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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 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

Acknowledgements

Thanks to SeeMeCNC for helping us install and configure our laser cutter

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.