A 3D Printer Print Head With Adjustable Resolution

Peter Mann and Nick McGibbon of Brompton, Ontario are a design and prototyping team with extensive backgrounds in CAD, materials testing, application manufacturing, product design, 3D milling, and 3D printing. They say they've created "the world's first adjustable resolution print head," and it was designed to some very specific problems associated with 3D printing like fixed resolutions and clogged nozzles. The xHead was designed to allow complete cleaning of all of its internal cavities, and the pair say they tested their solution by clogging the entire assembly, including the nozzle, and then letting the filament harden before attempting a repair. You can read the whole story here: http://3dprint.com/60763/adjustable-3d-print-head/


Below is a look at the xHead:
http://3dprint.com/wp-content/upload...4_original.jpg

An interesting concept. I'm curious how well it performs though given that with the adjustment needle in place you'd effectively be extruding a tube rather than a cylinder. I'm also curious about the actual ability to adjust the effective nozzle size. The od of the extruded tube will always be at max based on the ID of the nozzle. The only thing that adjusts is the wall thickness of the tube and therefore it's ID. So while they are in fact adjusting the amount of material flowing through the nozzle, I don't see how they're actually adjusting the nozzle size.

Great concept! However, @soofle616 brings up a few good points, specifically with the performance of the adjustment needle. Also, where as they might be able to provide a layer thickness of 0.06mm to 0.01mm, the path itself will still be as "wide" as the nozzle diameter. But afterall, it seems like they're main objective was to create an extruder with adjustable resolution, so they may have accomplished that. I think the asking price for the xHead is reasonable on their campaign, so it might be worth buying one and seeing how it works!

Their Kickstarter campaign was cancelled a few hours ago..:confused:

perhaps they realised it wasn't adjusting the resolution after all.

I can think of several ways it could be done. That wouldn't have been one of them. Given that the diameter of the nozzle never changed - how was it adjusting resolution ?

This needle valve incorporation into the head seems to be one that is being explored. The Robox 3D printer also has a needle valve incorporated into the head. Although they have as yet not fully exploited this capability they plan, like the above adjustable head, to be able to fully control the partial opening and closing of the valve. They also suggest that by partially closing the valve it would reduce the width of the extrusion path. Given that the printer is moving at the same speed but the flow rate is reduced then this would be true i.e. less material is deposited per mm. I think the issue would be that you may have less control over how the extruded material is laid down.

At the moment it is sold on the basis of being able to prevent stringing during travelling.