Rice scientists turn a laser cutter into a SLS 3D printer, 4

Such as Laser cutters (Must use the phrase 'sharks with frickin lazors' once per thread)
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Windshadow
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Rice scientists turn a laser cutter into a SLS 3D printer, 4

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Rice scientists turn a laser cutter into a SLS 3D printer, 40x cheaper than commercial counterparts
(having seen the mess even the spray with glue powder printers make i don't see this becoming a common home made system but the I look at the system that SeeMeCNC is doing with laser fixed fluid printing and again the smell and the mess will put me off even if the lasers are not on fracking sharks)
http://www.3ders.org/articles/20160223- ... eaper.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Feb 23, 2016 | By Benedict

Bioengineering researchers from Rice University, Texas, have hacked a commercial-grade CO2 laser cutter, turning the machine into an open-source Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) 3D printer. “OpenSLS” costs at least 40 times less than its commercial counterparts.
In a paper published in PLOS ONE, http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0147399" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; the Rice researchers have explained the modification process behind their hacked laser cutter. Using low-cost, open-source microcontrollers, the team was able to build the OpenSLS 3D printer for under $10,000. In comparison, commercial SLS platforms typically cost around $400,000.

“SLS technology has been around for more than 20 years, and it’s one of the only technologies for 3D printing that has the ability to form objects with dramatic overhangs and bifurcations,” said study co-author Jordan Miller, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice. “SLS technology is perfect for creating some of the complex shapes we use in our work, like the vascular networks of the liver and other organs.”

An important and defining feature of OpenSLS is its compatibility with several types of powdered material. During the study, researchers successfully 3D printed with both nylon powder and polycaprolactone (PCL), a nontoxic polymer. This material flexibility researchers to use the 3D printer to experiment with biomaterials for regenerative medicine.

“Designing our own laser-sintering 3D printer means there’s no company-mandated limit to the types of biomaterials we can experiment with for regenerative medicine research,” said Ian Kinstlinger, a graduate student in Miller’s group and co-author on the paper.

“In terms of price, OpenSLS brings this technology within the reach of most labs, and our goal from the outset has been to do this in a way that makes it easy for other people to reproduce our work and help the field standardize on equipment and best practices,” Kinstlinger added. “We’ve open-sourced all the hardware designs and software modifications and shared them via Github.” https://github.com/MillerLabFTW/OpenSLS" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
at the bottom of the Github page is this line
Acknowledgements

Thanks to SeeMeCNC for helping us install and configure our laser cutter
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Jimustanguitar
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Re: Rice scientists turn a laser cutter into a SLS 3D printe

Post by Jimustanguitar »

That's awesome. I have a Shapeoko that I've been scheming about turning into a laser for a while... Having a powder bed has crossed my mind more than once...
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Windshadow
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Re: Rice scientists turn a laser cutter into a SLS 3D printe

Post by Windshadow »

the formal paper says that
A CO2 laser cutter with 60 × 90 cm bed (SeeMeCNC, Goshen, IN) was selected as the base of the OpenSLS system due to its high power range, modular electronics, and large working envelope.
did SeeMeCNC sell laser cutter kits at some point? or did they just sell or gift one of their early production melamine cutters to the project at Rice?
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Re: Rice scientists turn a laser cutter into a SLS 3D printe

Post by Nylocke »

A long time ago they sold professional laser cutters locally I think. Its been 3 or 4 years at least since they had that on their site though.
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