In a up to date video, [Joel] of 3-D Printing Nerd interviews a researcher at College of California, Berkeley about their paintings with glass 3-D printing generation. A resin is impregnated with tiny glass nanoparticles and produces inexperienced portions. An oven burns away the resin after which any other heating step produces the real silica glass section. You’ll be able to see a video concerning the procedure under.
As it’s possible you’ll be expecting with glass, the temperatures are toasty. The primary burn is at 1100 C and the fusing burn is at 1300 C. The nanoparticles are about 40 nanometers throughout. The ensuing portions are tiny with very small characteristic sizes. The generation to try this has been round for a couple of years, and the College continues researching this type of computed axial lithograph (CAL) 3-D printing. Those portions are so small that it makes use of an adaptation referred to as microCAL that produces a lot smaller portions at top precision. Alternatively, the apparatus to be had these days gained’t produce very huge gadgets. The video talks concerning the makes use of for a few of these small glass pieces.
We marvel how a lot the firings within the ovens trade the tiny tolerances. They clearly paintings, so both they account for that or it doesn’t shrink a lot.
If you need your personal 3-D published glass, a laser machine could be more effective. Should you simply need clear plastic, your FDM printer can do this. In reality.