Batch Research Lab is a place for us to share all of our experiments on the future product design, related tools, materials, process and manufacturing.
We will upload varying content based on what we are researching or producing. Some will be process or materials research and others may be longer form content such as how we go about prototyping a new product for our company.
We hope to inspire DIY enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and seasoned pros alike. If you're interested in what can be done with emerging technology in the fast-changing space of product design and rapid, green, localized manufacturing you might be interested in what we're getting up to.
Just a few things to look for from us:
- Experimentation. Can we combine different materials, skills or processes in unique and interesting ways? - Materials reviews, tests and usage in real products and prototypes - Podcasts and Vlogs on different topics in the world of design, product development, and disruptive manufacturing tech
We used the IR laser on xTool F1 for marking the green PLA, and we used the fiber laser on xTool F1 Ultra for the small aluminum tile we embedded into the lid. This time, we etched the aluminum before we embedded it to make sure the metal didn't get too hot and melt the filament, but in hindsight, the pass using fiber laser for that design probably would have been fast enough to keep that from happening.
Simply incredible and inspiring! I noticed that in the other video showcasing the engraving tests, that you're using IR and blue diode - can you achive similar results with an blue diode as IR?
We actually have been getting very different results using the IR and Blue Diode. We seem to be able to get a pretty precise material foaming (which you see as the lighter color appearing on the prints' surfaces) with the IR on a number different filaments and colors, but the Blue Diode seems to either just melt or ablate the material we've tried it with -- even when we've tried to reduce the power to try and approximate the output level of the IR. On the XTool F1, the IR's beam also seems to be much tighter than the Blue Diode's.
You know, this thing just started out purely as a design exercise, so the files are kind of a mess. But we seem to be getting a fair amount of response on it, so l'm going back and cleaning it up, making sure there aren't any areas that are too thin or potentially critically weak points, as well as adding some dust sealing features. We still need to circle back as a team to touch base on next steps, but would you be ok sending us an email so we can let you know when it's ready?
Not sure about the song...hahaha...I pulled it out of our folder where we save our musical experiments, so it's either the result of someone riffing in the Launchpad app, or one of our experiments trying Suno.
For this project, we used an xTool F1 (and mostly the 2W IR laser on that machine). We've got to get through a few other things so we're a bit behind on them, but we're also planning a few followup videos of projects that include the specific settings we used to achieve them.
Thanks so much for replying. I've been looking at the xtool F1 and considering it as my first laser machine. Would you recommend it? @@batchresearchlab
It depends on what you plan on trying to accomplish. The F1 is a compact galvo unit with 2 types of lasers. Some of the pros are that it's capable of speeds way beyond most gantry-style machines can achieve; and some marking effects can require very short duration-on-material times. And its speed allows it to accomplish some things in a fraction of the time most common gantry lasers can (we're talkin' seconds vs minutes). Having both an IR and blue diode give it some versatility, especially if you're working with different material types in different colors. And its small size makes it portable (it's even got a carry handle ;) ), and it's pretty easy to find a place for it in a crowded workspace. Some of the cons are both lasers it's equipped with are fairly low powered, so don't expect to cut much metal with it, and it's not particularly great with most acrylics (besides solid black). Since it's a galvo, most cuts you make with it will be angled (because the laser originates from a single, central point); so they won't be 'clean' vertical cuts. And it's got a really small working area; 115x115mm. Hope that helps!
Not yet, but that's a great idea!...though more practice aligning things would definitely be in order ;) . And yes, we could set things up so they're optimized for one of the gantry lasers...but it has been really nice testing on the super-fast galvos.
The extremely heavy use of "we" phrasing throughout the script makes this very difficult to watch, it's more egregious than most videos with this same style. Who is "we"? Was there a team working on this or is it just you? Why not say I or change your sentence structure to not have to say we over and over and over?
....well shoot....now that's all *I* hear...hahahaha! You're probably right. We (hahaha) ...we've been chipping away on-n-off at this one in various iterations for near 2 months, and it's been rearranged and parts re-written so many times that in our effort to make sure all the details were correct, we sorta neglected and lost some of the natural vernacular flow. Thanks for the feedback.
Search for “countersunk magnet” and somewhere in your shop screw one into your pegboard tool holder, your work bench, your garage wall and for evermore that is the Master Magnet to clock all future projects that involves magnets. Doesn’t matter which side is North or South so long as you clock your magnet or stack of magnets off of the Master Shop Magnet then all projects throughout your shop will repeal / attract the same for perpetuity.
Search for “countersunk magnet” and somewhere in your shop screw one into your pegboard tool holder, your work bench, your garage wall and for evermore that is the Master Magnet to clock all future projects that involves magnets. Doesn’t matter which side is North or South so long as you clock your magnet or stack of magnets off of the Master Shop Magnet then all projects throughout your shop will repeal / attract the same for perpetuity.
@@batchresearchlab No problem. I asked just curious. I love the way that it gives an interesting look to 3d part it was great. Thank you for the reply.
Hey there, thanks for the input! Given this is an idea we’re testing out, would be great to get more around your reasoning. In more informal testing we’ve found it to be a love it or hate it thing, and that’s ok! Would you say it’s not in a style you prefer? This has a very post modern thing happening as it was the style we least enjoyed working in so it was one of our constraints. Would you rather see other types of exploration? Industrial, Mid Century, Minimalism, etc? Are there specific design elements you do or don’t like? For instance “if you changed (X) this would be better”. It’s totally ok if it’s just not your style, we’ll be playing with different themes/concepts/utility/etc as we move forward.
We've never had that happen, but the Bambu X1C machines we use also have a magnetic bed and use ferrous (steel) plates (vs glass), and so far, even though the nozzle we use is the hardened steel type, it hasn't attracted the magnets off of or out of the prints we've been doing. But also whenever we can, we design the print models so that the cavities for the magnets are a pretty snug press fit. Good luck!
Just came across your channel on my feed as I'm learning how to 3d print. Really enjoy your videos and decided to subscribe. That written, I have to ask, did you do the voice over for the Dharma Initiative training videos? If you haven't you've got a side-gig cause I'm getting 60s/70s training video vibes and I'm loving it.
The issue with the warping is often seen. If this is PLA, then you should print with opened door and removed glass. For ABS ofc closed. Both are prone to first layer issues, especially with a boxy design like this, which could be solved: - Check infill type. Grid is prone to more internal stresses. Use other type - By default the distance between brim and object is smth like 0.1 which imo does not stick to the model and does nothing. Thus making it 0 would connect to the model and hold it - Use so called "mouse years". This would be the best choice imo When I had issues with small model that was for calibrating it had the same issues. Mouse years on each corner and it prints nooooo problemo. It is like 1min of work in the slicer itself
Well you kinda forgot to mention that if you have other than brass nozzle the magnets can stick to it :D Especially if not designed to snap fit as yours are (A+ design, but most of the real world cases won't be like that). To prevent this a super glue can be used. Drop of glue, magnet, wait a little bit, resume :) Hope this helps
We use a hardened steel nozzle, but luckily never had problems with it picking up the magnets; probably because we also use a magnetized bed. Good tip on using glue on the magnets, though. Because of the glue’s curing time, I’d just caution anyone who might be working with a print that was senstitve to temperature consistency fluctuations. In those cases, it might be better to design the print so that the magnets were a fairly snug/tight press-fit into the print’s cavity so pause time could be minimized.
Magnetic fields affect each other. They are not like light waves. Put a north next to a piece of iron and it will induce a magnetic field in the iron. If you simulated the interactions between the magnets, I am pretty sure you would see how the effect emerges.
Thanks. As you can probably detect, we’re learning as we go. Our knowledge on this leans more practical than scientific 😅, and we tend to dig in primarily to the places where we hit obstacles we can’t circumvent.
You may want to consider the distance between the magnets and the item you are trying to magnetize. Look up the tool that is used to remagnetize or demagnetize a screwdriver. It is simply a single magnet and the distance from the magnet controls if it is magnetizing or demagnetizing.
That's a great point and an excellent thing to look into 👍. We dug into it a little bit today and it looks like they works on the principle of two magnets placed so that the North poles are opposing each other ( we found this great explanation by Dr. Pete Jones/Electromagnetic Videos ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AZsYHLHlIso.html ). The magnetizing hole in the tool is where you're passing the screwdriver between the two magnets. When we think about it, this sort of makes sense, since opposing polarity stacks we've been building/using are effectively a bunch of screwdriver magnetizers stacked together - with the areas between the opposing magnetic fields imparting magnetization to the things that they come in contact with. The demagnetizing hole is where the screwdriver is passed next to just one magnet's South pole. From what we gather, progressively passing the screwdriver farther and farther away from the single magnet's south pole gradually completely demagnetizes the screwdriver. We also found this print file by quattro we may try out ( www.printables.com/model/811329-magnetizer-demagnetizer ). Thank you for the idea to look into this!
So one thing I thought I would mention, is that I knew when you made that video that it wasn't a "halbach array" but I actually thought it was a good name because i presumed that was the magnetic configuration you were imparting onto the flexible magnet. consider the magnetic fields of the opposing polarity stack and then imagine the field configuration of the flexible magnet that it should adopt after being... uh... "treated"? I do not know the right terms for this. Reverse Polarity Stack should look like this: ⬅⬅🔃➡➡➡↕⬅⬅⬅🔃➡➡➡↕⬅⬅ Flexible magnet should then look like this: ➡↗⬆↖⬅↙⬇↘➡↗⬆↖⬅↙⬇↘➡ That's a halbach array right?!
😆I guess you're right! We didn't even think about it that way! I guess we were just overly concerned that our mistake would end up misinforming people that we immediately took steps to begin to try and correct and clarify things. And wow, the way you can 'see' magnetic field interaction is beyond our current capability....like how an Operator in the Matrix can see what's in the digital rain 😳. This might be the first time we've actually seen an 'applicator' array's field pattern diagrammed immediately adjacent to a 'treated' magnet's field pattern🤔. Thank you for this insight🙇♂
I thought for magetizing you need strong uniform magnetic field with magnetic lines going through the plate in one direction. Halback array has short alternating magnetic circuits which is probaly demagnetazes plate right after you take it off or move to the side even a bit. On my job we have a magnetizer for sensors which comprized of one big metal square bent in U shape (100+ kg) with one side static and other with adjustable moving block for bigger parts, very big electomagnet really. Parts then were placed in the gap and baked in magnetic field for a few seconds. Ends is about 15x15 cm in size for parts of up to 10x10 cm. I'm thinking 2 neodymium magnets with field oriented in one direction with gap between them and far ends joined with stiff u-shaped metallic rod will work better. Or just use one big magnet and move it with one pole being on the plate, likely it's good enough to magnetize without going though troubles of assembly.
Your content is amazing! Keep up the great work! I'm pretty sure you've answered this before, but what filament are you using with what machine/laser settings to get those gorgeous etched labels on your prints?
We've often used black Polymaker Matte PLA for these magnet projects, but we've also used black Elegoo PLA Pro (which is a bit shiner) also etches well. These prints were done on a Bambu X1C and etched with an xTool F1. You can learn more about our process here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NQEGXvpRVDE.html and and can find sample files here www.batchmade.studio/laser-engrave-3d-prints-part2
There is a link in the description of that video ( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Z4cwj2_VbZk.html ) that should take you to the write-up of that project ( www.batchmade.studio/magnets-and-3d-prints-part2 ) . At the bottom of that write up is a 'Materials Reference' pulldown. You can find the fabrication files there (3D print and xTool F1 engraving files).
You went full nuts on it. Doing the "Research" part in the name justice. I'm really impressed you had the guts to build it with such monster mags... Did you test the field strength by any chance? Or a max kg able to lift? Also I meant alternating array of Halbach arrays out of tiny 2mm cube magnets, but apparently it didn't occur to me to communicate that. My bad...
Hey there, I'm Holt, another of the Batch team. I'm replying for Dom while he's on vacation, but I'm sure he'll chime in when he's back. I know while he was working on this one he said it was scary a few times, so I'm assuming it was beating him up pretty good. We were super surprised that it totally killed the sheet magnet so quickly. It would be pretty cool to test the lifting capacity too. I feel like this is heading into fishing magnet territory. It would definitely do some damage to a finger or hand. It's not for the faint of heart that's for sure! Thanks for checking in. I'll let Dom know you popped in when he's back this weekend. On to the next project!
Not really sure we'd call it 'guts' 😅 . It really was more blind-hope-in-a-theory which morphed into we've-gotten-this-far-so-we-can't-stop-now 🤷♂🤣. We don't have the instrumentation to accurately test field strength, and would need to figure out how to test lift max without risking busting that little bit of PLA keeping the rod in the handle 🤔. But if we do, we'll chime back in here 👍. - D
Really love the content that’s been published so far! I really learnt a whole lot from your channel and it’s tempting me to get a laser to engrave my 3d prints
Me too! I think Dom edited those moments out but... he is a careful man, so perhaps he accomplished this feat of daring and danger with zero scars to show for it ;-) You've got me thinking we should do a drama edit where there's tense music building towards the magnet placements. haha.
Yeah, I ended up with some mangled finger meats from both magnet pinches and trying to bare-hand turn those headless threaded rods; and those heavy duty black nitrile gloves in some of the clips were an attempt prevent further injury, but also to try and make sure the bandaids 🩹stayed on. Why did I use headless rods you may ask? We also ordered socket head rods; but the headless rods arrived first. Eager impatience 😞.
