After the recent announcement of the re-release of the candyfab, [4volt] had to give a run at melting sugar with a laser. It turns out that a 40w co2 laser works great. They don’t currently have a method of layering, so everything is one layer currently.You can see the results of different speeds and power ratings on the site. The next party they throw will have some pretty fancy tasty treats.
17 thoughts on “Rapid Prototyping With Sugar And Lasers”
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Can you eat it when ur done?
I don’t see why not. as long as the plate the sugar was layered on is clean, nothing touches it. I guess you could get something from the mirror assembly when it passes over the sugar. It could be made food safe fairly easily.
Laser shaped candy only $1!
Since the sugar never comes into physical contact with anything else, it should be save to eat. I couldn’t resist and tried a bit of the last test, and it tasted exactly like caramelized sugar, no big surprise.
if the wirks with some other sugar aswell and colors and stuff.. this is going to be quite cool :D
this is pretty neat. i wonder if you could achieve the same effect with multiple low wattage IR or visible lasers focussed on the same spot?
would be neat, i have done ultrafine engraving with a modified Bluray write diode (sub 0.05mm focus) so it could work.
-A
This is pretty dope, I could definitely see this being a commercial product, same with the candy fab.
I could see a bakery using one of these (think Ace of Cakes)
damn, this is actually really cool.
if a laser cutter and a 3d fabber could be easily combined, the machine would be more useful than either one on its own and may not cost much more!
-Taylor
I’d like to try this with sugar in liquid form, like the type used for making cotton candy. That would be rad.
nice :D
Lol, I’m apparently the only guy living under a rock who didn’t know lasers were capable of this o_o
I wonder what would happen if they tried it with a finer sugar.
what is the resolution of your sugar printer ? ;>)
:) if the wirks with some other sugar aswell and colors and stuff.. this is going to be quite cool :D
How about liquifying first, and using an inkjet head to deposit the layers?
i tried this with some shitty sugar i had at work that was layered with cinnamon i think, it was for putting on popcorn. its really fragile, and although you can pick up the designs they tend to fall apart fairly easily, the white of the sugar tends to deflect alot of the light, it would be interesting to try with darker sugar, like maybe sugar in the raw.
can it rapided with salt?