When people ask why I exclusively watch KZread instead of other streaming services, videos like these are great examples of why. Very interesting project, instant sub

@gordonbelfort7176

2 жыл бұрын

Same, glad that I'm not the only one 👍

@djzwa3t

2 жыл бұрын

Same. I subbed as well xD

@jabatheshort660

2 жыл бұрын

Only KZread videos? No other certain sites that are a ‘hub’ of videos

@djzwa3t

2 жыл бұрын

@@jabatheshort660 He said exclusively, not only YT 😅

@Matteo-jd6mt

2 жыл бұрын

I feel this very hard

This is clearly a very excruciating project with all of the debugging and failures. I commend you for sticking with it.

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.

You're pioneering the metal 3D printing movement dude. You might be the next Josef Prusa.

@badgermcbadger1968

Ай бұрын

Uh

So glad you have kept going with this mate. Well done.

Wow. Open source is a divine gift to humanity. You know why. Thank you. Can't wait.

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.

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

@metalmatters

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the feedback. Helium isn't getting any cheaper though :/

@danny36120

2 жыл бұрын

@@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!

@ltpetsema876

2 жыл бұрын

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

@metalmatters

2 жыл бұрын

@@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.

@joelmorris375

2 жыл бұрын

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.

I thought about pursuing a home brew metal printer a few years ago. It's awesome to have found someone that actually did.

This is the coolest project i've ever seen. A homemade metal 3d printer... Incredible

I just know that you will nail this bad boy at some point... love this project !!

Looking forward to that closed loop control!! This is improving at a wild pace man

great progress! 👏😎 wonderful job!

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.

@additivealex4566

2 жыл бұрын

Great point, if I'm remembering correctly, EOS uses a similar technique, as well as a heated build chamber.

@manthanpatel45

2 жыл бұрын

@johnjagger jack I have pulsed laser . Gets similar results. But trying to get better results.

@manthanpatel45

2 жыл бұрын

@@additivealex4566 Yea it's true .Do you use Eos ?

@additivealex4566

2 жыл бұрын

@@manthanpatel45 yeah I have some experience using two different EOS machines.

@manthanpatel45

2 жыл бұрын

@@additivealex4566 Do you own machine or operating machine?

This project is so cool , the prospect of consumer metal printing in the future is unbelievable

@Shrouded_reaper

2 жыл бұрын

Consumer metal printing is never going to be a thing because the government will step in.

@DiThi

2 жыл бұрын

@@Shrouded_reaper Why?

@Shrouded_reaper

2 жыл бұрын

You think they will let the populace have access to technology that let's them print a machine gun in their house?....

@DiThi

2 жыл бұрын

@@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.

@Shrouded_reaper

2 жыл бұрын

@@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.

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.

@lio1234234

Жыл бұрын

Sounds like a good solution. A more permanent solution that might work would be controlling laser power based on velocity

@gobble_gang

4 ай бұрын

I was just thinking you could just design the gantry to have counterweights on both sides to eliminate backlash.

@CristiNeagu

4 ай бұрын

@@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.

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?

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.

@MikkoRantalainen

2 жыл бұрын

Car window wipers may have too soft rubber/silicon which scoops too much of the powder. The material is pretty strong otherwise.

Excellent results so far! Many variables to control and tune.

WOW! I saw some of your older videos about this project, but hadn't watched any since. I'm super impressed with how far it's come since then! Awesome work

@metalmatters

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks!

this will be the next revolution in 3d printing because the parts will have real strength

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 😁

this guy is amazing, I like that you don't simplify the information and explain things well love it

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.

Kind of a Holy Grail Project ! ...Fusion, and Metal 3DP... Whenever I complain about TS'g my own Tech Pipeline I'll think of You !!! ~Very Inspired !

I've just found this and I've gotta say that it is fascinating! I'm definitely going to be following this project closely.

This is very very impressive. Seriously. You have some skills to be proud of.

We need more people like you with this level of creativity..keep up the good work big guy! 🤟🏽

Fantastic work!!! To get thin layers, galvos with mirrors are used for speed at lower power and an inert gas argon chamber preferably under vacuum

Brings back memories of the early days at Xact Metal. You appear to be working thru these issues similarly to how we did. Keep up the good work. Reach out if you have any questions.

@metalmatters

11 ай бұрын

Hey Matt. I sent you an email, although from my personal email due to problems with my mail provider. Just checking in case it has been marked as spam.

@mv2woods

11 ай бұрын

@@metalmatters Got it! In the process of replying 👍

wow. Truly amazed how much you know about all of this. Looking forward to your next vid...

Amazing job👍 As someone who has trouble finishing projects, I am impressed.

Just come across your channel, and boy has it been great going through your uploads. Thank you soo much for your incredible work and dedication toward such a fantastic project. Keep up the awesome work👍👍

I love following your project, thanks for posting

Nice work, I admire your focus and determination.

Great Video...... more of this please❗ The topic of DIY Metal 3D printing is becoming more and more important❗👍

Nice work! In 2008 I met a material engineer who designed a metal 3d printer with pretty good results (at least the ones he showed publicly). He did the powder layer spreading method similar to yours, but then used an adhesive sprayed through a hacked inkjet printer cartridge... Once the print was done, he'd sinter the parts in a furnace.

First time watching your work, and I'm impressed!!

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!

@metalmatters

2 жыл бұрын

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.

@chemieju6305

2 жыл бұрын

@@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?

@docBol1980

2 жыл бұрын

In commercial scanners a run in an out path is provided to let the galvo’'s get up to speed

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.

@barebaric

2 жыл бұрын

I imagine that would cause issues with heat dissipation.

@shawnderrick1952

2 жыл бұрын

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.

Unbelievable! Fantastic work!

Great, easy to follow video. Your video-making skills has come a long way!

Bro, amazingly thorough and thoughtful. Well done and keep up the good work!

The card recoater is GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!

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.

Thanks for sharing. You want to accelerate before turning the laser on and turn the laser off before decelerating so that you are always moving at constant velocity while sintering. This should help with those blobs on the ends of the tracks.

What a crazy video that took a lot of effort

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

@BrunodeSouzaLino

2 жыл бұрын

Unlikely. Most of the SLS methods used for that are patented still.

Glad to see you not giving up. 👍 As one famously said: Metal matters! ;-)

Fascinating! Thank you for posting this video.

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.

Keep going man your work is impressive. This must have taken a ton of effort.

amazing work! Just found this channel and definitely subscribed to follow this build!

Massively impressive, man.

Wow fantastic prototyping

Fantastic work. You're an early pioneer.

This is all well and good, but what we all want to see is a benchy!!

Awesome progress!

This is SO impressive

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 KZread 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 KZread 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! 👍🤘

@metalmatters

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks!

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

Really amazing watching your progress. I have FDM and resin 3d printers, but this is so next level..!!!! 🇦🇺🤜🏼🤛🏼🍀😎

I really hope my other comment posted, unfortunately I seem to have lost it. I'm going to try and sum up what I said. I have experience in working with SLS and DMLS printers, specifically the EOS M290. For wipers, you can google "use cases of different re-coater configurations EOS" for a writeup that goes into detail about the re-coater blades in the EOS M290 DMLS machine. In short, they use a HSS parallelogram shaped blade which is ductile enough when coming in contact with the print, while in other cases a ceramic blade is used. More info on the writeup. For the build environment, we always pumped down the machine and filled it with argon. The build volume is also heated. As someone else mentioned below, you could pulsate the laser, which If I'm remembering correctly is something that is also done on the EOS M290. The EOS M290 also has a large filter cabinet which requires the filters to be replaced when switching materials or on occasion once the flow through them drops below a certain point. I believe the filters could have been capturing spatter which would have been blown into them by the flow of argon which traveled across the build surface. After printing on an EOS machine, the powder should be sieved as well, which I believe is done to remove anything in the stock powder which exceeds the size of the rest of the powder.

@metalmatters

2 жыл бұрын

Didn't see your previous comment. Thanks for your insights Alex. Do you recall what sort of pressure the build chamber is held at?

@additivealex4566

2 жыл бұрын

@@metalmatters I'll have to look back at my pictures to see if I have anything, or I'll ask around. If anything I could pop in and take a look as well. I'll let you know. Great work man.

Hat’s off for your hard work sir 😎👍

Tnx for this new video. Good progress!

I can't say that I understand half the terms, but I do enjoy trying to follow along :)

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.

This is so impressive!

Sorry for the interruption....But who else is SICK of seat geek commercials?!!?! Never saw this project before... Cool!

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.

Less than 1min in to your video and I love your humourous presentations style!! Slapped that sub button hard

This is incredible! 👏🏻

That was very interesting! Well done

Really cool project hope you get the results your looking for

This is incredible!

Great results !

Sorry for my word but holy shit this is amazing

Excellent project, just subscribed

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..

Fantastic! Hopefully one day we can build one ourselves.

very cool! keeep us updated!

Fantastic work! Its the first video of yours that I've seen and I already cant wait for more. If you end up trying some other additives to the powder a ball mill should be a very cheap and easy way to improve the mixing. Just be careful and take all precautions that come whith milling fine metals, if your process is good some metals have a tendency to self combust...

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.

@sgullage

2 жыл бұрын

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

@Waitwhat469

2 жыл бұрын

@@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.

@AlexandreGuiss

2 жыл бұрын

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.

Love the content, keep it coming!

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.

@scifactorial5802

2 жыл бұрын

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.

@martylawson1638

2 жыл бұрын

@@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.

@scifactorial5802

2 жыл бұрын

@@martylawson1638 Very good point, I don't know how I missed that.

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?

@atari7001

2 жыл бұрын

I second this thought. General Electric uses this strategy with their metal printers…

@albanmourier

2 жыл бұрын

@@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

I think you could eliminate a lot of issues with a galvo scanner 😊

@metalmatters

2 жыл бұрын

You and I both

I've watched this way more than 3 times.

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.

does the steel disk get lower and lower in its housing each layer or are the layers raising on the z axis? if you had a base that slid lower and lower down a tube and add material on top you might be able to simplify some stuff.

wowee great work!

Very cool project! I am a qualified 3D print technician, I've worked on EOS printers before, primarily the EOS m290, its really cool to see how much you've overcome and implemented that is in line with existing high end metal printing techniques, I can suggest that you look at "skywriting", cold prossess 3d printing temp balances and nitrogen scrubbing for some potential improvements. Super cool project, I think what you've done with the recoter head is very cool!

@metalmatters

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks Jason. Can I ask, what is the typical build chamber pressure of the machines you work on?

@jasonstraurss6974

2 жыл бұрын

@@metalmatters in most cases a light positive presure of 0.3 bar, strangely in the case of aluminum a negative presure of 0.5 bar

2:47 When u notice, that this guy has never heard of Wall Street... :-)

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.

@metalmatters

2 жыл бұрын

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.

just awesome!

Man, you're a legend!

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.

Great video!

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.

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.