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  1. #11
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    only if you add a third axis for height.

  2. #12
    Engineer-in-Training
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    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.

  3. #13
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    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

  4. #14
    Staff Engineer
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    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.

  5. #15
    Interesting.

  6. #16
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    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.

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