Printing with LIGHT?!? - AstroFab Aldebaran
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
1,990 words · ~9 min read
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- If you get resin in your eye pouring it in, you're quite talented.
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(glove snaps) Wanna go to space? This won't actually take you to space,
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but this is a really cool 3D printer. It's not like the Prusas of old,
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this is a resin printer. It's called an MSLA printer or masked SLA printer,
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and it prints using light. But first we gotta get it out of the box.
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Resin printers aren't as mechanically strong or resin printed parts rather,
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but they get much higher detail than FDM or fused deposition modeling prints.
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Up first, we have the AstroFab getting started guide.
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We've got a QR code that I'm definitely going to scan. And safety.
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It's actually really important to read these. The thing with resin printing is the resins themselves
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will go through your hands and you can have really bad allergic reactions,
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so always wear gloves.
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Okay, this paper can be used for leveling. It's probably literally just paper,
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but you essentially want just a little bit of a gap between where the build plate starts in the print,
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so there's a thin film of resin underneath it. So this is our build platform.
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It's about two and a half inches by four inches, something like that, aluminum.
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We've got the four point hinged alignment mechanism.
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This is our build vat. So this holds our liquid resin
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and on the bottom is what we call a FEP.
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It's a thin sheet of plastic that will let you cure your part onto it
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and then you pull up and you'll hear it go, (Colin clicks) and the part will release,
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a fresh layer of resin will go down and the build plate will go back into it.
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It's also got a neat little spout here, so when you do wanna change resins, it's actually not so bad to pour.
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This is another neat feature of this particular printer, is its HEPA filter.
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So it has a particulate and a charcoal filter on the back here to try and reduce the fumes.
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Power supplies. Now, this machine only uses 50 watts. It's little, you can run it off a little wall wart.
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A scraper. Okay, we've got a three Allen keys,
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quality inspection that I'm sure wasn't mass produced and just shoved in every bag.
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This is a resin squeegee. So this you would use in the vat.
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If you have a part that fails, you wanna scrape all the solid parts off.
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And that's what this is for and it won't damage your FEP. This guy is for scraping off your parts
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from your build plate. Different squeegees, don't mix 'em up.
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I wanna see the actual printer 'cause this thing is kinda cool.
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2:25
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2:28
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2:41
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2:45
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2:49
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2:53
using the link in the video description below. I'm gonna put this on the ground and lift it up.
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(Colin vocalizing) Tada!
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Look at that spaceman. - [David] Wow! That's actually really cool.
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- Does this chin drop down? Oh, that does come out. Okay, so we have a 2.8 inch touchscreen display.
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We've got a six inch, 2K monitor. We got the LED array underneath it
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and then we just have one moving part, this Z-axis. So our bed will slide on something like this.
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Let's get this thing plugged in and see what it's like to actually work with,
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and then we're gonna figure out how to change this visor. Yellow, we got green.
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Orange, feel like Matt Damon. Actually looks to be somewhat tool-free.
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(printer beeps) Oh, it comes pre-switched on, that's not great.
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There's our display. We've got print, system and tools,
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so we can move our Z-axis. (Z-axis hums)
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This isn't super great. In here, there's just a big,
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can you see this? Big old glob of grease.
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I'm just gonna spread that like they intended. - [David] Oh wow, that's a lot.
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- Jono, could you grab me a paper towel? So this is a visor detect.
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So it can detect when the hood is open or close. That's somewhat of a safety feature,
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but it'll also automatically pause when you lift the helmet up.
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Boop. Okay. That's easy enough.
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(helmet clanks) There we go.
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So back here is clearly where the HEPA filter goes.
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Now this is sealed in a bag because carbon filters,
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they kinda decompose after awhile. Now that it's out of the bag, cat's out of the bag,
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it will be active. And they do need to be changed regularly.
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So, we have a linear rail here, so it has recirculating ball bearings
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that keep it rigid in all other axes except one.
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Got a screw to drive it. Down here, we have a little hall effect sensor
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that detects when the platform's at its bottom. So our first step will be to calibrate it,
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bring the platform down with a piece of paper under it,
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set it to be level, tighten it up, raise it up, fill it with resin and then we can start printing
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with this thing and see what it can do. I don't know what that is, but cool.
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It's the sort of thing that I would say is not great. And that's a hair or some sort of manufacturing gunk
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stuck under the FEP. Now, the biggest cause of failures in resin 3D printers
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is when the FEP fails and all of a sudden you have 250 milliliters of resin
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pour into your machine, and then it starts to harden and everything is hooped.
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So I do have some problems with this printer on price alone.
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This printer is based on an Anycubic Photon Mono,
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and that printer is 200 bucks. So what do you get for your extra money?
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Well, you get the space manhood, (helmet swishing)
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you get the hood detection
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and you get a HEPA filter. Is that worth 130 bucks? - [Jono] Maybe?
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- Jono's wrong. So we're gonna helm it, and it should come down,
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touch and then raise up a little bit, and that's where we're gonna lock it.
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Little switch will come down, it'll detect it. There we go, it didn't crash.
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This good. This just ensures you don't like crank on it
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and then have it torque it at a alignment.
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Perfect. Okay, we'll go raise it up. (Z-axis humming)
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Okay, that is tight.
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Definitely remember to tighten the vat in, don't ask me how I know.
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Gonna pull this out for a minute. Then we get to pick a resin.
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Resin! You want green? Okay, we do green just for you.
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I just love the design of these bottles.
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Is that not the cutest thing? I kinda wanna get 'em all out.
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There we go, look at the little guys. Isn't that cute?
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Now, I can actually show you how the light works before we pour resin in it,
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which you won't be able to see through. So, we have the screen under here
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and we're gonna blast light up. Now, if you have a failed print and you need to clean your bed,
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normally you'd run a whole screen's worth, so essentially no pixels covering the light,
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and you'd cure a whole layer of resin.
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And then you would peel that up and it comes with all the leftovers that have settled to the bottom of the tank.
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So, close it for safety, start.
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(soft bright music) - [David] There it is. - [Jono] There it is. - [Colin] Yeah, you see it?
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I can't see anything through this orange. - [David] I see the purple. - We're going green.
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I'm gonna make sure not to get this in my eyes.
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We're not gonna fill it up to max 'cause we're not gonna use a ton of it.
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Oh yeah, there's some smell. (soft upbeat music)
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Not horrible. And what are we gonna print here?
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- [Jono] Giraffe. - You want a giraffe? - [Jono] Yeah.
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- So print. So what's happening is it's going to cure
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for about two seconds, give or take. It'll sit for another second or two, then it's gonna peel.
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You'll see it lift and it'll, (Colin clicks) we should hear a pop if everything's going correctly.
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The first layer often will cure longer, nine to 12 seconds,
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so you get a good adhesion to the elemental plate.
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(Z-axis humming) Hear the? (Colin clicking) Yeah, so that's peeling off of the FEP.
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(upbeat music)
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We're back. It's been a day, or rather a night, and our print has completed.
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So let's get this guy out,
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try and drip off any of this resin, and there we are. So now this is uncured resin.
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So it's done a soft cure, but we need to wash it,
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which we'll do in this water bath, and then we can cure it,
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either outside in the sun or we have a curing chamber that we'll go use in a minute here.
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It's kinda cute. If we look at the chamber,
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because we had the hood open and lights on, you can see we've got like a solid chunk that formed.
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So that's garbage. But that's why we have this UV filtering hood,
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is to prevent that from happening. Okay, let's try water washing this.
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This is where I was really curious.
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Now, admittedly, I'm not a great resin printer.
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If you wanna see resin printing content, look at Uncle Jessy on YouTube, he's pretty great.
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This is always the hardest part.
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I, oh, hey, that was easy. There's your little guy.
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It is soft. So we'll go stick this in the curing chamber.
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We're in the shop now and I can show off our enormous Phrozen Sonic Mega.
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That is a large resin printer. You can print like whole helmets and stuff in this.
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But we're not using this guy, we're using the curing chamber,
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which I haven't used before. And we just pop our print in,
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(Colin clicks) shut the door and press play.
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UV LEDs came on, the bed'll spin and it'll cure our part.
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In 10 minutes, we'll have like an actually hard part.
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(upbeat music) It's been 10 minutes.
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Now that it's cured, I can touch it with my hands.
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And from here, you can paint it, do whatever, but it's made.
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Does it print? Sure does. Is it the best value for your money?
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I don't think so. I think you can do a little better. But it's got a cool little gimmick.
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That much as nice. And if you liked this video, get subscribed to ShortCircuit.
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And why don't you go hop on over to LTT and check out my cheapest 3D printer video.
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That thing was tiny and pretty crappy, but it did sorta print.
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See you later.