suxin1 / opensls

Open-source Selective Laser Sintering

OpenSLS

An open-source Selective Laser Sintering platform developed at Rice University

Miller Lab: Physiologic Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials

millerlab.rice.edu

 

Update 07/07/20

• Our latest work has been published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. Here, we adapted openSLS for laser sintering of carbohydrates, which we are using to pattern perfusable vascular networks in engineered tissues
• Learn more about this work from Rice University's Press Release or by reading the article.
• The R4 hardware designs are the final versions developed in this work

Update 03/23/20

• We are adding a new batch of design files for openSLS -- more details to come
• Please note that the newly added R4 design is NOT simply an upgrade of our earlier R3 hardware. Rather, it is a version for SLS using specialty powders for biomaterials research, and uses a different mechanism for powder handling. We will add more details about this (hopefully soon!). For conventional nylon or wax SLS, R3 remains the most recent design.

Update 02/10/16

• We are excited to annouce that OpenSLS has been published! You can find our paper at PLOS ONE's website. Many of the hardware-related details (wiring diagrams, G-code editing, Bill of Materials) are in the supporting information, which we have uploaded here.
• We are releasing our R3 hardware update and the corresponding firmware. What's new? See below.
• A Python version of our G-code munging utility is now available, which may be more convenient than our earlier PHP implementation

Build Documentation

This git repository includes:

• Designs for lasercut and 3D printed parts for our first (R1), second (R2), and third (R3) generations of powder handing modules
• Current firmware (with thanks to Tim Schmidt!)
• Slic3r configuration and G-code munging script for G-code creation and processing
• Wiring diagram for electronics configuration (based on RAMBo electronics)
• Model geometries we showcased in our PLOS ONE paper
• Bill of Materials

Hardware Versions

Basic summary of our hardware verions to date:

1. R1, designed by Andreas Bastian: Proof-of-concept build for OpenSLS. Buld is almost entirely acrylic + 3D printed parts. Powder distributor is a metal rod which counter-rotates, driven by belt motion. This build has everything you need to do SLS, but it lacks a simple powder collection system.
2. R2, designed by Andreas Bastian: This was the hardware used for the entirety of our PLOS ONE paper. It is mostly made from acrylic, but has an aluminum build piston and platform amenable to heating. Distributor is a static plow (a lab spatula). Powder is collected into a hopper through ducts built into the acrylic design. You can read more about the design upgrades Andreas made from R1 hardware to R2 hardware on the RepRap wiki page.
3. R3, designed by Ian Kinstlinger, Anderson Ta, and David Yalacki: This is an all-acrylic build designed for low cost and simplicity. Larger powder ducts facilitate powder collection and the overall form factor is a bit smaller. Note that this build will not be compatible with any powder pre-heating, but it's been working great for our purposes. Distributor is a steel 8mm rod mounted on a pair of 608 bearings. A DC Motor spins the rod to give you a rotating distributor and the whole thing is mounted on springs to adjust height.
4. R4, designed by Ian Kinstlinger and David Yalacki: This is our modified build for carbohydrate sintering. We replace the conventional two-piston design (powder reservoir and build volume) with a single piston build volume and a powder reservoir which is suspended from the 2-axis gantry which moves the laser head around. Powder is dispensed by shaking it loose from the reservoir onto the build area. This design helps to mitigate the relatively poor powder flowability of carbohydrates compared to standard SLS materials like nylon. More information can be found in our Nature BME publication.

Links

• Nature BME carbohydrate SLS paper, supplementary information, and extended datasets
• PLOS ONE OpenSLS paper
• RepRap OpenSLS wiki page: Documentation of early OpenSLS builds including video

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to SeeMeCNC for helping us install and configure our laser cutter
• Thanks to Ultimachine for RAMBo support
• Thanks to the Marlin dev team and to Tim Schmidt for specially modified laser firing firmware
• Thanks to all the open-source 3D printing software that has helped us build and operate OpenSLS: Arduino, RepRap, Python, Slic3r, Netfabb, Pronterface, OpenSCAD, and more!