This weekend I spent my time playing with my form1+ and phosphor powder. It went well.
I was first attracted to the idea of SLA because how clear a print could be. Clear prints quickly brought me the idea of light pipes and lens. Both have articles written on them. So lighting/optics has been on my mind for a while now with regards to a potential printing project. Recently, however, I’ve been very interested in the idea of using phosphor to convert blue light to white light.
My goal was to print a phosphor impregnated object that I could use to convert blue light to white. I knew the best resin to fuse with phosphor was going to be clear and I had already bought some phosphor and a high powered 445nm laser. My first question at this point was how much phosphor to clear resin should I mix.
To study molar content, I designed a small test tray that I could use to make 8 different sample in small batches and see how the mixed preformed. This was also a test in itself because I was using the sun to cure the resin which I’ve never done before. I held the resin constant at 1cc and started with 0.2g and stepped up the mixture by 0.2g at a time.
I learned that phosphor will settle quickly on the bottom. because it settles It seams a high phosphor content is best, the closer to saturation the better. However, Because our printers print upside down if the mix is not fully saturated then it still settles on the bottom where the printing is taking place making it still work, but full saturation would guarantee a consistent phosphor content across a print.
Over all the test was successful (although the print partially failed.) because I was able to print a phosphor impregnated filter. it has been a really fun past 48hrs and I am excited to keep working with this tech on future projects. I believe that the combination of light pipes, lens and phosphor filters all printed can make for some really cool prints!
I’m trying to keep this post short so I have left out a lot of details. If anyone has any specific question feel free to post below and I’ll get back to you. Thanks!
