BreakingTaps
@BreakingTaps
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Material Science, Microfabrication, Microscopy He/him. @breakingtaps @universeodon .com on Fediverse
Joined December 2020
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Any interest in a short video about how I design/machine for 5-axis CNC parts?
Never sure how much people are interested in the manufacturing side, especially since 5ax is pretty unrelatable to hobbyists.
Working on parts like these right now.
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AI is mostly a B2B technology. No consumer wants a lathe or a drill press either. Companies make them because other companies use them. AI is a machine tool for the mind -- a productivity device rather than a consumer toy.
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Just a little short about cutting mirrors with monocrystalline diamond 💎
Long-form video about this soon!
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Been working on some prototype nanoscale vacuum transistors lately! Still sorting out issues, but getting closer!
It's basically a vacuum tube but with a nanoscale gap. If the gap is small enough, it's below the mean free path at atmospheric pressure. Why is that interesting?
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I felt a great disturbance in the Prints, as if millions of machinists cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
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That's it. I think I've peaked. Nothing will be cooler than these macro-MEMs models 🤩
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Ok, so when were y'all going to tell me how satisfying pipe bending is? 🤨
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Satisfying. 😎
0.002" / 50 micron gap between the two parts. Not close enough for an airtight fit (especially with the radial grooves), but tight enough for it to take a while to settle 🙂
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So
@Astro_Chuck
suggested I make the orifices smaller.
The next set of test plates will have 0.2mm holes 😇
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YES! Success! 🥳
This turned out to be surprisingly tricky, but managed to electroplate an outer nickel jacket onto a copper core.
This creates hollow, internal cooling channel à la the main combustion chamber on the original RS-25 space shuttle engine.
Video soon!
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I'd like to present my new invention: the ZXYZXYZ stage
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Watch out ASML, I'm coming for you! *
* in another 100 years 😅
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That moment when you realize your test device just blew up 😅
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Equal parts excitement and dread to start working on this assembly. 🫠
Axial flow compressor with no rotary seals, because rotary seals are dumb.
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Litho project moving along! Next stop: frame assembly, then integration and software
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Well, after *a lot* of optomechanical tweaking and parameter tuning, I've got settings dialed enough to reliably hit ~2um lines.
Unfortunately adhesion is absolute garbage, and the pattern washes away for fully-developed exposures 🫠
Will try a metal under-layer next 🤞
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I love these rover wheels so much! Some very clever engineering in what looks like a simple wheel. And were quite interesting to manufacture too.
I machined up a scale model for a video but got distracted. I should really finish it some day! 😅
These big wheels keep on turning. 🛞
Recent photos of my wheels got some of you worried, but I'm here to reassure you, we're just fine! The images help my team keep tabs on wear and tear. If it came down to it, I could shed part of them off and keep on rolling.
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This has really been kicking my butt! Making steady progress though, maybe 30% done at this point.
How was everyone else's week? What are y'all working on?
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Soon ™
Also, shiny aluminum is a nightmare to photograph 😅
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Wow... I think it worked?! 🤯
Cupric oxide metal-semiconductor-metal photodetector. Definitely a response to light, and pretty sure the IV curve is right too (two Schottky junctions, so symmetrical regardless of bias)
Need to do some more testing, but promising!
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Found some standing waves in my photoresist tests, especially in the over-exposed sections.
Exposure light bounces off the substrate and interferes with itself on the way back out, forming "ripples" in the resist from over-/under-exposure
Bad for resolution, but looks cool!
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By popular request, working on a quick 5 axis DFM/machining video!
Might spin up the long-desired second channel to host this kind of content. Or maybe just lazy and post to main. We'll see 😅
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Getting closer! Need to remake the wheel to match some changes in the spokes, and then sort out finishing (electropolishing most likely) and anodizing (black for the wheel, maybe grey for the hub/spokes).
But the end is in sight now 🙂
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Got my first lathe! So cute!
In pretty good shape despite being an older machine. The sub spindle will take some learning but I think it'll be a fun challenge 🙂
Next step is to get power and air to the machine.
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Ok so got a new batch of fibers, and these are the real thing. Pure silica fibers 😎
Mixed the batch, molded, de-watered, sintered at 1200C. Resulting tile is mechanically robust and takes a MAP torch like a pro. Cool to touch on sides and bottom!
So apparently this wasn't "99.95% pure silica" fiber 😑
Started to slump around 800C, and fused around 1000C. Also a rather pretty blue/teal color... wonder what the impurity is? Cobalt? Iron?
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This project has been something of a white whale for me. Think I've been working on it 5-6 months now?
Still a lot of work to be done, but I'm finally confident in the results to share some details!
I made photosensitive pixels from Copper Oxide 😎
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Ok so multi-layer lithography is *way* more stressful than doing a single layer.
I have literal days of time and effort invested into this tiny little glass wafer. Goodluck little guy 🥺
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I am already beginning to question why I thought this would be a good idea 😅
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@Rainmaker1973
Just love these junk accounts that steal content without attribution while also removing watermarks.
Thanks for stealing my shit
@Rainmaker1973
!
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Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
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The family so far.
Totally wild how big 1mm holes look next to 0.2mm
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Direct write laser photolitho is working! 🥳
Whole bunch of issues to iron out (under-exposure, calibration, optical aberrations, etc)... but wow it works! Using a 20x objective it seems I have a feature size around 7um
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Accelerometer/gyroscope MEMS are just so damn cool. 😍
I think this'll turn into a really interesting video! 🤞
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Forty! Five! Minutes! of DIY photolithography machine building and testing.
Watch my descent into madness as I chase the goal of one micron. 🤏
It's up ad free on Nebula:
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Your daily reminder that knowledge in one field does not make you an expert in another. 🙄
This is pretty demeaning to the hard work of engineers and scientists.
Semiconducting materials? Photovoltaic effect? Fission? Superconductivity? Piezoelectric effect? Femtosecond lasers?
Andrej Karpathy says physics may have exploits and we should be trying to find them
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Mesmerizing to watch... when you're not full of barely-controlled panic that it'll smash itself to pieces. 😅
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One leg's worth of robot parts. This was a lot of work 🥴
Coil winding, assembly and (hopefully 🤞) testing next week!
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Still need to take some high res optical photos, but this KAF-0400 is pretty neato!
The vernier alignment scale is also very cool. 😍
Picked up an old scientific camera, will probably extract the sensor for some die shots
Contains the venerable Kodak KAF-0400! 🤩 Two phase, polysilicon-gated, buried channel, full frame CCD. 9μm pixels in a 768x512 array.
Not entirely sure of release date, but around 1990
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Also been working on this little linear stage recently. Uses dowel pins and bearings as the precision surfaces, everything else just machined aluminum. Little crunchy due to a 3d printed ball cage but otherwise happy how the first prototype turned out
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Photolithography is a dumb hobby and it is the path to madness. 😐
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Next version will need a few tweaks (thinner arms, and easier assembly of the spring), but I think this'll work!
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Cutting some silicon gears. Dialing in the recipe, much quicker and more reliable now.
M2.5x6 screw for scale
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Demonstration model of an experimental NASA jet engine is coming along nicely 😎
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I love older papers, they often included very low-tech but clever manual methods. How would you align a 500nm and 20um hole? Some fancy FIB mill-in-place scheme? Multi-step Si deposition/etching? This paper stacked two perforated discs and found a randomly aligned pair
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I have some bad news everyone.
All future videos are on pause indefinitely until I finish chopping this wood 💀
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When in doubt, but adjustability on every critical component 😇
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I recently learned about JWST's mirror actuators... and was amazed by how ingenius the mechanism is! Decided to build a replica model to see how it works for myself. True to scale too!
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Oh yeah, we're cookin' now.
8K mode ran for 1 hour 20 minutes before stopping due to dead battery. Temperature stabilized around 47 deg C (116F).
I think with an external battery this thing could film all day.
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Micro rolling joint prototype. Needs a few tweaks but works way better than expected!
Honestly it's surprising how low friction the motion is, despite the poor 3D printed surface.
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Laser cut titanium flexure 💪
Was a perfect
@sendcutsend
part. Could have been milled, but I'm juggling a bunch of projects and it just was easier to send out. Super pleased how it turned out!
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So frustrating to see these spam accounts continually repost
@BenKrasnow
's work without attribution.
I know it's just the state of Twitter (and the internet) today, but still makes me mad 😡
Go watch the original video if you haven't, it's great!
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This was fun 😊
Scale model of the RS-25 main combustion chamber. AKA the controlled explody bit of Space Shuttle's main engine
(took some liberties with the flange for my own sanity, and no acoustic vents on the interior 🤫)
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Never attribute to open-loop positioning error that which can be attributed to Silly Programming Mistakes 🤦
Wrote an automated alignment and backlash characterization script. Results are sub-1um?!
Turns out I had a sign error so moves were rotated slightly wrong way 🫠
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3ax accelerometer/gyro chip. Composite of 3 different chips that I decapped. Didn't get a complete view of top right unfortunately.
I thought the bottom was accel at first, but thinking they are gyros now? Dual mass vibrating kind? Lack of combs is throwing me, just a few plates
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Machining mirrors destined for a magneto-optical trap using monocrystalline diamonds.
How's that for buzzword soup! 🤓
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I will never understand this perspective.
Modern space companies are doing impressive work because prior generations also did impressive work!
And when you're not even sure if humans can survive zero-gravity, it's going to cost some money to figure out. 🙄
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Using my fiber laser for it's intended purpose for once: engraving metal! 😅
I was curious how the SEM micrographs would look engraved onto annodized aluminum. Need to tweak settings a little but really happy how these are turning out!
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Any interest in a short video about laser micromachining silicon? Was playing around with settings and got it working reasonably well. Not a whole lot to say I think, other than to show that it's doable
(This is a watch oscillator design from )
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Couldn't share this earlier since it was a Christmas gift! Topo map of Angels Landing at Zion National Park 🙂
Aluminum, took somewhere in the ballpark of 6hrs on the machine
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Picked up an old scientific camera, will probably extract the sensor for some die shots
Contains the venerable Kodak KAF-0400! 🤩 Two phase, polysilicon-gated, buried channel, full frame CCD. 9μm pixels in a 768x512 array.
Not entirely sure of release date, but around 1990
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v2 is starting to shape up. Just lookit those compliant rolling joints! 🤩
Eyeballed a lot of the kinematics so probably needs tweaking but excited to see how this one assembles and moves
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Some initial resolution tests are quite promising! Resist is different from my EBL projects, so basically starting all over WRT parameters unfortunately 😢
It's also very expired (2018) and thick (2um), I may splurge on some new/thin resist to make life easier.
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Movement!
This is a seriously nice stage, and the API is super pleasant to work with 🤩 Almost feel bad I'm not using it for something more sophisticated!
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Calibration Cat in 17-4 stainless 🐈
Tweaked my vacuum setup and added ballast/carbon, looks to have sintered a lot better than last time. Will cut it open next week to see if the internals oxidized
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Procesesd this little guy a bit too much😂 Neat to see where the bond wires attach to the external pins though!
(Testing out some laser decapping parameters)
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Are you happy internet?! Look what you made me do, design a PCB like some kind of electrical engineer.
I need to go shower all this dirty EE off of me 😅
Damnit I think I might finally have to learn how to use KiCad.
Or maybe I can just bodge it in Fusion and CNC mill the whole thing... 🤔
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