigid as a horzontal milling machine....any movement in the frame will show in the final part as you saw with the test print when the machine got rowdy 😂
Is this a pulsating laser?
No
This is clearly a very excruciating project with all of the debugging and failures. I commend you for sticking with it.
So glad you have kept going with this mate. Well done.
Hello, I am extremely impressed with your progress. I have done a lot of research and postulating on these systems so I Was thinking maybe I could help or clarify somethings. SLS Printers don't actually melt the material they sinter it. This is better because as you can see the pooling and controlling of the molten materials is quiet an issue. The SLS machine also have heated chambers. The reason for this is so that the exposure to the laser is incredibly short and cause the particles to bond to each other. So I think you have done phenomenal work but that might be the two areas that might be an issue. I really hope you come right :) Another thing, the scraper should be extremely flat material that cannot generate a static charge, perhaps like a gauge plate edge?
I can't elaborate because I am NDA'd out of my mind. however, love your project and determination. a suggestion and associated considerations. Try enclosing your machine/workspace, and pressurize it with helium. Why? Considerations. 1 - Typical commercial Laser powder bed fusion use argon atmosphere to reduce oxides and improve porosity etc. but 2 - the plume (thermal laser plasma, metal powder interaction) results in denudation in front and around melt pool - to reduce melt powder denudation as laser moves, a pressurized atmosphere is desired to mitigate/reduce plume size hence reducing powder denudation beside laser trace. 3 - argon at 5bar produces plasma due to fibre laser interaction with stainless build plate and plasma increases plume denudation because thermal increase and reflections, helium does not produce this plasma, yet reduces denudation due to increased surrounding pressure, at 5bar you will achieve 99% porosity
Thanks for the feedback. Helium isn't getting any cheaper though :/
@@metalmatters that is true. The trick i have found is to pressurize the build area. But pressurized air has oxidation issues. Pressurized Argon has plasma/denudation issues. If the stars ever allign, give helium at 5bar a try.
In the long run, this may be cheaper anyway since assuming you obtain 99% porosity, your control algorithm for z height control becomes manageable/predictable - this is crucial and is increasingly crucial for each additional layer. Either way, keep on keeping on! Love your work!
Might I ask u guys both where I could learn/read more about this stuff? Where I’m from nobody is working on this stuff and I really wanna learn more about it
@@ltpetsema876 Research papers mainly. Some are free, some are not. I've posted a few here: metalmatters.co/forumdisplay.php?fid=25 I'll post a few more up there soon.
When using helium, you may need to reduce laser power or increase travel speed as helium allows for greater energy efficiency. Also should be able to utilize mix of argon/helium. Not sure what ratio woul be best for this application but 75/25 argon/helium works very well for tig welding stainless while 25/75 works better for welding aluminum. Hope this helps. Cheers.
Have you tried pulsating the laser power? Like 70% half power, 30% max power? The idea is to heat up the material without melting it and when, locally, the material is hot enough to fuse with out sputtering you increase laser output to melt that spot and throttle it down fast so it can cool off. Sort of like tig welding.
Great point, if I'm remembering correctly, EOS uses a similar technique, as well as a heated build chamber.
@johnjagger jack
I have pulsed laser . Gets similar results. But trying to get better results.
@@additivealex4566 Yea it's true .Do you use Eos ?
@@manthanpatel45 yeah I have some experience using two different EOS machines.
@@additivealex4566 Do you own machine or operating machine?
how about doing this in a vacuum environment? I think it may help get rid of molten metal getting spit everywhere caused by thermal expansion of air.
I imagine that would cause issues with heat dissipation.
I agree....those look like kind of messy weld beads with spatter.Some sort of argon or other type of welding gas flow might smooth the depositions right out.
great progress! 👏😎 wonderful job!
If you have trouble with droplets at the start and end of tracks due to acceleration, why not separate the acceleration from the start of the track? As in: start moving, get up to speed, and only then turn on the laser. That would decrease the working surface, but might help.
Sounds like a good solution. A more permanent solution that might work would be controlling laser power based on velocity
I was just thinking you could just design the gantry to have counterweights on both sides to eliminate backlash.
@@gobble_gang Backlash is caused by the driven nut having play on the lead screw. There's way to minimise this, usually involving using two nuts, or by using a controller that takes backlash into account.
Five years from now we'll be buying an Elegoo or Creality version on Amazon for $169 on Black Friday, lads. All thanks to this clever fellow.
That would be awesome. Be able to make custom brackets, fixtures, and other devices that are hard to acquire will be game changing.
Looking forward to that closed loop control!! This is improving at a wild pace man
You're pioneering the metal 3D printing movement dude. You might be the next Josef Prusa.
Uh
What an amazing project! This machine you have developed in incredibly impressive! I really hope you keep going with this project and keep developing it further 😁
2:56 if the plastic swipe care still proves too stiff you might try car window wipers for the rain, think about how they just glide over ice not losing anything at all. and because they come from any where they should be cheap and easy to replace.
Car window wipers may have too soft rubber/silicon which scoops too much of the powder. The material is pretty strong otherwise.
Wow. Open source is a divine gift to humanity. You know why. Thank you. Can't wait.
Sorry if this has been covered in another episode of this project, but I was really really wondering why you're not using a galvanometer solution instead of a large platform X/Y gantry set up which is inherently very sloppy when it moves? Is it a cost issue? As a galvanometer set up could be quite useful in this instance due to the fact that many of them are already permanently sealed against atmosphere. My apologies if this has been covered in a different episode. Excellent work my friend!
Makes me wonder how this setup would run under vacuum with perhaps maybe the slightest amount of helium added. But most likely it lead to the formation of plasma which would be quite destructive when it comes to accurate and precise tracks. Perhaps maybe this would be better solved under find thin layer of some sort of liquid solution that has incredible heat tolerance? Who knows. Love your work man!
Hi Robert. Have a look on my shorts page. I have switched over to galvos, but yes, cost and complexity are significant factors.
There are a number of papers dedicated to LPBF using a vacuum. Worth having a look if you are genuinely curious.
Look into micro WAAM, I think you will very much like what you find!
I think you could eliminate a lot of issues with a galvo scanner 😊
You and I both
2:47 When u notice, that this guy has never heard of Wall Street... :-)
This is awesome!
I'd suggest writing to some companies that make metal powders if you haven't already, I'm sure you can find one that would want to sponsor the development of a diy sls printer, at least with some powder
Unlikely. Most of the SLS methods used for that are patented still.
No one I'm aware of in the industry has cracked dimensionally-perfect additively-manufactured metal parts. CNC giants like DMG Mori or Hermle "solved" the problem by sticking additive metal systems inside 5-axis CNC mill-turn machining centers. Folks need to accept that additive manufacturing is much like traditional casting, it'll get you close to the desired shape, but tight tolerances will always require machining.
Excellent results so far! Many variables to control and tune.
What about microwave asisted sintering? i.e. if you have roughly equal powder sizes, you can use a microwave cavity to bring them to their (size dependent) critical temperature, then you don't need that much power in the laser, and you will not suffer from turbulent effects (i.e. domain wall will be less pronounced)
Not sure I'm game enough to add a microwave into the mix. Preheating via defocused scanning might be a solution though
I just know that you will nail this bad boy at some point... love this project !!
8:39 Use a kitchen-blender, used for making smoothies and crushed ice. It makes powder so fine, that you have to keep its lid closed for a while when ready, or a cloud of fine dust will fill the room.
Sorry for the interruption....But who else is SICK of seat geek commercials?!!?!
Never saw this project before... Cool!
Wow that's a lot of work! Optics are a pain in the ass!!! Got a blue 80 watt laser array from a projector- been battling to focus it for my cnc ( tried 60×15 mm biconvex tried a 60×35mm convex but can't get it to cut 1mm steel... I can get it to melt the surface of a Stanley blade and make the whole blade red hot but I can't get it to cut. I have got a 5watt blue module which can cut 15mm wood and engrave steel-slowly(it has a .03mm focal point- apparently it has a FAC lens ) so I assume it would be possible to cut steel with 80w.
Tnx for this new video.
Good progress!
the thick spots at the start and end of metal tracks can be controlled by "skywriting" laser scan strategy in which laser start/stop emitting only when it achieves certain acceleration. However, the work you have done is still amazing and applicable, and truly speaking impossible for 1 man team.
Might I suggest looking at Hitachi CPM White #1 steel. It is an extremely pure steel with sulfur and phosphorus content at .25% or lower. It is just iron and carbon. It is in powder form. It could be one less variable for you to deal with in that the material is very chemically uniform and it could be simpler to calculate how it will respond to heat. Japanese master smiths use it to make blades that can take an edge like no other. I own several Japanese knives. The White #1 blade has an edge that will cut your name in two.
Amazing work! Try Self-Created Metal Composites. It’s much more easier, cheaper and far more powerful ;)
This is the coolest project i've ever seen. A homemade metal 3d printer... Incredible
Nice project man, maybe activating the láser while machine is running or controlling initial power would help you eliminate the start and finish melt accumulation.
Very interesting project something I posibilty going to build, But I am teacher in welding and specality micro plasma welding, and I see some things in your video that give you problems in the quality of the welding for to build up you material. But the first thing I gone say to you is stainless steel you have to know that you have to protect your self for lung cancer and special whit the metal pouder. And when you heat it up there wil com nikkel and chroom free so always see that you have a good ventilation and where a mouth mask. So if you gone melt stainless steel you need always a protection gas for not get carbids in you welding and this give problems to build up the next layers. So Agron is the most intresting gas to use , but I use in the welding of stainless steel Argon whit 5% H2 but the problem is that it gone bun in you project but the H2 will bind whit the O2 and you get les carbids in you welding. But you have be sure that the box where in the process is busy is 100%argon so you have to have a contstain flow of argon gas or tot set the box under over presseur. So for to start and the end of the welding line you have to play whit the power of your laser and also whit the end of the line it call filling the crater. If you know a good Tig welding in you region ask him for some information. One of thee major problems is the stabilty of you machine I see it schaking when you build the layers. I don't know what size you like to print, but did you ever have think to use galvano mirrors. you gone have less problems whit the scheaking of your machine but you laser spot will change. My advice build a solid machine construction whit whieght and special if you gone work whit high speed to start and stop ends. And make sure that it is 100% under a argon are helium atmosfeeer.
Can you adjust the focus/distance of the laser during acceleration, I don't know how this would work in practise but it may be worth exploring.
Should be easy enough to make a ball mill to further process that sintering powder in the future, and maybe throw a little touch of borax in there to act as a flux? Seems like an interesting project, but a heck of a thing to troubleshoot too. But I suppose that's why the commercial machines in that category of 3D printing cost more than a new car.
This project is so cool , the prospect of consumer metal printing in the future is unbelievable
Consumer metal printing is never going to be a thing because the government will step in.
@@Shrouded_reaper Why?
You think they will let the populace have access to technology that let's them print a machine gun in their house?....
@@Shrouded_reaper It's harder to make a gun with that than with existing tech: there's already 3D printed designs in plastic of guns that only requires a few, easy to source, metal parts to complete. Also, all of them require ammo which you can not 3D print.
@@DiThi Is it harder now? Yes, that's the point, because it won't be in the future. Is injection molding still easier to do at home than making a plastic object from a 3d printer? Plastic guns require metal components still and are not proper weapons capable of taking rifle cartridges and lack rifled barrels. Every one you see is a 9mm platform, not a threat to government goons in level 4 plate. And yes you can make your own ammo at home with a cheap press, very easily.
Happy to see the progress!
Is this likely to be viable for aluminum printing as well?
I know it has a very narrow working/melt range.
I won't be pursuing it. I think you'll need a substantially higher power density to offset the lower absorption.
aluminium is much much harder to work with compared to steel.
looks interesting but does not do what I would want. I build model airplanes and would need a cutting area of 6" x 24" yet never see anything close to that.
How about you try skywriting where you are already moving the head and then just Turn on of off the laser? That could remove the balling at the ends of the tracks
Stupid idea probably but why not just feed steel wire through an extrusion printer and focus a laser on the tip? Ceramic print tip of course.
Add a chamber around the burn plate and fill it with argon...most your splatter will go away and your edge will be much finer. A titanium roller barrel instead of wiper blade.
if you get a tank and regulator and displace the oxygen in the printer with nitrogen or something (you can buy this from norco or a welding shop) your lines might look nicer
Hi, @MetalMatter great video. What effects would you expect if you were able to change pressure as a parameter? For example, if this system were located in a pressure chamber, then how would varying pressure affect the expected outcome? Also, since it's a finely packed powder you could use the tip of a syringe mounted on the head to carve a canal into the powder's surface that will be filled in once the powder on either side of the canal melts pouring itself back inside the canal. In essence, the canal creates a greater surface area, which alters the dynamics of the reaction. Alternatively, maybe using a different gas in the atmopshere of the melting. My naive guess is that the liquid turn to vapor and causes the bubble to pop and splatter the metal.
I can't say that I understand half the terms, but I do enjoy trying to follow along :)
Does the laser need to be CW or can you use a q-switched pulse laser? Just thinking of styropyro's tattoo removal laser.
Continuous wave lasers make the welding process similar to existing welding processes. Pulse lasers open up a whole new can of worms when it comes to consistency of each vector in the raster pattern. There is a company called seurat technologies working on making the use of pulse lasers an advantage rather than a disadvantage. But again. There is a huge can of worms there to sort through.
I love following your project, thanks for posting
you should try lowering the laser power near the end of the line travel to reduce heat build up and raised blobs.
it would be similar to linear advance controlling filament pressure in a nozzle.
Part of the code could limit output of the laser to the *actual* speed, compensating for the acceleration issue. Additionally, the code could have a slight pause between telling the servos to move and telling the laser to turn on. That little buffer will allow the head to get up to speed or slow down. Downside is reducing the effective print area
@@sgullage I like this method more. Honestly, the closer you can get to actual temperature to target temp you can make it the better. It might even be worth it on larger builds to have passes being near more recent passes to compensate for residual heat.
Is this system using Marlin, Klipper or other open source movement controller? The code for Pressure Advance / Linear Advance in them is open source too, and could probably be used to control the laser intensity and speed/acceleration of the system based on a couple of variables.
If you are not already doing so, an Argon gas envelope would help as it does in TIG welding.
Im pretty sure you need an argon atmosphere inside the printer to improve spatter and weld quality?
I think your slow switching times are due to your power supply. The actual laser junction should be able to turn on and off in micro-seconds and modulate in nano-seconds. (fastest turn on will happen if you idle the laser diode sub-threshold before applying full current) You'll want to get a cheap "test dummy" laser for testing, but you could get real gains in power controllability if you leave the bench supply on continuously, and use a custom circuit to regulate the laser current. The simplest and safest is probably a parallel shunt regulator to steal current from the laser when you want to reduce power output.
Can these diodes be modulated in power easily?
If the power can be adjusted contnously then it shouldnt be too hard to take in to account the acceleration and start/end and make a function that calculates the power output to ensure the same laserpower gets dumped in every mm. Otherwise PWM?
If you want to go ham it should be possible to make a program that takes 3D printer gcode and calculates laser output power for the whole file based on the movement speed at each moment. So you could use a normal slicer for a file then just run it through the described program and get metal laser gcode.
@@scifactorial5802 Don't need to do that much work. The 3D printing slicer already does all this. Just need a circuit to translate extruder steps to laser pulses.
@@martylawson1638 Very good point, I don't know how I missed that.
Less than 1min in to your video and I love your humourous presentations style!! Slapped that sub button hard
wowee great work!
There are a few guys that have put together their own CMM using epoxy and sand/granite/special concrete for the base to reduce vibration. Cheap, just need molds. Might be worth establishing your machine and then fiddling with optics, speeds, etc
For a wiper, look at screen printers. They use a very durable polyurethane wiper. Readily available.
Also it looks like you don't have an enclosed cabinet, you need to do that and remove all the oxygen, replace it with a heavier gas. Perhaps argon.... I was a welder and I know we use a trace of helium in there when tig welding.
You cannot have oxygen present. Haven't watched it all, but how do you weld metals together in that atmosphere?
That doesn't make any sense.
Unless you're trying to make Slag.
Thanks for the insight. The black plastic container is sealed and purged with argon.
so rat rigs for meatal 3D printing nice if i had the $$ id invest/donate
Fascinating! Thank you for posting this video.
1 step closer to hobbyists metal 3D printing!!!
lol i work for henkel, to bad we dont make that adhesive at our plant
I have no idea whats going on but Im still watching...
Cheers to you! I use old gift cards everything!
This is all well and good, but what we all want to see is a benchy!!
Use Argon gas while welding layers, it will help you a lot.
That little puff of smoke at the end of the fiber can be the most disheartening thing in the world.
I feel for you! On the plus side….. in my case it’s always uncovered my unknown ability for cursing.
You’re really kicking some ass with this. I just found your channel, and It’s really impressive. It really is a new golden age for lasers, photonics, and equipment available to the home workshop DIY crowd! I think that’s wonderful.
There are several ways to mitigate the fiber issues and guarantee immediate shut down before thermal runaway.
But it might be a bit too finicky in your situation. All of my fiber laser fun is usually done on an optical breadboard, but you’re really fighting in the trenches with all of that quick movement, And unique mounting. Sadly my experience does not stretch that far. So I would be a bit shy to suggest anything.
But you’re really on a roll, and this is some of the best photonics/laser stuff I’ve seen on UA-cam in a long time.
Marco reps, breaking taps, Les’s lab, and zenodilodon….. they all have some insane and helpful laser content on their channels.
I’m sure you’re aware of them but I thought I would leave them here just in case.
It’s like heaven on UA-cam these days for REAL laser and photonics content. I never cared much for the balloon popping/burning laser pointer videos, but I love to see the science and stuff like this!
Good luck! 👍🤘
Thanks!
Hi friend. You might to consider an laminar air flow across the powder bed. Looks like there is significant amount of spatter around ur scanned tracks. Metal vaporises under laser and condense when it hit the cold air. Those metal condensates attenuate your laser beam and by removing them with a laminar air flow, the melt will be much more consistent. The air flow ought to flow into a HEPA filter tho..
Great Video...... more of this please❗ The topic of DIY Metal 3D printing is becoming more and more important❗👍
Instead of controlling the power supply you could bypass the current by shorting the powersupply. Add a MOSFET in parallel to the laser and turn it on when you want the laser to be off. This way the current in the power supply is always flowing(should help with ramp up) and you can stop the laser very fast since a MOSFET turns on in nanoseconds.
Inductance/overshoot will kill the diode block if the rise/fall times are too short. At the moment it is slower than it could be, erring on the side of caution.
I can supply you with an optical diamond window to protect your optics if you think it’ll help. It’s what’s used in commercial systems rated for many kW. Diamond is used due to extremely high thermal conductivity and durability. Overkill for your application but it’s the best you can use
Appreciate that. I'm not sure that is quite the answer to my problems but will keep that in mind.
I thought about pursuing a home brew metal printer a few years ago. It's awesome to have found someone that actually did.
What if you passed a grinder over the surface after sintering, but before adding the next layer of powder? That would help to simplify the deposition and also improve the dimensional accuracy and keep one little screw-up from scrapping an entire print.
Insitu? Keeping the powder clean and stopping powder from being blown around would be quite challenging.
I'm amazed by your work. Really. I have a (potentially stupid) question : as a fibre laser is able to deeply and precisely engrave metals while beeing static, could it solve most of your laser issues ?
I _think_ so. I'm just not sure how powdered SS316 will interact at 50W/1mJ with a 100-150ns pulse duration. I'd like to see it done before committing to it.
I hope that you have a decent fire insurance ;-)
I would add mass to the machine base. It appears you have a lot of gantry sway going on e which is going to effect your focal point. Another thing to consider is the machine may not be reaching your specified speeds. The distances travelled are shorter than the acceleration the machine is capable of. It would also be best to eliminate any sharp turns the machine has to make. Radii help prevent the machine having to stop and then accelerating on another access. The bigger the radius the longer the machine has time to accelerate the new axis motion up to speed.
Is it possible to cool the printing surface? Perhaps with a bunch of TEC modules placed below the print chamber?
TECs are pretty inefficient. Watercooling would be the way to go I think.
This is so impressive!
Ah, neat Perun is also into 3d printing.
Very cool, but curious why you didn't use ASA for all FFF polymer parts. Green and silver looks like PLA to me.
Mainly to avoid headaches. The build plate is to be cooled (50C) so there is little chance of softening the base of the deck and I will reprint/line the arms if need be.
Sorry for my word but holy shit this is amazing
I think a galvanometer scanner would be helpful to get rid of the gasket. Plus you can move and accelerate your beam way faster. Or would this destroy the point of the whole thing?
Likewise. Just a matter of cost really. $7-800 for large aperture galvos, $500+ for bespoke mirrors, plus the initial outlay for the diode pump/PSU. May as well go for a fiber laser at that point.
What about ebeam welding a thin filament? Sure, ebeams need a vacuum chamber, so that might be impractical
I believe an Ebeam based system produces x-rays and relies on a pretty high order of vacuum. Possible but not practical, at least for me.
I wonder if your current progress would work better if you built an enclosed chamber that vacuums out air and fills it with noble gases, when done vacuuming back noble gases and letting in air.
It's quite possible things will move in this direction
Just wondering, but would doing this laser sintering under a noble atmosphere help at all? I only ask because the "spattering" around the sintered lines look reminiscent of a contaminated weld.
It's operating in an inert atmosphere, just not a very good one. I usually let get down to around 0.1 - 0.2% oxygen before running anything but shooting for a lower percentage results in an exponential consumption of argon.
Cool project. Are you’using a nitrogen generator?
Greetings from someone on the commercial side of metal printing equipment development
No, Argon currently. I've definitely considered switching over to nitrogen for the sake of that option, for the cheaper gas if anything. I will have to rebuild the enclosure before it's an option unfortunately.
Hi, it's quite the interesting project. I just found your videos and so I don't know if I am suggesting ideas you might have tried already. I've seen a couple of other projects for metal printers and at least one of them had heated the metal powder fairly high in temperature but not to melting. The laser was to push the temperature over the melting point for the areas that were to be printed.
From the video it appears that the system runs a beam along the path to fuse the metal powder to create a line. Would it work differently if instead of a continuous beam the system fired a series of the shortest possible pulses. If the spacing was close enough it would create a line. Perhaps it would need multiple passes, depending on how fast the system is able to fire pulses. For example, it might create a series of dots close together one the first pass and then on the second it would connect the dots up.
A third idea is that perhaps the spread is being caused by the material being heated up so quickly. What if the laser were to make a number of passes with the last pass being at 100%, the power just above the amount to melt the material. Some experimentation with the number of passes and any pauses between the passes would be needed to see if it impacts printing at all. If it did work it would slow down printing but at a gain in quality.
Nice work! Sadly I could not afford to spend this much time on such an interesting project - and of course it would take me way way longer to get to where you are now. I wish you luck, maybe one day I will try to replicate your project. (one can dream).
Our physics professor told us about the laser-acceleration issue once. Aparently the trick is to accelerate first and then turn on the laser, then turn it off before decelerating. Maybe a toolpath for lasering a square could look like the weird hastag sign on an apple keyboard?
Other than that, the work you do is absolutely amazing, you might very well become the one to make metal 3d printing available to normal people!
I nearly tried implementing a ramp but I think I will pursue an opto-mechanical switch instead. If I can run the laser at full power and modulate heat input that way, I think I will stand a better chance of preventing excess heat drawing in adjacent powder.
@@metalmatters keeping the laser at a constant power sounds like the right thing to do, even if you COULD match the ramp to the acceleration of the motor you just showed that you cant compensate power by going slower.
Im not 100% sure what you mean with modulating, are we talking a PWM approach?
In commercial scanners a run in an out path is provided to let the galvo’'s get up to speed
Hey dude ;) waiting for the next video 😅
Things are still transpiring. I have some footage but it's not there yet. I haven't forgotten : )
@@metalmatters if you need a donation pls let me know via DM. Your project helps me to skip the failure process you have to make and start with bigger knowledge
@@metalmatters I check back every couple weeks hoping for an update. Glad to hear you're still working on it.
Regarding the fiber end and how you noted the original connector was open ended, this is likely using an air gapped ferrule. This will mount a cleaved fiber so it has an optical face but will not have any epoxy near the end face. For any high power application this is usually preferred since it reduces the risk of epoxy related thermal damage/thermal runaway. Using a standard connectors thats polished with epoxy mounting the fiber in connector up to the end face runs higher risk of damage.
Keep going man your work is impressive. This must have taken a ton of effort.
I've just found this and I've gotta say that it is fascinating! I'm definitely going to be following this project closely.
What a crazy video that took a lot of effort
Awesome video, great to see you're back at it! In your travels have you found any literature regarding what limits the size of the build area for a single laser LPBF printer?
Not explicitly. I think internal stresses/warping and how well you can model them will determine your limits.
how come you don't use a galvo, it would get rid of any shaking, put less strain on the parts, plus there way faster
Watch the previous video
No entiendo mucho el ingles... pero hiciste las pruebas en micro atmosfera con un gas inerte ?. Interesante proyecto saludos desde Argentina
Sí, usé Argon para una atmósfera inerte. ¡Gracias!
great video!