# Specific 3D Printers, Scanners, & Hardware > Peachy Printer Forum >  Ideas for lasers and resins

## amirjabri

Hello everyone,

   I just wanted to say how much i'm inspired by this community and project. I love the philosophy of peachy and I hope the open source nature stays that way. On that point, I am a polymer chemist and I wanted to experiment with a wide variety of new resins, including all-natural plant based ones. The only question I have now is will the peachy printer have a powerful enough laser to try to use while testing? I found and purchased for my own investigations a souped up 405nm laser from ebay: link http://bit.ly/1ixUZcD , and I was wondering if the peachy printer will allow for me to swap in this laser if I need more grunt for bioresins I'm testing?

Thanks!!!!

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## nka

It's a 405nm 20mW, so less powerfull than you have!  :Smile: 

Yes, you'll be able to swap the laser. If it dosent fit in the hole, you'll have to make a new support, else it will work. If the laser require too much power, you'll also have to use a 5V relay to open the laser instant of using the circuit directly.

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## Feign

That laser looks like it wouldn't have trouble fitting into the Peachy assembly, though I don't know the specs on the lasers the beta testers got, if all else fails, you could use a little bit of regular resin to print a new laser mount and snap it into place with the way the P28 is constructed.

Also the idea of a plant-based photoresin is intriguing (and the term "Bioresin" has an awesome sound to it.)  I've only barely researched how photoresins work and I'm pretty sure I only understood a fraction of what I've found, so you have my respect for trying.  Good luck!

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## Anuvin

> ... the philosophy of peachy and I hope the open source nature stays that way.!


I'm with you, the freedom respecting openness of the project is a big deal. I think it means a lot to a large portion of the community, and to the Peachy team.

I was wondering if we could use a product like the one mentioned here: http://www.castingabout.co.uk/Bio-Resin.html

I know the catalyst has to be uv reactive, and so that would have to change, and that is where my understanding ends. If you find some time, I would be really interested on what you had to say on the topic.

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## glauco

A device that creates things using three active elements (Sound, Heat and Light), three passive elements (water, resin and drawings) with bioresin is almost god playing.

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## amirjabri

> I'm with you, the freedom respecting openness of the project is a big deal. I think it means a lot to a large portion of the community, and to the Peachy team.
> 
> I was wondering if we could use a product like the one mentioned here: http://www.castingabout.co.uk/Bio-Resin.html
> 
> I know the catalyst has to be uv reactive, and so that would have to change, and that is where my understanding ends. If you find some time, I would be really interested on what you had to say on the topic.


Wow, so cool thanks! That's really right up my ally as I was specifically looking at oil-based off of flax/soy/grapeseed etc. One of the things I was actually looking at is the type of modification they are doing at that company. That article you linked to makes me want to build an ozone generator too now! There is tons of possibilities, but for now I want to see if I can find a decent oil (Maybe even Tung oil), or mix of oils (and possibly modified ones like you found), and the right catalyst (I will try the conventional ones and some new ones I'm looking into), then also hit it with a ton of laser power to see if it can be polymerized! In general most resins contain some type of "unsaturation" or sites where a radical can attack and form a polymer. Since natural oils also have "unsaturation" they can also do this too! Actually linoleum is made from flax seed oil, a catalyst (usually toxic!), and sunlight! Its a very tough polymer so hopefully we can make linoleum in a 3D printer too (with a non-toxic catalyst of course, I also have one in mind that actually works)!

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## Feign

The way you're explaining it makes it sound easy...  But I assume it's very much not.

If the catalyst and oil are both non-toxic, would there be a likelihood of the end result being food-safe?  Or does the polymerization process tend to make the result more toxic?

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## Anuvin

Haha Feign said exactly what I was thinking. 

So, all we need is the right oil and the right catalyst? What did you have in mind for a catalyst? What do you need to test this? Will the resulting product has properties like linoleum?

Very cool stuff! Can't wait to hear more, please share anything you think up!

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## amirjabri

> The way you're explaining it makes it sound easy...  But I assume it's very much not.
> 
> If the catalyst and oil are both non-toxic, would there be a likelihood of the end result being food-safe?  Or does the polymerization process tend to make the result more toxic?


I'm kind of weird like that, but I'm not interested in a project unless it is tricky...so that probably explains this obsession. In general if the monomer is non-toxic the polymer should be no? It's alot harder to digest anyways so it probably passes through you. I'm pretty sure it is bio-degradeable from what I read but I'm too lazy to look up a reference. If I actually can polymerize flax oil into linoleum with a non-toxic catalyst I'll be so glad I'll eat some myself! :-)

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## glauco

> I'm kind of weird like that, but I'm not interested in a project unless it is tricky...so that probably explains this obsession. In general if the monomer is non-toxic the polymer should be no? It's alot harder to digest anyways so it probably passes through you. I'm pretty sure it is bio-degradeable from what I read but I'm too lazy to look up a reference. If I actually can polymerize flax oil into linoleum with a non-toxic catalyst I'll be so glad I'll eat some myself! :-)


Actually this looks very healthy. Printing food!! If these kind of experiment works, I would try even hemp oil because is the most healthy thing in the world... but not here in Brazil, it is forbidden to have hemp of any kind...

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## Feign

I don't know about eating it outright, but being able to make food-safe items opens up a lot of possibility.  Currently plenty of people are making chocolate molds and other food-contact items with regular plastics and disregarding the health problems that can cause, but I'd rather not risk it.

Also, Linolium is some pretty tough stuff, even without the green aspect, it seems like a desirable print material.

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## amirjabri

> Actually this looks very healthy. Printing food!! If these kind of experiment works, I would try even hemp oil because is the most healthy thing in the world... but not here in Brazil, it is forbidden to have hemp of any kind...


Well I just got back from vacation in Brazil, and man you have a beautiful country!!!! I live in the coldest city in the world (Winterpeg), and when my car isn't falling to rusty pieces I can drive down to my local hemp processing plant and pick up hemp oil at 1$ per liter! Sure beats the priciing of 50-100$ per liter on some of the resins I find.

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## amirjabri

I'm pretty sure linseed oil is FDA approved food safe when used as a sealer on wood. I think linoleum must be ok but I'll have to check, but it is pretty much just linseed oil.

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## amirjabri

> Haha Feign said exactly what I was thinking. 
> 
> So, all we need is the right oil and the right catalyst? What did you have in mind for a catalyst? What do you need to test this? Will the resulting product has properties like linoleum?
> 
> Very cool stuff! Can't wait to hear more, please share anything you think up!


Ok well I'm still not 100% sure, but I've found some articles where a manganese catalyst (non toxic - its used in vitamin pills) was used instead of the regular cobalt/lead combo (very toxic!). I will dig up the reference today but they found photocatalytic properties of manganese catalysts for polymerizing the flax oil. Its not exactly that simple as you have to pre-oxidize and pre-polymerize the oil by heating it in air to accelerate the polymerization process. I was planning to buy pure virgin flax seed oil, hemp oil, tung oil, soybean oil, grapeseed oil among other oils, and test them unmodified and with different amounts of oils, pre-treatments of heat and/or air, and catalyst (I will try heating up the oil with manganese chloride to see if it reacts and dissolves to make my catalyst mixture. I know if you start out with a highly viscous treated oil then it polymerizes faster, but that might ruin the print quality. That's why I want a stronger laser beam to speed it up hopefully so you can print with virgin oil. I hope this information helps, I'm still talking out of my ass as I have the manganese and laser on order, and I only have some of the oils I need to test. I also need to compare with commercial resins, and I may mix up a batch of home-made cheap acrylate, epoxy, and polyester resins just to save money compared to buying commercial ones. Again I haven't sourced the materials but I may beg the local chemistry department to borrow some of the chemicals in small quantities.

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## glauco

> Well I just got back from vacation in Brazil, and man you have a beautiful country!!!! I live in the coldest city in the world (Winterpeg), and when my car isn't falling to rusty pieces I can drive down to my local hemp processing plant and pick up hemp oil at 1$ per liter! Sure beats the priciing of 50-100$ per liter on some of the resins I find.


Hey amir, I'm glad you enjoyed my country! I'm not a traveller guy, but if you live in Brazil, you can't go too far from your home without facing beauty nature.
To get hemp oil in Brazil, you would pay $50 per liter and need to have hope to not have the Federal Police to deliver personally in your home... you really go to the jail. As I'm just a poor latin american guy, I would rest in jail as a "dangerous guy" for at least 6 years for International Drug Traffic. Imagine that  :Stick Out Tongue:

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## amirjabri

> Hey amir, I'm glad you enjoyed my country! I'm not a traveller guy, but if you live in Brazil, you can't go too far from your home without facing beauty nature.
> To get hemp oil in Brazil, you would pay $50 per liter and need to have hope to not have the Federal Police to deliver personally in your home... you really go to the jail. As I'm just a poor latin american guy, I would rest in jail as a "dangerous guy" for at least 6 years for International Drug Traffic. Imagine that


No worries, if I was in Brazil I would try using Tung oil, which is apparently produced there in large quantities. Tung oil can be treated almost identical to acrylic resin, or be mixed with it to make it more renewable. The same catalyst should work with tung oil so if you have an interest try it out! I'm still figuring out how to work with linseed oil, which is more complicated. Good news is most alkaline batteries are full of manganese dioxide, zinc, and potassium hydroxide! These are three ingredients I can use to make a catalyst for linseed oil 3d printing hopefully and I find kilos of dead batteries in the recycling of my own apartment building!

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## amirjabri

Geez this tread is turning into my chemistry notebook I'm really sorry: A few things we can talk about are photocatalysts and monomers (resin). One interesting photo-catalyst known is curcumin, which is a bright yellow dye extracted from tumeric. It has been shown to be a good natural non-toxic photocatalyst for polymerization. Here is some of many references:

http://www.rpitechnology.com/attachm...0_Mkt_Lead.pdf

http://www.researchgate.net/publicat..._and_mechanism

They used a synthetic monomer but others such as Tung oil may work well instead. Would be interesting to see if pure tung oil mixed with curcumin could give a 3d printing resin. It is considered food safe when cured. I'm also interested in using Curcumin with manganese to make a photocatalyst for linseed oil. I found out you can make a good extract of curcumin from tumeric or buy it, then you can use manganese to make a complex using this procedure. It is similar to another manganese photocatalyst which is proven to work well for linseed but this one is also non-toxic! 

Here is the procedure I found, but I'm sure an easier one can be made:

Curcumin manganese complex, CpCpx. Manganese ace-tate (0.165 g, 0.65 mmol) was dissolved in ethanol (1 ml) and heated at 60°C . Curcumin (0.240g, 0.65 mmol) in ethanol (15 ml) was added drop-wise to the solution of manganese acetate and the reaction mixture was allowed to reflux for 3 h. The solid  obtained  was  collected  by filtration,  washed  withcold ethanol and dried at room temperature to afford red powder (0.150 g, 54.55% yield).

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## Feign

So you mentioned earlier that oils have to be pre-processed to make them viable for catalyzation into resin, I'm assuming this isn't something someone at home can just do with a sauce pan on a stove or we'd have resin recepies all over the place (While I have found _one_ DIY photopolymer how-to, it had about twelve components and looked a whole lot more complex than what you're describing.)

Besides, vegetable oil and Cumin sounds more like the start of a good stir fry than a hard plastic.

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## amirjabri

> I don't know about eating it outright, but being able to make food-safe items opens up a lot of possibility.  Currently plenty of people are making chocolate molds and other food-contact items with regular plastics and disregarding the health problems that can cause, but I'd rather not risk it.
> 
> Also, Linolium is some pretty tough stuff, even without the green aspect, it seems like a desirable print material.


What about using a silicone mold made from the print? Couldn't something like this work for food and not be a problem?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make...ehold-materia/

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## Feign

I've actually used the silicone molding method in that instructable.  Naptha and clear silicone caulk makes for a great 2-part mix.  I never thought of it for printing since the combination isn't UV reactive, and I've not known any way to make it UV reactive.

What kind of catalyst to oil ratio would you be starting with?  Tung Oil seems to be dirt cheap, but in America Curcumin is being sold as a wonder drug...  At wonder drug prices.

If it only needs a little bit of the catalyst, then this could end up being a very affordable resin, even compared to MakerJuice.

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## amirjabri

> So you mentioned earlier that oils have to be pre-processed to make them viable for catalyzation into resin, I'm assuming this isn't something someone at home can just do with a sauce pan on a stove or we'd have resin recepies all over the place (While I have found _one_ DIY photopolymer how-to, it had about twelve components and looked a whole lot more complex than what you're describing.)
> 
> Besides, vegetable oil and Cumin sounds more like the start of a good stir fry than a hard plastic.


Lol I was getting hungry thinking of it myself! I love curry! With linseed oil you need to pre-oxidize it to make it more viscous and full of peroxides so that when you finally zap it with light its ready to go. If you use virgin linseed oil it won't do anything unless you have a good catalyst. I was planning on using a small vial to test by heating up like 20ml of virgin flax oil in air (or using a fish tank bubbler to get air mixed in nicely). I will probably add some of the spent manganese dioxide from an alkaline battery as catalyst (not toxic I checked) to speed up this step. In a few hours it should get thicker because the polymerization has started. I don't want it fully cured though so I'll probably take some of the thickened flax oil and then see if a thin layer can cure with a 100mw 405nm laser. If it cures fast enough it should be usable for 3d printing!

In fact people have been making polymers for hundreds of years in cooking: they use flax oil to season cast iron cookware! In fact what they do is spread a thin layer of flax on bare iron, then they bake it to polymerize the flax and keep the surface from rusting.

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## Feign

So, after diving into Wikipedia and my sister's old textbooks for a while, I'm curious to figure out if any monomer can be made into a polymer with the right photoreactive catalyst (and there seems to be a photoreactive equivalents to almost every normal polymerizing catalyst).  If so, then it might be worth researching a way to make a UV-curing polyphenylene vinylene.  Not only is it conductive (~7 S/cm, or  .143 ohm/cm, which is pretty aweful for metal, but huge compared to current "conductive" filaments), but it's also electroluminescient.  Meaning that a large portion of the resistance it provides is emitted as light rather than heat.

I'm at a loss as to how I'd take advantage of a conductive, glowing resin without the ability to print multiple materials, but having the option seems pretty awesome.

Polyaniline might be a good research direction as well, as it's apparently rather cheap to buy and conductive enough to be electroplated.

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## Anuvin

You had me at glowing conductive resin. To the chemistry books!

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## amirjabri

> You had me at glowing conductive resin. To the chemistry books!


I'll try collecting info if it helps. I saved some articles on the subject to a folder online let me know if you can't download it and I'll figure something else out.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4o1...p=docslist_api

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## Londonship

More than two years on, and I am wondering if you ever were able to produce some edible or soy oil based materials that was able to be catalyzed forming some new materials.

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