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Open SLM

Building an SLM 3d printer
With Multi Material

patrick-ryanPatrick Ryan
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Building a SLM 3d printer. Selective laser melting is an additive manufacturing technique designed to use a high power laser to melt and fuse powders. Using granite plates to build the body.
The design requirements are as follows:
NEEDS:
Temperature controlled build chamber.
Powder Extruder with the laser to allow for simple multi material.
Narrowing in on the design.

Current SLM is mostly locked in on one material with very high cost to aquire and operate. Using Granite plates our machine will be low cost, precise and have very good vibration dampening. 

V1

Fill a slot with a powder extrusion head and deposit layer by layer. Linear servos, magnetic encoder, and air bearings will allow for precise fast movement.

V2

Multi Material solution: Will use a glut of powder at the tip to approximate a circle of the powder bed design. This allows the powder extrusion system to not be a limiting factor unlike an FDM machine. The main challenge right now is to find a balance of low enough pressure to avoid ignition of metal powders and enough air to pull the extra powder away from the head.

  • Potential Extruders

    Patrick Ryan • 10/08/2020 at 02:15 • 0 comments

    Using the partial vacuum in the chamber and atmospheric there is plenty of pressure differential to spray powder, Looking into piezo electric valve similar to inkjet printers (difficult to manufacture) for high precision a magnetic valve for thicker lines.

  • Flat Linear motors are hard

    Patrick Ryan • 10/08/2020 at 02:03 • 0 comments

     Going to a cylindrical linear motor design for better strength and ease of manufacture.  

  • Square Chambers...

    Patrick Ryan • 03/13/2020 at 03:03 • 0 comments

    Could not find a methodology to manufacture the previous design.

  • Paradigm Shift

    Patrick Ryan • 01/11/2020 at 16:44 • 0 comments

    Changing the linear system to air bearings, linear drives and magnetic encoders. This will allow for research into better solar cells, energy storage, and processors.  

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zubiriarkaitz35 wrote 11/27/2022 at 20:23 • point

ITS ALIVE?

  Are you sure? yes | no

Patrick Ryan wrote 01/02/2023 at 00:22 • point

It was in storage for a while now back out and going to be moving forward.

  Are you sure? yes | no

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