3 ms·

That's a neat idea. Somebody did this [1]. Not sure if it's worth the effort to achieve 20% strength increase, but potentially with some fine tuning this could

• Animats 5y ago
  That's new. Work in 2021. Interesting. They're vague about the laser power. Also, they only had one laser in a fixed position, so they could only print in one direction, moving towards the laser. You probably need something like 3 lasers, 120 degrees apart, switched so that the energy is always being applied ahead of the filament. If this increased the range of easily printable materials, it would be quite useful.
  • contingencies 5y ago
    With (laser or traditional) welding of metals it gets to the point where you need to flood the area with shielding gases (eg. argon/helium/nitrogen) during the weld to prohibit poor surface qualities (due to plasma formation, oxidation, etc), and that the flow rate requirement and geometric matching of the airflow-assist structure ('shoe') becomes critical (sometimes on both sides). Basically, a generic solution has severe limitations in material, speed and finish terms. I am no chemist but would generally assume the same to be true for many food related substances. Polymers bonding will often respond better to a mix of focused ultrasonics and pressure than simply thermal energy. Alternative, use glue.