The Mammoth 3D Printer - From 3D Group

[Eddie]

Yet another huge 3D printer has been debuted. This time it comes from an Australian company called 3D Group. They have created a 3D printer called the "Mammoth", which features a build volume of 1275mm x 1275mm x 1275mm. It costs around $75,000 USD, and has a special patent pending zoned heat bed, which allows it to heat only certain objects on the bed, while leaving others unheated. Read more about this huge 3D printer at http://3dprint.com/10449/3d-group-mammoth-3d-printer/

[JohnA136]

Oh Man, that is awesome!

[Eddie]

Yeah, I'd really like to see this thing in action.

[bringho]

Anything known about control software/firmware?

[Geoff]

oh wow it looks like Willy Wonkas glass elevator.. I want one, now! yesterday.

Would you think I was crazy if I said I could conceive building something that big? I recently moved to the country, on the same property as my brother in law (its a pretty big place... takes me a few mins to drive to his house..) he used to work for the Navy as a metal worker, and besides being a genius mechanic is pretty experienced in working with metal structures this big, and really alot bigger and has the equipment to do so, right here or most of it.

Since I haven't built my own machine yet, it's still a pipe dream, but I am in the process of building a stock size one, which I am hoping to use that knowledge to then utilize my brothers talents and build something that can print BIG, maybe not as big as that machine but most likely within that range. The amount of spare metal sheeting we have here.. it would be silly not to at least try.

I think looking at this design I probably need to start looking at the large extruders first and power consumption, I can't imagine the actual electronics to drive this or firmware differs that much from your conventional desktop machine? (someone please tell me if im wrong.. I really dont know) it's more the power required for the larger motors and extruders, fans etc. I imagine you would be running off something a bit bigger than a 12vdc power supply or a PC 300-500w supply.

I'm not the smartest cookie in the jar, but the way I look at it, imagine you want to build a gigantic RC Car. like big enough for you to sit in. You have the design, all you are doing is super sizing everything and increasing power where it's needed and rigidity, so why not just apply the same simple philosophy to a 3D printer - this the the first one I've seen where it looks like someone just supersized a normal machine.

[Bassna]

http://www.thingiverse.com/make:94668

Someone printed a vase out in it. Awesome. I want that printer :X so bad lol.

[soofle616]

oh wow it looks like Willy Wonkas glass elevator.. I want one, now! yesterday.

Would you think I was crazy if I said I could conceive building something that big? I recently moved to the country, on the same property as my brother in law (its a pretty big place... takes me a few mins to drive to his house..) he used to work for the Navy as a metal worker, and besides being a genius mechanic is pretty experienced in working with metal structures this big, and really alot bigger and has the equipment to do so, right here or most of it.

Since I haven't built my own machine yet, it's still a pipe dream, but I am in the process of building a stock size one, which I am hoping to use that knowledge to then utilize my brothers talents and build something that can print BIG, maybe not as big as that machine but most likely within that range. The amount of spare metal sheeting we have here.. it would be silly not to at least try.

I think looking at this design I probably need to start looking at the large extruders first and power consumption, I can't imagine the actual electronics to drive this or firmware differs that much from your conventional desktop machine? (someone please tell me if im wrong.. I really dont know) it's more the power required for the larger motors and extruders, fans etc. I imagine you would be running off something a bit bigger than a 12vdc power supply or a PC 300-500w supply.

I'm not the smartest cookie in the jar, but the way I look at it, imagine you want to build a gigantic RC Car. like big enough for you to sit in. You have the design, all you are doing is super sizing everything and increasing power where it's needed and rigidity, so why not just apply the same simple philosophy to a 3D printer - this the the first one I've seen where it looks like someone just supersized a normal machine.

Power is going to be determined by your steppers and heaters. For something that big a heated bed is going to need a lot of power. The larger extruders will similarly require more power. Since it uses 3mm filament you could, in theory use the same stepper to feed it but it would be running at a higher duty cycle which will lead to earl(y/ier) failure than on a smaller machine. You would likely need to increase the size of the x/y/z steppers because the build plate and carriage are going to weigh significantly more so you will need more torque.

I suspect you could run whatever cartesian based firmware you wanted, just upping the build size variables along with the feedrates and such. Electronics might get tricky though. I don't know enough about how the steppers are actually driven to know if you could use the output from any random controller board to run relays/fets/etc. to scale up the voltage and current to the levels needed to run the steppers and heaters on something that big. At worst though, you could probably get away with making your own control board identical to a small scale machine but with much larger output transistors to handle the load. Power supply is likely 110/220 at least to the heaters if not to the whole thing. The one hiccup with firmware would be the multi-zone bed, I don't know if existing desktop machine firmware can handle multiple bed heaters or multiple bed thermistors.