Coat ANYTHING in METAL: Magnetron Sputtering Machine Build
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This machine, is as close to magic as we've come as a species. It takes a sheet of metal, turns it into plasma and then can coat literally anything in that metal. Today we discuss how we built this incredible machine!
Github repo of parts: github.com/thethoughtemporium...
Part 1- • Metal Coating using PL...
Ben's amazing videos:
Main channel page - / appliedscience
• New high vacuum system
• Progress on vacuum cha...
• Intro to sputtering (p...
• Intro to plasma cleaning
• More info about sputte...
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:33 Sourcing materials
4:30 Cart
6:20 Base PLate
7:45 Choosing vacuum materials
10:40 Baffle
13:20 Sputter Head
17:20 Rotary Couplings
19:11 High Current Feedthrough
20:34 Gas Flow Valves
21:40 Sponsor
22:36 Next Time Sneak Peek
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I'm a machinist and you guys did an excellent job. The entire trade is all about creative problem solving and incremental learning. Which are skills you've already demonstrated. All you need now is time. Best of luck in the future and remember: you're ALWAYS going to break taps.
It's not about when you break a tap It's where 😅
One could even say the entire trade is all about creative ways of breaking taps while parts are a byproduct.
If you've got a cnc, use thread mills if you can swing it. Better than digging out broken taps.
Uh, Chinese carbide tools to machine special copper? Try high speed steel O1, D2. Indexed inserts have made skills like grinding and engineering cutting geometry, a lost art. Rake, chip breaker, width, setting above center, are skills learned and passed on. I assume phosphor bronze would off gas too much?
@@ClownWhisper yeah, there are better ways to machine copper. My point stands, they made it work and likely learned a lot. Encouragement is better than beratement.
Engineering cut? Yes please! A water-cooled vacuum-compatible high-voltage assembly is definitely interesting enough to warrant one
yes please!!!
+1
+1
start with a microwave magnetron and high voltage,
I knooooow
You don't have to mince words TTE, we already know you're actually a wizard disguising his spells with props.
Lol
Advanced enough magic is indistinguishable from technology.
For sputtering non conductive materials, like the glow powder, you need RF sputtering. If you try to DC sputter an insulating target charge will build up on it, and will discharge with the arcs you see at 23:08
The magnetron outputs microwaves, which are most assuredly RF. Although, I'd not have gone with resistance heating of the metal, but went with inductive heating. Far more efficient and easily adjusted for output to ensure one doesn't vaporize the metal instantly. That's how getters were activated in vacuum tubes, which scavenge the remaining metal that's slowly departing the metals and insulators.
I have one of these machines in my lab and it costed hundreds of thousands. It is unbelievably crazy that you made one from scratch!
While it sure is, in my lab we have all kinds of stuff that costs hundreds or thousands, but when we open it up we often think "we could've made that for a fraction...". :)
For taking them two months to make it, I don't doubt that price one bit.
Sputtering samples for the electron microscope is always great fun.
This is a DC sputter coater, not an RF sputter coater. While an RF sputter coater does cost 100k+ a dc sputter can be had for about 10k.
@@genuinedickies99 Then again, the opportunity cost somewhat equals out when you consider that those months would have been spent earning the money to buy such a machine))
5:45 as functional isolation that nothing important gets zapped, great choice. But don´t rely on that for any kind of safety, just ground the table to the earth as part of the setup wiring. Ideally add a "dummy" wall plug that connects the ground and energises a relay wich prevents the device or power supply from working when not plugged in, somewhat ensuring a good earthing of the contraption. This is because if the metal construction is not connected to anything it can quite easily gain a static charge over time through tracking or by capactiance and give you a nasty zap.
You can't route the entire machine through a residual current device (RCD) as the diffusion pump needs to cool under vacuum, so the roughing pump would always need to be on another circuit to prevent vacuum oil fires.
My highschool had a crt on a cart. The ground wire pin was broken by someone. The cart gained a very fun static charge for anyone who touched it. Eventually someone went to the ER, and they got rid of the tv. They never replaced it and the teacher had to bring in their own projector
How is this capacitance possible? I believe it could happen but don't understand how the electricity would build up on the surface of a nonconductive material. Wouldn't the charge just be pushed back into the metals and conductive material on the table with it? Wouldn't there have to be a neutral of some sort in the system for the electricity to flow through you?
Oh. That makes a lot more sense. Thanks
If one has a lab that uses high voltage circuits, a bus grounding system would be strongly recommended, the bus going straight to a ground spike that's properly installed. Long ago, an electronics school instructor said to our class, "ground is ground the world around". I educated him on telluric currents and ground voltage differentials, each related to different causes. Got bit twice by such surprise differentials, since I've used greater caution, lest I strike out.
My tips for machining soft metals (copper, tin, lead, etc.) Use sharp HSS tools. Rasor sharp is blunt after i sharpened them. :-) The cutting angles can be quite steep. The tools are more like wood cutting tools. You want to move the removed material away from the stock as fast as possible. Use diesel, kerosene or WD-40 as cutting lubricant. The softer the material the thinner the lubricant has to be.
Came here just to second on High Speed Steel tooling instead of carbide, it should work way better and be waaaaaay cheaper for the things and quantities being machined on the type of machines present. You can get random "blanks" of HSS to sharpen into whatever you want, or even get used junk off of Canadian Craigslist since you are just gonna grind it into whatever you want. I don't have any experience with oxygen free copper, but my general understanding is that whenever you have to work with "grabby" or gummy materials, brassed-off tools with neutral cutting angles stop the material from pulling your cutter into itself like a melodramatic thespian.
I second the remark on the cutting angles, although not the "quite steep". The optimal angle depends on the material, and you have to dial your cutting speed so the material removal happens at a set rate. I recall having to look it up in tables when I first learnt to use machining tools (lathe and milling machine). And I agree on using HSS rather than carbide on copper, but also on Teflon. The issue with Teflon is that it flows away from the tool if you take too shallow a cut, but then it'll "bounce back" and the tool will take a bigger chunk, resulting in a rougher finish than anticipated.
Cool thanks for that..
Those results are sick, and the machining quality top notch bro. Nice work!
EDIT: I'd absolutely love to see an engineering cut of this video. Your work is amazing. I know this is too late to be useful, but the sheer majesty of what you built compels me to say that machining copper and some of its alloys is a right bastard, but it is possible to get oxygen-free Alloy 145. Alloy 145 is a tellurium-copper alloy which is ideal for machining. It apparently sees lots of use as a busbar material due to conductivity. Although described as a free machining copper alloy, free machining is, it's still a copper alloy and I found it amazingly abrasive against carbide and HSS tooling, and while less so than pure copper it's still pretty gummy. But it is nicer to machine, and unless the tellurium was somehow an issue I think it'd be great for this application. You've done some beautiful work here. Far out.
Professional Laboratory Machinist here: holy crap thats looks awesome!! Great job!! I personally love the way OFE copper looks! So much more red in person.
Every time I watch one of your videos I get bummed when they're over. If you made a video 10 hours long I could watch the entire thing and still be bummed that it wasn't longer.
Mundane fact: The US doesn't use the Imperial System. We use the US Customary System, which is comprised of "nice" multiples of Metric units to approximate Imperial units. Because of this, Imperial and US Customary units aren't interchangeable or "nicely" convertible.
There are also some other differences, for example US and Imperial pints&gallons are different sizes (since British changed them after US gained independence).
@@HidingAllTheWay But now Britain uses metric
@@durnsidh6483 for the most part. Beer is still sold in pints, and car fuel efficiency is measured in MPGs (even though fuel is sold in litres).
@@durnsidh6483 Not true. In the UK, they measure distance in miles, height in feet, beer and some other drinks in pints, icecream in half gallons, and if you ask anyone how much they weigh in kilograms they will look at you funny but if you ask their weight in stones (14 pounds) or pounds, they most certainly will know. They also know inches just as easily as they do metric as it was only 20 some years ago that they were on the IPS system. Its actually illegal in the UK to sell beer or cider in any unit other than fractional pints. All UK plumbing is still in the inch system, though threads are BS but are still inch. I am an engineer in the US for a company based in the UK. As much as my colleagues in the UK try to deny it......they use the IPS system every single day in everything they do. ;-)
Yup, US Customary system is in fact metrified and is based explicitly on metric system standards, with a mathematical conversion applied.
So, this is basically a plasma coater (common name). The disks for some reason are often called targets - although that makes no sense to me since they are sources. The coatings are typically very thin (in the nm scale). We use them to make conductive surfaces on samples for machines like scanning electron microscope (and others). These machines (generally) require conductive samples. I'm not allowed to "play" at work, but you might try to see if you can get interference colors on a glass slide (e.g. blue or red gold). You can use it as a thickness gauge based on coating time. Also, I always want to use masks and coat successive layers of metals with different conductivity to see if I could make an odd circuit - we can actually do carbon as well. Not sure they make a target for that, it is an evaporation technique usually. Anyway - good job. We pay a rather large sum for our coaters. I think our last carbon coater was 50K and it looks very similar to what you made .
They're called targets because the working fluid is the plasma in the chamber. The plasma bombards the target and knocks material loose, resulting in a beam of nano-scale shrapnel. Basically it's a particle accelerator that shreds itself in a controlled manner to coat things.
I do remember scanning electron microscopes needing to coat things in metal to “see” sample. Didn’t realize it was with a machine similar to this. Just remember seeing it on a video about butterfly wings having nano scales rather than pigments. They used an the scanning electron microscope to see the scales and briefly mentioned coating wing with gold. Was probably a “getting smarter every day” video.
That is pretty sweet! I've always admired Ben's DIY tools he's built that would otherwise be inaccessible to the average person. Welding cable is also a good choice building high current transformers. With jumper cables you never really know what your going to get.
all you have to say is Ben and people know who you mean...amazing guy
We call our measurement system "Freedom Fractions". Thanks, I'm here all day.
lAs a proud American, I refuse to learn how to use fractions, free or otherwise, so I usually just look at stuff and guess
I will be stealing that. Thank you.
I heard someone call metric "free healthcare units" and have been using it every chance I can.
@@Spencisuar Yeah, those free healthcare doctors thinking mm Hg is the SI unit for pressure get me all hypertensive. (?)
@@lettersnstuff fractions are pretty easy to work with. If you have a calculator you can just convert them to decimals by dividing the top number with the bottom one. Then they're not even fractions anymore.
The marble machine X lacks tight tolerances though. :) Awesome stuff!
really had to bring that up huh
marble machine X reference, love it
Welcome to the machining! You and Ben have heaps of talent there. Impressive. P.S. If anyone tells you - something you struggle with is easy, 'just do this, simple and failproof' - that person's a pretentious rookie. Metalwork is just unpredictable a lot of the time. You did more materials in 2 weeks, than me in 3 years as a miller(usually harder than turning on CNC). So not gonna splash an advice, it's already here. Takes persistance, ingenuity, logic, imagination and experience from accidents. For people outside machining and physics, you really are magicians. As i just left my job, wish i could join projects like this, while earning a living.
21:05 I love the labeling, "ARGON" and "NOT ARGON"... it's quite amusing for some reason. lol =]
Duuude I JUST watched part 1 and was hoping for more. What perfect timing!
This is absolutely amazing. I've wanted to pvd/cvd coat objects forever and commercial offerings (like vaportech) are not really attainable. This is what I've needed and wanted forever. I have a lathe, mill and CNC mill. My body is ready. Also, McMaster is absolutely wicked amazing.
18:05 for future reference, couple a rod with a handle using magnets, completely eliminating the need for drilling a hole all the way through (and eliminating any need for gaskets)
they basically did what the ISS does, so its not that bad
@@CaptainAwsome it's not a perfect solution therefore it does not work. According to about half the internet anyway
My grandfather was an electroplater. He took my mother's first pair of shoes and plated them in bronze in 1944. The shoes were canvas and leather and are beautiful. We still have the shoes, though mom passed in 2016.
I have a bachelor's degree in metal production and micro-mechanics and you guys have my biggest respect for taking on such a project and building this device. In work I use a lot of PVD coating techniques - but never in my life would I have thought about building my own magnetron sputter. This is really awesome. I love and and I hope I'll see more of you guys in the future.
some sagely advice learned through drag racing, if you need more efficiency in your cooling of the baffle, try salt water. If you don't want to run salt water (corrosion mostly) run propylene glycol. I use it in my main loop for my intercooler with a brine salt bath. It's getting changed for the air conditioning core/pump from a suburban I think later so I can simplify the whole process, but with either of those you can get sub freezing temperatures in your cooling.
Glycol reduces effeciency and is only there to prevent corrosion and modify the freezing point. Racers run water because thats all tracks allow. Source: I actually race.
@@nobodynoone2500 all the tracks near me are 1/8th mile bandit tracks on Indian reservations. Most nhra certified tracks indeed don't allow any intercooler coolant other than water most of the time.
Amazing, just amazing. And an engineering cut? Yes please!
Really appreciate that you are sharing how you built the plasma sputterer.
When you showed the dow vac grease it brought a smile to my face 😊 I'm glad you finally got some. It's truly great stuff.
"TAP magic smells like cinnamone" Me, whispering: "The spice... The spice melange"
For anyone who didn't know: Garolite is also known as G10 (often used as handle material in the knife making industry)
Also for those who don't know, G10 + fire retardant = FR4, commonly used as PCB substrate.
Ohh, g10 is also a pretty popular print surface for fdm 3d printers
All this done in so little time, that is amazing.
Easily the coolest project I've seen In general but even more so because it was designed built and completed in a garage.. Well done guys
A humble suggestion. Try using x-rings from McMaster instead of the homemade gaskets for the shutter and the other moving components. X-rings typically work better for dynamic applications - at least rotationally
Hey I'd like your thoughts on ball-lightning. I experienced it as a kid with my family during a thunderstorm. We all saw it float through the wall of our house and into the middle of our living room where we were watching a movie. This volley-ball sized, blue-white ball of light hovered there in front of us and then imploded on itself knocking out the power to the house. This strange phenomenon has so many bizarre properties that make it hard to say how exactly it functions and what it really is.
I have made what I assume to be ball lighting: plasma toroids. Take a look at my videos on it and leave a message if you have any questions
I've seen it, too. I was told I was imagining it and that it didn't exist. I know what I saw and I can tell you do, too.
This is awesome, and I really appreciate the amount of detail you go into regarding things like design and material choices.
This is so amazing! You are awesome for documenting everything and making videos about a lot of what you do. Thank you!
The real magic is that we are even capable of this, that we mere primates are capable of understanding the rules/interactions of nature to such a degree far beyond what is necessary for biological survival. In the blink of a geologic eye we've gone from bashing rocks together to combining math and metal to form absolute wizardry for no other reason than because we can. It is things like this that allow me to be proud of being human when much of our species seems to prefer wasting what brief amount of time we have on our little rock
imagine traveling back in time and showing this to an early alchemist
Its absolute madness to me that you've achieved this as hobbyists on mostly manual machines. Kudos to you both!
This was awesome, thanks for the resource and the design. I am currently making my own. I’ll be watching this again as reference. Nice work
Would it be a good idea to put a thermocouple ie a temperature sensing device on your sputter head to failsafe shutdown the system in the event it overheats (possibly due to cooling failure) ?
For sputtering strontium aluminate and other bulk metal oxides, you might try pressing the powder into a disk with a die set like what NileRed used to make his YBCO disks. Might also be beneficial to sinter the disks after pressing, but I'm not sure how that would affect the oxidation state of the dopant.
Ion beam assisted deposition is the key to make high quality oxide coatings. First, there's a base layer like stainless. This is electropollished smooth, then a compatible oxide layer is beamed in. This allows the YBCO crystal structure to grow the right way.
you can get spark plugs without the resistor as a lot of new spark plug leads act as the resistor
Yes yes yes. I would love to see the engineering cut of the video. This machine is beautiful. Please post more videos about this.
This takes 3d printed work to the next level. This is a business opportunity for someone who coats 3d printed parts with various metals. Can we make one using parts from a microwave?
Fun fact: McMaster Carr sells a full sized office, complete with wiring kit, and will deliver it to your door
**AvE wants to know your location**
I had to check and the price is pretty nice for what's included.
You did such a great job! Heck yeah, cheers for sharing!
This is an amazing video, thank you for sharing the whole process. Although there's no way I'll ever build it, it's simply mind boggling what is possible to do with science
I didn't know youtube has plasma wizards
There's more than a few: TE, styropyro, photonicinduction, etc. :)
Do you have any concerns about galvanic corrosion in the water cooling, or have you accounted for that in some way I overlooked?
Could this be addressed by using something other than water as a coolant?
@@sampatterson7560 There are coolant additives that claim to help minimize the issue, but any conductive liquid will eventually cause it.
Wow... super impressive. Well done chaps !
I wish I had the tools, skill, and money to make one of these amazing machines. Amazing job and bonus points for referencing one of my favorite KZhead channels applied science
This isn't the first time Notre Dame was effected by a plasma
The difference between this and the MMX is you didn’t get hamstrung by tying yourself to aesthetic anchors.
Still ended up looking pretty aesthetically pleasing, at least in my opinion.
I loved your video. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.
Cool to see the build process for the plasma sputterer. An engineering cut sounds good too.
Can you make a one atom thick graphene sheet with it?
It seems like it would be difficult to make a uniform layer. At least for the magnetron sputtering. Maybe the thermal evaporation could do a better job of delivering a uniform layer, but then the problem would be making it one atom thick.
@@WanderTheNomad maybe some way to be able to coat that yourself like let's say a reverse vacuum cleaner? Idk
You are the real life equivalent of Rick Sanchez
Not alcoholic enough and is too nice
@@Ryan6.022 true
This channel is incredible, thank you so much!
Learned about sputter coating machines long before this, and yeah, definitely magic. You're build looks really clean though. And helping others do it too it wonderful. Great job!
what do you mean adult Lego? don't you know Legos are for people aged 3-99!
This dude is consistently doing things that would get him burned at the stake in the 1600s and somehow is averaging
This looks great... I liked learning about the build process _and_ the science to make it work...
This a sick project, looking forward to make one of these in the future.
Amazing. I couldn’t help but notice the cortical stacks ;)
I like how plasma channel and you guys keep up the love. We need more of that in the world.. it be nice to get on a live stream with you guys to have a chance to pick your brain a bit. Keep up the good work guys!
Nice job, love the content and this type of how's it made/behind the scenes stuff.
This is probably a dozen times that I’ve seen this video; I love this channel so much and I wish I could do awesome stuff like this when I grow up!!! I can’t wait to see what’s next
Loving the DHF stack from Altered Carbon!
I was just rewatching the last vídeo and thinking if it would take too long for the next one, love your videos, keep it going
Loved the Neuron videos... I see what you meant when you said how hard it was.. Keep it going... Love your vids!
As a precious metals refiner, I've always wanted to explore the possibilities of metal recovery with a machine like this. It would be like reverse electroplating on some crazy steroids. Love the video and can't wait to see more!
Such a good video! That was fully engaging and entertaining all the way through. Thanks :)
Glad to see the new lab has paid off, very cool
Phenominal work process, the finish and final machine shows what can be achieved with methodical thinking and determination - hats off, amazing outcome!!!!!!!
every time I get a notification of you posting something immediately " ohhh shit what's he doing now".
Absolutely awesome. Just goes to show that if your smart and put your mind to it, you can produce amazing creations.
You could literally build and sell laboratory equipment. Absolutely amazing work. That is one hell of a life accomplishment there.
Holy Crow that's insane. It's nice to have a person who is so knowledgeable and yet takes the time to explain how things work. The world is a more beautiful place cause of the type of guys.
Incredible work. 👍 Thanks.
Excellent video, thank you so much!
I love you. Thank you for this. McMaster is great btw. Awesome customer service
I swear machinist are the most underrated people in the world!!! 🤷🏻♂️🙌🏼💯🤘🏼🤙🏼
incredible project!
This is the most underrated channel on youtube
fantastic build!
we used a similar machine at work nanocoating electronics with hydrophobic coating. I have no idea what gas was in it but it tended to turn into some type of glass etching acid in the vacuum pumps. We would coat tissue or anything really and you could submerge it in water and it would not get wet. Electronics would be left submerged all year round and taken out to show clients how they still work. was called something like blue lantern "watershield". cool video. keep up experimenting.
wonder work ! im a researcher and the solution of using a magnetron's sputtering to plate anything was the best and strange (magic) solution. Your explain was very interessant . Thanks so much !
That is simply amazing.
I'd like to build one like that. Really would be super helpful for my work / hobby in the future.
i saw physically at foulab the start of this project, its amazing how far it has advanced. congrats on your success!
I actually use one of these almost every day, they are pretty fun. You can use liquid nitrogen to pump down to vacuum faster by keeping it cool
I am an isotope ratio mass spectrometer technician and i am absolutely blown away. Stunning achievement. Oil vapour is my enemy- have you looked into turbo molecular pumps? Ceramic spacers and washers are also easy to get these days. I just watched your previous video also, i have a set of digital mass flow controllers gathering dust, i am sorry to say 😅
+10 for an engineering cut! Definitely!!! (I’m thinking about making a sputtering system, so the more detail the better!)
Excellent presentation is all I can say to this.
These videos are always awesome. Making stuff look really accessible yet most people being unable to actually do it:')
When I was experimenting with direct contact water cooled heatsinks for my LED headlight idea, I used Tellurium copper, aka Copper 145. It has just a little Tellurium and phosphorus which gives it the machinability that of FM Brass. Hope this helps for future machining copper.
Wooow! Love the flower
Wow! There are stories about turning things into other metals, very long tome ago.. and this is ya an illustration of this era about that era😮
Real death! Seriously guys, that build is beautiful!