A little machining and other bits

[absolom7691]

... what are the materials, you want to laser-cut or otherwise -process?

Mainly small gauge (less than 3mm) aluminum sheet. Maybe some steel and stainless steel. Again, small gauge. I know aluminum is difficult, given how reflective it is.

[VDX]

... yes, if its 3mm aluminium, then you'll need more than 1.5kW

For this or thicker parts from aluminium or brass I'm using my CNC-mill ... "thin" metal sheets (steel up to 0.5mm, brass 0.4mm, aluminium 0.1mm) could be "engraving cut" with my 30W fiberlaser with several passes.

Actually building a "laser-cutter" with IR-laserdiode(s) - have some diodes with up to 360W@975nm on a spot of 0.3mm and a box with two 200W-diodes, coupled by a POL-filter ... here the 200W-diodes could be replaced by 310W oder 360W-diodes, as they have the same housing an beam-structure.

The 200W dioses are powerfull enough for 1mm steel, the 360W (or coupled 2x 200W) for up to 2mm ... 2x360W then maybe for 3mm

[buffo]

Designing in the computer and sending it to <insert fabricator here> to create what you have designed is just priceless.

I'm just getting into 3D printing (my oldest son has been prodding me for years, lol) and I'm starting to understand what you mean here. Of course, my design skills aren't up to the task yet, but the thrill of creation is very real, and with practice you can create just about anything. Milling and laser cutting is just another extension of that creative rush. If laser sintering 3D printers ever become more affordable, I can see that replacing traditional milling for all sorts of pieces parts.

Being able to do it all from home may be slow but you have no lead times or potential delivery issues. Also, there is no misunderstanding between designer and fabricator (I'm thinking of Stonehenge from "This is Spinal Tap" LMAO).

"I think the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf!"

But yeah, whenever you send something off, I'm sure there's always a lingering worry that maybe you forgot to define something correctly. At least at home you get instant feedback, so you catch those mistakes right away.

For the controller, I'm using an RS485 to TTL decoder and the Conceptinetics Arduino library. I guess it is a shield.

Yeah, shield or not, it's still an external device that's handling the serial data, which is what I expected. I have read about people pushing serial data directly from the Arduino, but it seems that a full 512 DMX universe is a bit too much, so for those applications they often use an external transcoder like you are.

I also agree that this stuff has gotten incredibly cheap. The cost savings has even filtered down to the Industrial Controls level. I recently worked on a pilot project at work that required a simple PLC to grab some analog level data (standard 4-20 mA) and convert it to digital so it could be read by an app running on a PC. We found a full-fledged PLC for less than $300 that worked flawlessly. (Click-PLC from Automationdirect.com) To get the same thing from Allen-Bradley would have been several thousand bucks at least. Crazy!

Adam

[VDX]

Hi Adam,

If laser sintering 3D printers ever become more affordable, I can see that replacing traditional milling for all sorts of pieces parts.

I'm actually trying to find interested people (and/or companies) for reactivating one of my older projects with DIY-SLS with different powder materials from plastic, lignin, glass, ceramic, metal ... and all sorts of "alloys".

When I was first trying, it was around 1995 and my "metal powder" was solder-microsheres from washed solder-paste, molten/sintered with a RF-CO2-laser with 3 Watts and first tests with a 1Watt IR-laserdiode (1.5kW then).

Actually you can by laser-engravers with blue laserdiodes and powers of up to 120 Watts ... and I have IR-laserdiodes with up to 360W on a spot of 0.2mm ... or fiberlasers with a 0.02mm-spot.
But let's start with a Sculpfun S30 Pro with 10W on a spot of 0.08mm for 300€ and a self-made "powder-bed" system

[buffo]

I have to admit, I like the idea of a DIY laser sintering 3D printer! I've seen a few posts from people who have tried (there was a young guy in Germany who had a design that could be built for around 400 euros, for example), but the finish quality of the final part was pretty terrible...

Also, the movable powder bed seems like it would be tricky...

How far did you get with your original design?

Adam

[VDX]

... my "original design" was for the company and under heavy NDA's, so no images ... the next attempts at home were only for testing powders and different concepts - here I simply glued some Tesa-stripes around the borders of a tile (the common Tesa-stripes are 40µm thick, Capton-tape 50µm), poured some powder inbetween and leveled it with a ruler to the stripes height ... then made the laser-sintering.

For bigger powder-particles than the stripes-height, or for "stacking" several layers, I've repeated this (glueing, infilling, levering, laser ...) several times.


*** EDIT *** -- if with the "young guy from Germany" you're referencing to Paul B. - I have his mechanical setup, made from wood and acrylic

Beside this "two bins" type of powder-bed setup, I have a much simpler type with a rotating disc on a Z-axis, what's completely eliminating the needed pause for refilling and leveling ... and so around 90% of the waiting time, until the next layer is ready to laser ...

Viktor

[buffo]

if with the "young guy from Germany" you're referencing to Paul B. - I have his mechanical setup, made from wood and acrylic

Hmmm - could be. I'm not sure of his real name, but the guy I was referring to goes by "Vulcaman" on instructables.com. Here's the link to his second iteration of DIY 3D Laser Sintering printer: https://www.instructables.com/JRLS-1...LS-3D-PRINTER/ Is that the same guy?

I have a much simpler type with a rotating disc on a Z-axis, what's completely eliminating the needed pause for refilling and leveling

How does that eliminate the need for leveling? I thought you always had to have a pusher to smooth the powder bed out after you lowered the part? Does the stage rotate fast enough to "spill" fresh powder on top of the printed portion? I'm curious how that would work...

Adam

[VDX]

... no, it's not my friend - the design of "Vulcaman" is near to the Sintratec kit ... could even be a prototype for them.

My "circular" design is pretty simplicistic, where the powder is "automatically" leveled by rotating the disc, without any moving parts ... the combination of "circular leveling" and layerwise moving in Z does the magic ... this has some other nice features, compared to common types, but this is mean for the "closed development" in the group

Viktor

[absolom7691]

"I think the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf!"

Still such a great movie!

I am right there with you about laser sintering. DMLS has always intrigued me. I'm curious the price per print with metal powder and also with inert gas. 3D printing can be fun though. I know you'll enjoy it. As for designing, I'm not that great at it but I get the job done! I design through Sketchup primarily. At least, that's my go-to software. There is other, better modeling software out there but I fire up Sketchup the most because it's what I know.

[JohnYayas]

CNC, you lucky bastard. Manual mill here....

No ultra sharp corners on LCD cutouts for me...

NICE!!!!

Steve

Same here. Everything I do ends up looking like an Etch a Sketch drawing.