Printrbot Introduces the Printrbelt

The conveyor belt 3D printer idea seems to be catching on lately. Printrbot and Polar3D have teamed up to develop a new 3D printer called the Printrbelt, and although it's compact, its build size is extensive.The Printrbelt features a conveyor belt as a build platform, enabling a build area of 6" x 6" by "Infinite Z," as Printrbot calls it. The 3D printer's dimensions are small, at 16" x 24" x 16" and only 19 lbs, but the conveyor belt allows for the printing of objects of any length - and any number. Once a part has finished printing, it simply drops off the end of the belt, making room for the next object, so that the user can print continuously. Learn more at 3DPrint.com: http://3dprint.com/179736/printrbot-polar3d-printrbelt/

http://3dprint.com/wp-content/upload...Ln-300x225.jpg

I remember seeing Bill Steele's prototype of this at Rapid 2016. it really makes sense for him to team up with Printrbot to bring it to market, as the form factor doesn't really match with the rest of Polar3D's line, but fits right in with Printrbot's style.

Neat bit of kit - but infinite x not z. Z is height.
Still trying to figure out how that canted extruder can print 6 inches straight up.

Cool idea.

nah, still length not height.

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

Neat bit of kit - but infinite x not z. Z is height.
Still trying to figure out how that canted extruder can print 6 inches straight up.

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Z-axis in relation to the direction of the layers. It has a limited envelope in which it can print any given layer, but an unlimited number of layers it can print.
As for the overhang issue, overhangs on the leading edge of the print need supports going diagonally down to the plate. Supports in general would be going in the direction parallel to the nozzle, not perpendicular to the belt.
The website for the Blackbelt gives a clear explanation for it here, and they show off some counter-intuitive overhang tricks it can do.

Edit: added link

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

nah, still length not height.

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Only as a result of your perspective. Height isn't strictly in relation to the orientation of gravity, and if you are that upset about it, turn the printer 90 degrees :cool:

Compared to the orientation of the layers, this is in fact the Z axis, and if the software refers to it as Z, it's hard to argue.

I think that the layers are printed at about 45 degrees from horizontal. If you're printing mechanical parts like gears, they may not be as strong as parts printed on regular 3D printers.

Jeff has a point, controlling the layer orientation of a part on this would probably require a raft tilted off the belt to be parallel to the gantry. That would end up being a very thick raft in most cases.
If I remember correctly, Steele's prototype (and from the looks of it, the Printrbelt also) have the gantry at a fixed 30^o angle from the belt.

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Originally Posted by Feign

Jeff has a point, controlling the layer orientation of a part on this would probably require a raft tilted off the belt to be parallel to the gantry. That would end up being a very thick raft in most cases.
If I remember correctly, Steele's prototype (and from the looks of it, the Printrbelt also) have the gantry at a fixed 30^o angle from the belt.

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Yes, but we already deal with that. If we want specific orientation we have to deal with a ton of supports in many cases.

There is a CNC router called CraveWright at http://www.carvewright.com/cx/# The machine has a belt that moves the work piece back and forth in one axis while the router bit moves back and forth in other axis. Would this work as 3D printer?

only if you add a third axis for height.

I don't mean converting the CraveWright machine to 3D printer. I meant building a 3D printer that a belt that moves the work piece back and forth in one axis much like the PrintrBelt but have the extruders mounted the same way as any other 3D printers. I wanted to build a new 3D printer that has a build volume of 24 inches by 12 inches by 12 inches but I don't know how to do this.

Build a delta.
that's pretty much the build volume of the k280: http://www.reprapmall.com/index.php?...product_id=117

The conveyor belt idea is great. Use it for x axis and when built, just run it round and scrape the print into a container and start again.
Probably would be fairly easy to do.
Apart from the end gcode that rotated the belt a full 360 - and even I could write that. It'd would simply behave like a standard i3.
The hard part is getting the flexible print surface for the belt.

You could get some food industry fine steel mesh and regularly coat it with hairspray.
That could work.
This kind of thing: http://www.bolinmetalmesh.com/info/S...Mesh-275-1.htm

I think what Jeff is picturing is the old Thing-O-Matic setup. There were two big problems with that setup that are solved with using the belt as a "z-axis" of sorts.
First, when the belt was used as the Y-axis in the Thing-O-Matic, it would be moving back and forth constantly, wearing on the belt very quickly. The way the Printrbelt and Blackbelt are set up, the belt only moves a tiny bit for each layer, and never moves backwards, making the belt wear negligible by comparison.
Second, when the part is ejected, the Thing-O-Matic would just run the print off the edge at high speed, which caused huge stress on the belt which, because of the first problem was already prone to wearing out very fast right on the one spot where the print was stuck, this lead to belts tearing after about a dozen prints. With these setups, the print gets unstuck from the belt one single layer line at a time, and the hot spot of the print constantly moves, to keep wear on the belt from getting concentrated in one place.

Just a few thoughts, I hope all of that made sense.

Interesting. :)

Ah but if you make the belt out of steel mesh - you do away with any previous belt issues.
wear shouldn't be an issue and it would be easy enough to simply advance the belt a few cm, before you start each print to insure that it wasn't always printing on the same spot.