From the course: Additive Manufacturing: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

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3D printing glass

3D printing glass

From the course: Additive Manufacturing: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

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3D printing glass

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- [Woman] People have been creating glass for thousands of years. The oldest technique is glassblowing. Sheets of glass have been produced for several centuries using the float glass process which involves pouring glass over molten tin. Industrial glass fabrication is also very mature. And applications for 3D-printed glass had to emerge to make developing printers for it make sense. - [Man] Glass melts at extremely high temperatures. It needs to be cooled slowly from those temperatures if internal stresses are going to be kept low enough to avoid cracking. All this makes glass very challenging to directly 3D print. Maple Glass 3D printing is creating one of the first commercial glass printers. Superficially, it looks like a typical plastic printer with a very industrial enclosure. However, it has a nozzle that can handle temperatures of 1000C. It can also hold its build chamber to a high temperature, then gradually cool…

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