SLS4All: How I Made My DIY SLS Printer Better - Most Important Upgrades

Project home page: SLS4All.com
Discord: / discord
Hackaday.io: hackaday.io/project/184506-sl...
If you're wondering what design changes I've made to the second evolution of my DIY SLS 3D printer, this video is for you. I did my best to remove all the childhood diseases of the first prototype and take it to the next level. The goal was to come up with solutions that would ensure the printer would be reliable in the long run and the print quality would be up to par.
The main areas of desing changes and improvements are as follows:
1:24 Chamber Shape
2:25 Chamber Sealing
3:57 Linear Guides
5:08 Z-axes Wobbling
6:58 Recoater Assembly
9:53 Halogen Heaters
12:11 Over Powder Bin
13:51 Safety Switches
14:23 Electronics HW & SW (will be separately in the next video)
After proper testing I will share the plans and documentation and the printer will be open source.

[@dimarusful]

Потрясающе как мало просмотров у такого важного для open source сообщества видео. Не останавливайтесь. То, что ты делаешь - очень круто!

[@SLS4All]

Thank you for your kind words, I appreciate them.

[@jimquinn]

Having purchased, installated, and operated a DTM2500+ for 15 years, I can fully understand many of the set-backs and solutions you found. Great job!

[@SLS4All]

Thank you for your words of support because even though a lot of set-backs are already behind me, I'm sure I'll meet a few more :-)

[@jonathanberry1111]

@@SLS4All Just a thought, but some parts like the metal powder bin could be plastic but for the first print, make those parts from metal!

[@stefanguiton]

Excellent work!

[@vjvarada]

Looks great! I have been following your work for a while now. Its great to see all the updates!

[@Sintratec]

Great project - looking forward to see where it goes!

[@SLS4All]

Thank you for your support. I want to believe that it will at least show people how interesting SLS technology is.

[@PsneakyPseudonym]

Really excited to see the progress here! You’re definitely leading the way for home/DIY SLS printing. It will be really interesting to see where we are in ten years. I think it will be interesting to see what difference cost/efficiency/simplicity/capability changes there will be once there is more rapid development in the consumer or home/diy space, similar to the effects on fdm and sla technology.

[@SLS4All]

Thanks a lot! I think the potential for home/DIY SLS printing is much less than FDM due to the greater complexity of the technology, post-processing, etc., but I'm also very curious to see what the future shows.

[@retromodernart4426]

@@SLS4All Kickstarter, friend!

[@mpro8246]

New version is amazing. Great Work 👍. Can't wait to get my hands on one

[@SLS4All]

Thank you, I'll do my best to make sure you don't wait long :-)

[@theofficialczex1708]

Fantastic! Watching your progress in the Discord server come to fruition in a video is something so immensely satisfying I have no words to describe it.

[@SLS4All]

This could only happen thanks to you and others who support me on Discord and bring me new ideas. Considering how long I've been working on the project, it's something very important and motivating for me to make it until the "end". And this is actually the point where will the real party start :-)

[@tylerstolsmark9662]

This project is awesome. Thanks for your work!

[@SLS4All]

Thanks a lot!

[@absolutevirus]

Truly amazing! Great job!

[@SLS4All]

Thank you very much!

[@martimattia1997]

really nice work! looking to build one when projects become availiable !

[@SLS4All]

Cool, thanks!

[@user-gs7tq8iz5p]

Приветствую. Вы просто не вероятны. Удачи и успехов в вашей работе.)

[@Revision369]

broooo....awesome job

[@ravemasters9564]

13:41 my suggestion for the next one :) when you are removing bin there are still remains of powder, or if overflow the bin there will be a mess, some sort of mechanism that would close the cavity before you remove bin would in my opinion be a great idea.

[@SLS4All]

Thanks for your suggestion, it's a good idea. I'll make a note 🙂

[@Luke_Ten]

Looks amazing, I am verry curious how it preforms!

[@SLS4All]

Many thanks, I'll publish some vids soon.

[@filipvasa7312]

Úžasné 😊

[@jesusisalive3227]

This is awesome, me want!

[@user-jj4jq6sy6p]

awesome !

[@Rob_65]

This is great. I just returned from FormNext and realized that there is more than just PA12. BASF has some nice types of materials that would be perfect for the parts I want to make so I started looking at SLS printers. These are almost getting within the affordable range and then there is even the Sintratec kit that is "cheap" but the inside looks like an Ender3 on steroids (no offense). The build quality of your Inova release candidate looks like it will become a very usable design that has potential even for company use prototyping or small series production. Even if we decide to buy a commercial printer instead of building the Inova this is a great project to follow 👏

[@SLS4All]

Thank you very much. It's great that more and more people are seeing the huge potential of SLS printing and thinking about how to use this technology in their projects. I hope that my activity will not only make SLS more accessible to technical enthusiasts, hobbyists or small businesses, but also help people to understand more deeply how this technology works, as the available sources of knowledge in this area are quite limited.

[@locanam3dprintingandprotot552]

ONE WORD "LEGEND"

[@yusufmaulana960]

your idea is another level wkwkwk

[@Tyrone-Ward]

Seeing the code would be nice.

[@SLS4All]

I plan to open it gradually once I finish all the tests.

[@TheNASFERA]

Fantastic work! What is the bigger limiting factor on using all the buil volume, Even temps or laser focus? What is your target release date?

[@SLS4All]

Thanks a lot! If you mean the possibility to have larger build volume, then both. I would like to release it sometime late this quarter or early next.

[@JoonaParhankangas]

Cant wait release!! ❤ Any idea of kit price?

[@SLS4All]

Hi, price of the kit is 6,490EUR or 6,990USD w/o VAT. Check my blog to for all the information. sls4all.com/its-here-build-your-own-sls-3d-printer

[@ohay701]

nice. the bin would just be 5 laser/water cut steel pieces welded/soldered together, i think.

[@ohay701]

a roller would be choice too

[@_xano]

Maybe better solution than securing overpowder bin with screw it is to use some neodymium magnets to latch it in place. It should be strong enough. Anyway great progress, I was thought that it is just impossible to make DIY SLS printer

[@SLS4All]

Good idea how to make it even more user friendly, thanks for that!

[@retromodernart4426]

@@SLS4All Maybe neodymium magnets are not such a good idea - Curie temperature is 310-400 deg. C, if the overpowder bin gets that hot...

[@_xano]

⁠​⁠ neodymium starts to temporarily lose magnetism around 80 degree C, with proper spacing from hot elements it should be ok. I don’t think that bin would get that hot if powder have temperature around 170 Celsius. U would need to dump a lot of it in short time to heat up the bin. If temperature are the problem, bin would be made of different material, but here if I’m seeing correctly it looks like a dibond, which doesn’t have a lot of temperature resistance. There is always option for just mechanical latching, i.e. simple spring loaded arm and divot, implementing magnets in design is just much simpler.

[@lornelorne5727]

Incredible project. Afraid of the price... but looks great.

[@SLS4All]

Thanks! If you compare it to FDM printer price tags, you should be really worried, but in the SLS world it will be more than OK :-)

[@ahmedabdalrahman9157]

Excellent work , what type of laser you are using with pa 12 powder ?

[@SLS4All]

Thanks a lot! I use 10W 450nm diode laser.

[@ahmedabdalrahman9157]

Thanks a lot , could you put any link of it?

[@SLS4All]

Along with other information, you can find them on my website. The link is in the description.

[@johnbrooks7350]

I know this is prolly pretty far off but, will you be designing a post processing station? Obviously many of the off the shelf ones will mostly work but a lot of stations utilize the ability to push the print volume out on command to slowly excavate parts? This was one thing that came to my mind with some of the “cheap” SLS solutions from some companies that had no solution for post processing.

[@SLS4All]

You are right, post-processing is an important and integral part of SLS printing. That's why I recently designed and built my own post processing station to make post processing clean and easy. I will introduce it soon in another video along with the first prints.

[@rickym7380]

How does the print quality compare to the Sintratec kit?

[@SLS4All]

I can't tell you because I don't have an access to it. I would like to be as close as possible, ideally on par, to the printers like Formlabs' Fuse 1, Sintratec's S2/S3 or Sinterit Lisa X. That's my goal ;-) I plan to do a direct comparison in the future.

[@Andrew_Custodes]

Если вы хотите построить подобный принтер с небольшим объемом построения, то в качестве основы можно использовать блок цилиндров от автомобильного двигателя! Там проблем с жесткостью не будет никаких! Я пишу это не впервые, но никто еще не обратил на это внимания.

[@SLS4All]

Yes, the chamber will be strong enough, but the design of the printer will not be easily repeatable by others. To me, this may work for one prototype, but not for an repeatable open-source project.

[@charlieroney1008]

How hard would it be to build a larger SLS version based off the documentation? I want to mess around with boat props with minimal post processing.

[@SLS4All]

In the z-axis this is potentially not too hard, in the XY-axis it can be quite complicated.

[@dodobarbar]

You have to be aware that this machines use a galvo that usually moves the laser ray +/-15deg. That means a pyramid with a outer "shape" of 30deg. The bottom area of such a pyramid represent the max the printer can scan or better said print to. Now to increase the volume (z-axis is easy), you must increase the "light cone" . Meaning you MUST move the galvo further away from the print surface and doing so the height of the machine will increase.

[@SLS4All]

Exactly, and that means quite a few problems with the optical path in terms of beam focusing, etc. etc. etc. :-)

[@behlulsimsek8708]

Which OEM products did you use, software, control card, how many watts of laser and laser type, and galvanometer? I want to make one for myself too, I wish you continued success my friend.

[@SLS4All]

Check my website. You find there answers to all your questions, preliminary BOMs and much more. Link is in the description.

[@behlulsimsek8708]

@@SLS4All I checked, thank you.

[@SergeiSugaroverdoseShuykov]

Quite big of an upgrade too bad you didn't show print capabilities this time

[@SLS4All]

Don't worry, vids showing it printing will come soon ;-)

[@SergeiSugaroverdoseShuykov]

@@SLS4All good to hear, even first version is quite capable, hoping that this one will give nearly perfect prints

[@rubendragan6514]

Hi, how much does all the parts cost?

[@SLS4All]

Hi, all the components and the material for frame (w/o machining costs, etc.) was about 3.5kUSD w/o VAT.

[@ChristophLehner]

Really a shame you didn't show a.test print

[@SLS4All]

Don't worry, you'll see it soon ;-)

[@leandrogoethals6599]

@@SLS4All How soon is soon? :)

[@SLS4All]

It's not easy to say exactly, but I believe it will be sometime this month - August 2023.

[@__--JY-Moe--__]

🥳👍👍