Here’s something that may be of interest to all the reprappers, vacuum formers, and other plastic fabbers out there: ultrasonic welding of plastics. If you’ve ever wanted to join two pieces of plastic without melting them together with acetone or screwing them together, [circuitguru] is your guy.
Ultrasonic welder setups are usually reserved for companies that don’t mind spending tens of thousands of dollars on a piece equipment. There are smaller versions made for heat staking - melting plastic pillars into rivets on the work piece – and [circuitguru] was lucky enough a somewhat reasonable price.
Because the heat staking gun was a handheld unit, a rotary tool drill press was put to work. The end result is a relatively inexpensive way to join two plastic parts without screws, glue, or solvents. The bond is pretty strong, too. Check out the video after the break to see [circuitguru] join two pieces of a plastic enclosure and try to tear them apart.
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Well that’s disapointing. I was hoping this was a hack or an actual DIY build. He just picked up a piece of industrial equipment cheap and put it to use.
@BitMage +1
Is this what Sandisk seals their flash drives with? I’ve taken to using a paper slicer or a hacksaw to open them now because I’m tired of getting shanked by plastic shards.
Most thumb drives are sealed with a glue, similar to super glue, but I wouldn’t doubt that they would do this to speed it up and make them last longer.
I’ve been wondering if the ultrasonic transducer from an ultrasonic humidifier could be put to exciting use like this. I suspect it can probably put out enough power to do a little ultrasonic welding, and you could probably build your own amp/signal generator if the setup for humidifying isn’t appropriate to welding.
For that matter there are probably some tweeters out there that could go high enough to weld or do other ultrasonic tasks
The ultrasonic welders I have seen are pretty big, the power supplies that drive the ultrasonic horn are about the size of an ultrasonic humidifier itself. So no, I don’t think it will work.
You might be able to start out with a used ultrasonic driver for a big US cleaner tank. I see those go for cheap.
Bad thing about ultrasonic welding is they can create a of noise when putting inserts in. Makes finger nails on a chalkboard sound pleasant.
Agree, all his DIY stuff listed is quite honestly pathetic, all he’s listed is stuff he’s bought. Why don’t you make your HD camera, that would be DIY.
I was also disappointed in this. This is just re-using something, not really DIY except for using a pre made drill press for a mount.
I know ultrasonic cleaners can affect crystals on PCB boards… what are the “gotchas” that can arise when sealing electronics with ultrasonic welding?
Improper frequency and/or power settings can literally shake the metal legs completely off of surface mount chips.
please define … DIY … it just seams like he made a mount for a drill press for something already advertised as a plastic welder … also may i add these are far from cheap
it cant be THAT hard to make your own high frequency welder they have been around seance the 40s
He is being facetious.
XOIIO: Really? That went right over your head? *facepalm*
Well the (s) I replied to have disappeared so mine doesn’t have any context now, of course it doesn’t make sense.
Comment(S)
If you knew the people I did and have seen stuff like I’ve seen one you’d think it was some retarded person who thought it was DIY too.
I think the point is that low-cost sonic welding for plastics would be very useful for many DIY projects in general, so has a strong application in the DIY field in general.
I’d bet you could use an electric engraver if you swapped the pointed tip for something blunt…
Omg, I can’t believe it, HAD yanking comments? Yea, yank profanity, but yanking someone 2cents, hmmm… Gonna lose support
Soooo, he designed a mount?
This was rather disappointing. Might as well sum it up as ‘how to build an ultrasonic welder; Step 1 go buy an ultrasonic welder’
hey guys, check out my new submission, diy full color e-reader (i put a wrist strap on my nook)!
Look into the TIDE BUZZ stain remover pen. Unmodified I can weld styrene sheets easily and re seal bister paks. I have considered making a sonic screwdriver out of Buzz parts.
That is some bit of really interesting information! What thicknesses could you weld and what materials? I was looking for a solution to weld plastic foils for quite some time now and would buy the device (is it that one [0]?) right away if it was not for the heavy shipping and taxes to europe.
It would be great if you could provide more details so I can be sure not to waste 70$ on a useless device.
[0] http://amzn.com/B000228KJY
The project was a lot more DIY than the description given here.
http://circuitguru.com/117/diy-ultrasonic-welder-press-for-plastics/
He had to modify the drill press for better precision, add a spring-loaded slide for force control, fabricate a bracket, bring in parts from another piece of equipment…
So he didn’t build the ultrasonic generator, but he did build the hardware to provide control over the welding operation.
He did a lot more than what’s described here. He modified the drill press three different ways, including fabricating parts. He had the welding head, but needed to build a pressure-clamp system for it to be useful.
http://circuitguru.com/117/diy-ultrasonic-welder-press-for-plastics/
Sonitek makes these: http://www.sonitek.com/ultrasonics/hand-held.html