Is it possible to produce 3D printed optical lenses with a 3D printed lens grinding machine?
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- In this video I show how to produce 3D printed optical lenses in relatively good quality. I have designed and built a 3D printed lens grinding and polishing machine. With this machine it is possible to grind and polish 3D printed optical lenses precisely. I show some experiments to find out the focal point. I measure the transparency of the lenses with an Arduino and a photoresistor and build a simple magnifying glass. With the lenses it is possible to build simple telescopes, magnifying glasses or many other optical devices.
I show all experiments and exact details about the production of optical lenses on my website: fraensengineer...
If you would like to carry out optical experiments yourself, you can download the files here: www.etsy.com/a...
or here: cults3d.com/de...
Here you can see how you can make timelapse videos with your smartphone: fraensengineer...
If you are interested in a powerful printer, you can get a great price for the Bambu Lab A1 and support my work at the same time: shareasale.com...
You are amazing! Keep up the development of this process please we are all fascinated! I will be here for every single lens video, so cool! Much love!
Thank you very much for the nice comment ;-)
The only thing I could suggest, is perhaps have a ruler on the 80/20, and a acrylic window with the centerline at the base of the lens and black cover, when you are measuring their focal length. Just seems a bit more accurate and professional. Otherwise, this is genius! And you've just created something as one of a kind. You are definitely really good with lenses! ^^
Many thanks for the tip and the nice comment.
I really want to see another version of this video where you deep dive into every detail. This was too short and skipped over many important steps.
Hi, for more details you can check out my website. I have discussed some points in more detail here: fraensengineering.com/how-to-create-3d-printed-optical-lenses-with-a-3d-printed-lens-grinding-machine/
For the clear coat you can try diluting 2k paint with urethanr thinner and use a dropper on a fast spinning lens like hiw they add the mask on silicon circles in chip fabs. Maybe even uncured resin would work but might be too viscous.
Good idea!
Real photoresist used in silicon fabs is very viscous. Probably moreso than resin. You just have to spin it faster/longer
Spin coat machine. I work for a manufacturer in one of their labs
Wow another beautiful machin3 ❤🙏 thank you! This is also close to polishing (cd/dvd) discs right?
I like the idea. I will try it out to see if it works. I have some old CDs lying around in the cellar. What product or cloth should I use to do this?
Excited 8) im not sure, the local "gamestop" here has a machine that i think removes a little layer to get rid off scratches, so i dont know if its a sand then polish process. Also the lens project is really cool and has lots of use cases ❤
Is the grinding tool just pressing the draft lens in the rubber, or does it also needs a special curvation to grind on the right points of the lens? Seems such a practical coincidence that they fit, while in optics everything is so complicated.
The basic principle of lens grinding is relatively simple. It's all about the undefined movement. take a look at how lenses are made in India ;-)
Bravo! You are an innovator. Do you have plans for making a video about creating telescope lenses?
Hi, I'm not going to make any lenses at the moment. I'm currently developing another project. A fully 3D printed telescope would be a nice project. I will add this to my collection of ideas.
What do you call the metal bar with the convex end at 4:47 seconds in the video?
Good question! I would say grinding block pivot bearing linkage ;-)
How didnyou calculate the distance kof top plate from the center? From what i gather - it has infulence of convexity/concavity of lense?
I don't quite understand what you mean.
Wow that's very impressive ! How do you plan to use thoses lens ?
I don't have an idea yet. But I'm sure I'll need a lens for some kind of project.
@@FraensEngineering haha you are so awesome for creating such a complex assy just for the sake of making lens !
Could something like this work for 1/2" diameter lenses?
It could work with a small polishing mold. In any case, the eccentricity can be set so small.
What's the biggest lens you can make with a focal length very short. I'm working on a project and need to focus ambient light into the ends of .75mm diameter fiber optic. And it has to be wearable, so sub inch focal length. Stacking lenses is absolutely fine
I'm not sure if 3D printed lenses meet your requirements.
Sub inch focal length is extremely difficult. That would mean 40dpt or more. Even in an industrial setting that's extremely difficult,, let alone DIY. And you also need the lens with a extremely high quality to get that narrow focal point, so you need aspherical lenses that can not be produced in this process. Can you use mirrors to lengthen the focal length?
Is it possible to make your own glasses? Can the focal length/size of lens you have work for the spectrum of focal lengths that people need when they buy glasses?
I think that could be difficult because glasses are not round. Maybe Harry Potter glasses ;-)
I was wondering if you could DIY your own prescription glasses and bypass the expensive glasses industry. Frames are usually so expensive, more than the lenses! We could surely 3D the frames. Now you've shown its possible to custom make lenses.@@FraensEngineering
I think the quality of the lenses should be much higher for spectacles. But you could grind lenses from acrylic glass. Some ideas have already been put forward here to increase the quality.
I think the quality of the lenses should be much higher for spectacles. But you could grind lenses from acrylic glass. Some ideas have already been put forward here to increase the quality.
@@kennethmui88 He´s from Germany... He gets, like any other, his glasses for free...
OK. Time for a stupid question. I don't understand why you are 3d printing the lenses. As you stated in your website, the layers curing line by line in SLA resin printers causes imperfections internally in the lenses, resulting in poor quality lenses. No matter how well you grind the outside surface, the internal imperfections would limit the usefulness of the lens.
I mean there are shops online selling eyeglasses for $5 a pair, inclusive of the frames. Sometimes, when they are on sale, you can get2 for $7. These are 2 glass lenses + frames. Perhaps you could get the uncut optical blanks? These are quite large, and you don't even need the frames.
Alternative, print the mould instead of the lens. Pour the resin in, and cure them all in one go. And you have no internal layer lines! The simplest would produce plano convex lenses, but perhaps that would work.
Hi, all very good ideas. I wanted to explore what is possible with this project. I couldn't see any internal structures by eye. The material seems to be relatively homogeneous. I think this is because the UV light shines through the transparent resin and exposes the layers above it again. Lenses of better quality can certainly be produced with a mold. With the machine it would also be possible to polish raw lenses for your own needs. All in all, the project was a success for me. Someone had to test how far you can go ;-)
Now all you need is to 3d print a Leica lol
I was just thinking this last week!
Haha v funny.. there's so much more to the optics than just the shape.
Not the least are the coatings
@@acasccseea4434 You know that lenses were being used for photography for quite a while before coatings, right?
@acasccseea4434 Coatings do nothing but protect the out element and decrease internal reflections. The magic happens in the glass itself and the shape of the glass.
Amazing project, I look forward to seeing what new developments and projects you come up with
The next project will take some time, but I already have a rough idea of it.
Just saw this in a mosfet video then came here beautiful work @FraensEngineering this opens up a lot of possibilities love it
Your basically a keystone engineer for diy development
Very interesting work. Opening up the idea of people being able to produce their own lens at home is very interesting, something I hadn’t considered.
Great work sir
Thank you very much ☺️
The runout on the lens holder is way too high for this application and I think that impacted the image quality of the finished result. Incredible work though.
"Runout" means the vertical axis on which the lens is mounted for polishing is wobbling about:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-out
I wonder if 3D printing and polishing a mold and then casting in a better suited material and then polishing again would yield even better results. It might also allow quicker production times for small series of lenses of the same size. (For one-offs obviously not.)
That's a good idea. Above all, the lens would then be much more homogeneous than 3d printed.
Need glasses, build your own :)
would be interesting to see if this could be evolved to make VR lenses
Making a large DIY telescope mirror using a similar method would be highly useful and time-saving.
Those mirrors have the metal on the front surface, and there's videos on using microwave parts to turn a metal sheet in to a plasma to coat the surfaces of 3D printed parts.....
Mirrors are not made the same way lenses are.
This is among the best build on UA-cam.but out of curiosity I want to ask very stupid questions which is how long this resins glass will remain white or will not get yellow coz I want to print the crystal out of it but have no idea how well it will be during course of an year. Please advise.
Unfortunately, I have no long-term experience of this myself. I have only had my resin printer for a short time. I keep the lenses in a dark box. At the moment they are still transparent.
So the answer is yes. That's really cool. Hopefully you'll make some binoculars with them, or an old style telescope would be cool too.
Why do you only have 73k views? This is qualtiy engineering content.
😂 Yes, you're right. 73k is not bad for a channel of my size though I think. UA-cam takes time. UA-cam rates it very highly when people watch videos for a very long time. But since I don't speak in my videos, the playback time is also a bit shorter.
can this machine do only spehrical lenses? I assume aspherical lenses will slightly lose their shape in the grinding process
Hello, as far as I know, aspherical lenses are ground using CNC. I don't think it will work with this.
MOSFET says hi!
Very cool. I'm gonna try to use this technique to make some glasses for AMD. Nice music too. Thank you!
This is absolutely brilliant. Your scientific approach is worthy of applause!
German engineering is not dead! Good job! I am inspired to buy a 3D printer.
Oh trust me it is, just like the rest of Europe. We're lagging so behind in the R&D (except ASML).
Let me save your time.
No, you aint going to produce optics with 3D printing.
This is one of the greatest innovations in 3d printing. Lenses are the pinnacle of precision technology.
The joints on the linkage that creates the oscillating motion might be better off using bushings. Ball bearings are a bit of everkill and probably won't like the constantly-changing load.
You're absolutely right. Ball bearings are certainly not the best solution. However, the forces are very low. But bushings (sintered bronze or IGUS plastic bushings) would be much more backlash-free.
Hello, really nice work! I am doing a research at the university of printing free form optical components, can you help me with some doubts that i have? Thank you!
It sounds interesting what you are doing. I think they certainly have better opportunities at a university than I do at home in the basement.
Dear Fraens, I am a poor student. Is it possible that you kindly sell me the plans with a discount? 24 euro is too much for my small budget right now...
Hi, here you have a code: fraens.etsy.com/?coupon=LENSE
Not long and we can order custom build lenses :D 🙃
My brain isn’t used to seeing 3D prints produce dirt, I’m watching high tech lab equipment make plastic soil
I wonder how good are they. Maybe you should send samples to some science youtubers that deal with optics and can test them?
Good idea. I'll have a look around.
you can get better results with fdm printed petg tbh
You are epic ! Send me some , ill make you glasses :D
using belt as pulley teeth - next level genius
Gute arbeit , mach damjt irgenewas cooles wie ein großes Teleskop oder so
holy jesus chrsit make a camera lens plz :D
Now gotta 3d print actual prescription lenses
i love how the machine match the beat with the music
With flat on the bed orientation of the lens my UVprinters makes pixel pattern inside lens 🤔(visible with microscope after polishing) So i don't think it's much of a lens, but a template for silicon mold and later molding from something more suitable.
I can well imagine that. I have not checked with a microscope. An experiment with acrylic glass would be interesting. What do you think?
@@FraensEngineering depending on uv resin you've used, acrylic may be even easier to gring and polish, so why not :)
For the pitch you can substitute it using rosin (the same thing you use to solder, but in a larger block) and beeswax (just a little, for this lens i think 2g is adequate), preferably some turpentine too (1 drops for the amount you would use for this lens), to soften it, then you have to mix it to correct level of hardness.
You can always add more turpentine later, aka turning it softer. Make it harder would be more hassle than soften it when you over do the turps...
Sounds complicated ;-)
@@FraensEngineering sure is! Plus the smells... don't do it in the kitchen
Is there a reason the grinding tool needed to be made from clay instead of also being resin printed?
You could already try to print the form. When making lenses from glass, polishing pitch is used instead of clay.
put resin in a fast spinning round container, it will automatically form the desired shape for optics, then just polish both sides briefly. You should take the least viscous resin you can get away with.
10:27 Great job. But why do you hide imperfections?
I do not hide them on purpose. It's a bit difficult to film transparent objects.
I'm curious if you might do better printing a fresnel style lens that uses the layer lines instead of fighting them
Great results! that guide for mounting the lens is smart design but i'm not sure the lens is mounted true. @7:20 you can see a bit of play in the mount as it rotates. The axle doesn't seem to move out of alignment but the edges and horizontal part of the mount do. If you can get this wobble out I'll bet the visuals will be even prettier
You're not wrong. The bracket is not completely concentric. I used an aluminum shaft. My first attempts to clamp the bracket directly to the shaft with a worm screw wore it down considerably. Furthermore, the aluminum shaft does not have an H-fit. And the cheap metal flanges are not the best either. These also have some clearance to the shaft. As a result, the worm screw presses the bracket slightly to the side. These are all points that could be significantly improved with the right material, proper ball bearings and precisely fitting flanges. But it's not so bad as it is ;-)
@@FraensEngineering Photographers and scientists making custom garage optics would be badass! Reliable lenses that could be treated like disposable/consumable gear would be fun to see
That's right. However, they will not be satisfied with printed lenses.
Wonder how well this rig could handle glass elements instead of resin.
I've been waiting a long time for someone to test it ;-)
You can make a 3d printed scope!
do a follow up with this please, try polishing glass or even making a fully 3d printed microscope?
I think I need polishing pitch for glass. Plastic blanks would be interesting. I have already thought about a microscope. But that is not easy. You would have to have really perfect lenses for that
@@FraensEngineering i would recommend huygens optics and breaking taps' lens videos. they are really informational and can get you pretty close to your microscope or telescope. also i dont think i have ever seen a fully 3d printed telescope on youtube before, so it will definitely be a big thing. best of luck!
I wonder if this process would work for grinding out telescope mirrors...
Seems like a resin mirror would weigh a lot less than glass.
I'm not sure. Telescope mirrors are normally polished with other machines. But I have already thought about whether this would be possible.
@@FraensEngineeringSeems like you could print the hyperbola directly in resin then polish it out the same way you would with glass.
I think the only concern would be would the resin be able to handle the aluminum coating
Ideal would be a spheroid with optical sensors all around- and magnetic fields induction- allowing for attraction of ferromagnetic liquid with refleciton properties. Then set AI loose on the input (em-fields control) with a defined visual input, and correlated against the output. Basically shape the optical setup to the ocassion.
@@Canonfudder That was an awful lot of words to string together and not actually say anything...
@@eclipse2966 ? Why? It makes perfect sense to me. Instead of doing the thousandthst expensive synthetic copy of the human eye, lenses and everything, make instead a cheap eye from some electro-magnets and reflective ferrorfluids, that can physically shape itself to whatever situation it find itself in. Its night? Shape it to something tubular like an owl has. And if you use AI and ground-truth data, you can automate that process..
Thank god for the Germans!
Amazing! You night look into experimenting with various density resins, to see what different refraction indices they have.
que radios de curvatura se uso para tener una lente de 3D?.
Teniendo ese dato se puede calcular el índice de refracción de la resina y saber si es compatible con el sistema ocular.
si me puede pasar el dato de los radios de curvatura yo calculo el resto. Muchas gracias , Espero su respuesta
Yes, I have tried that. However, the focus points of the 3D printed lenses were difficult to predict. I think it could work well with acrylic gas.
@@FraensEngineering si me pasa los datos que necesito o el stl tengo equipos de medicion de uso optico.
poseo impresora sla, fmd, tengo una óptica con sus respectivas maquinas para realizar el control de calidad de dicho trabajo.
That's one way to make a pulley
Fantastic lens desing - first time i can see magnification lens that doesn't magnifing😂
Amazing project! Few questions (please keep in mind I could not watch with volume so I don’t know if this was mentioned in the video). I read your write up. Did you in fact use sand paper (as you say in the article) or different grit size of cerium oxide (which is typically used to grind optical lenses / mirrors)? If you switch to cerium oxide, you could add to your grind machine different hoppers/feed stocks to let different grit sizes flow onto the lens at different periods of the grinding process (automating away switching out sand paper on the grinding tool). Also, I am not familiar with “firmo” modeling clay. Is it like pitch? I’ve typically seen a pitch lap used during grinding/polishing where your press the lens or mirror blank into the pitch, bake it to harden the lens shape into it, and then use that during the final polishing phase.
Anyway, really awesome project! Would love to see you use this to make a Schmidt-Casegrain lens
Hi, sandpaper is certainly not the best way to polish lenses. However, I was amazed at how well it worked. I wanted to use pitch at first. However, I had the problem of buying pitch in a small quantity. So I thought I would use modeling clay. This is certainly not ideal either. I think that with the right procedure, a lot more could be achieved here. It would be great to try using a lens blank made of acrylic glass. Or to cast a lens with the resin and then polish it.
So I actually had an idea to resin 3D print prescription optics, and to provide that as a service for optometrists operating their own practices. Previously I had to wait a couple weeks for custom lenses to be ground for my new frames, where as resin prints could take less than 24 hours providing a massive reduction in turn around time. After talking with my optometrist he said this was actually illegal as I wasn’t license to provide such a thing, as well as it being very tricky and possibly hazardous to people eyes if I got it wrong…
Sad but true. This is the bureaucracy....
now make a Polishing for DIY Telescope mirrors! ^^
I have watched a few videos about this. Very interesting machines. But I haven't looked into it in depth yet. Maybe I'll take a closer look at it in the future.
be aware that this is a deep rabbit hole@@FraensEngineering
Maybe useful for laser lensing?
But then the lenses should be made of acrylic. 3D printed lenses have problems becoming accurate due to the layer structure.
I knew it! :D I predicted this was going to be like john dobson's mirror polishong techniques but automated ^^
Impressively clear lenses too, but I wonder if the clear coat didnt actually make them worse?
My insight as far as varnishing is concerned is that it doesn't make much sense with cleanly ground and polished lenses. In principle, however, varnishing can achieve a surface that is more attractive to the eye
@@FraensEngineering aah right that makes a lot of sense. The lenses already looked very shiny in the video, but it's probably a bit hard to tell on camera :)
wow great knowledge, can you make binoculars :D
COOL! Would it be good enough for a laser cutter lense? next question is how to self produce the mirrors? 😄 do I now finally need to buy a resin printer!
A laser lens is rather not possible. However, the idea of printing just one lens mold and then casting it with resin has already been considered. I think this would improve the quality considerably.
👏👏👏
Is it possible to grind the lens to a specific radius of curvature calculated ahead of time? Or is it a trial and error matter of "just keep grinding and measuring until the focal length is right"?
The curvature is highly dependent on the polishing shape. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to measure the lenses. Some experiments would certainly have to be carried out here.
Pretty cool project.
Do you think it can work with glass?
Polishing pitch is required for glass. But you could try it with acrylic glass.
how big can you make the lenses?
The largest one I polished was 100mm. But I think you could certainly go even bigger. It would be good if you could then print a larger lens holder.
great video! the device could be used to make a fresnel lens ?
Genio!!!! Excelente trabajo, saludos desde argentina
Do you think it could be scaled up to 600mm diameter lenses
600mm is not possible with this machine. The machine would have to be built much larger. The sanding head should then be at least 300-350mm. This also raises the question of how to manufacture such a large grinding head. I think the machine would have to be built very sturdily to avoid vibrations.
@@FraensEngineering I have a 330x330 printer, could I do multiple parts and then sand the head smooth
That would have to be tested.
Bro this is genius! Will definitely subscribe.
good
strehl ratio? 😅
Having a custom non uniform lens geometry for VR or a prism within a small telescope would be really interesting, and having maybe a 5 axis 3d printed robot arm to polish the complex surfaces would be equally cool for custom one off projects that could be used in optical experiments. The only limit would be the materials you'd be able to print but its exciting.
That's a great idea. Do you have a link where I can look at this type of machine?
@@FraensEngineering Unfortunately I don't. I've seen 3d printers with an added 4th axis but support for them is not extensive because it's such a niche build. Perhaps just a 3 axis machine with a special flexible head surface that can flex and be normal to the surface on a ball pivot with a spinning sander would be sufficient for complex lens geometry?
Those lenses have zoom x1 😂
Yes, the lens became a bit flat ;-)
Wow, *very* impressive, congrats!
If you want highly clicky and intresting vid you should use this tech to remove scratches from phones, it the same thing just put phone in brackets and seal it with hot glue then grind and put oilophobic coat on.
I don't quite understand what you mean. Which phone do you mean?
@@FraensEngineering jerryrigerverything used similar but expesive factory made machine to polish away scratches on phones.
Шляпа...
How can this be applied to 3d printing mirrors? Is there even a material that would work as a printable mirror? This would be interesting towards a 3d printed telescope.
That would be really interesting. Maybe you could coat the parts somehow?
For a telescope you would want to use this machine for grinding but as a material for lenses or mirrors you would be much better with glass. It's stable, opticaly clear and homogeneous and much easier to actually grind. As for mirror coating it's probably a some sort of PVD (physical vapor deposition), usually aluminum is used nowadays. You can chemically coat with silver but it tarnishes so quickly it would not be very useful
Awesome attempt. However I don't understand why you went with a clearcoat (you didn't find an abrasive suitable for the material? if not read "handbook of polishing and lapping" you can find a pdf internet and you'll very quickly realize you can actually find abrasives that will give you the desired finish). and why some of the lenses were quite wavy and distorted.
Many thanks for the tip about the book. Unfortunately, I am not an optician but a mechanical engineer. I think that with the right knowledge I could still get a lot out of it.
one day I have become very interested in telescopes so researched a lot about making mirrors for them. Basically the same machine is used in the process. Several things stood out to me in this video. Your grinding tool should be grinded a little bit as well during the process, that way eventually both surfaces take spherical form. Grinding resin is more complicated than grinding glass, so it's trial and error but don't use sandpaper, I would try making tools maybe from epoxy mixed with grit (you can buy grit separately but also... burn some sandpaper for testing?). Clear coat is also a bad idea. For resins I have found that automotive polishing compounds work the best (I use 3M fast cut extreme and 3m Ultrafine). Sometimes you can ask auto paint workshop to buy just a small quantity (or exchange for a chocolate bar?;), you really don't need much, a syringe worth of compound will go a long way. I have used like a 1 gram of each compound polishing 50 epoxy resin pens last month.
Hello, thank you for sharing your experience. I think there are already a good number of ideas and improvements.
What's your reason for sometimes using hex/torx and sometimes not? 😅
That's a good question. I take what I have ;-)
6:30 "The lens is glued on centrally using a jig."
Exactly. The lens was glued on. The adhesive is easy to remove.
This is incredible
amazing unique video!!
Incredible work!
I was going to try to make something similar to grind a 12x12x1 aluminum 6061 plate into a mirror finish as an attempt to make a large primary mirror for a telescope on the cheap.
Grinding flat mirrors requires a different type of machine as far as I know. I'm not sure if this is possible with this machine.
@@FraensEngineering it needs to be a concave mirror.
I think it could work with the right sanding block. What material would the mirror be made of?
@@FraensEngineering aluminum, I plan to cnc the rough concave shape prior to sanding.
If you have access to a CNC, you could perhaps also use it to make the grinding mold. Or it would be better to use polishing pitch. You can buy something like this here: pieplow-brandt.de/
Incredible stuff. Thank you for providing us with this well produced presentation, great work!
Thank you so much for your kind comment!
@@FraensEngineering ur welcome 😁