If you have not found, diode laser engraver/cutters have been getting a lot more powerful these days. [Cranktown City] was enjoying with an Atomstack 20 watt laser and puzzled if it would sinter sand into glass. His early experiments had been not much too promising, but with some work, he was ready to make a crude form of glass with the laser as the resource of ability. Nonetheless, applying glass beads was extra successful, so he made the decision to build his own glass 3D printer employing the laser.
This isn’t for the faint of heart. Surfaces will need to be flat and there’s aluminum casting and plasma slicing included, even though some of it could not have been required for the final design. The notion was to make a process that would leave a layer of sand and then set down a new layer on command. This turned out to be shockingly complicated.
We were impressed with the quite a few ideas he experimented with to get the system just appropriate. The greatest remedy was incredibly basic, but that’s how that commonly works, is not it? You attempt all kinds of intricate issues until finally you strike on one thing easy.
We usually take pleasure in projects where by you can see the ways to success together with the failed attempts. The machine appears decidedly Rube Goldberg. But how does it perform? Nicely, he did get a recognizable benchy at some point, but not right away. Excellent? No, but we try to remember when early 3D printers only did a little greater.
We’re impressed. It took a wide assortment of expertise to pull this off and we hope he will continue on to refine the get the job done and perhaps many others will, far too. This isn’t the 1st time we’ve found this trick, but before makes an attempt haven’t been as sturdy. We even saw a 2D variation again in 2016.