3DMonstr: Large, quad-extruder 3D printer on Kickstarter

[aWsomeABE]

Seems like it's well on it's way to getting funded. Half way there with 33 days to go.

[3dm]

Seems like it's well on it's way to getting funded. Half way there with 33 days to go.

From your lips to YourFavoriteDeity's ears! I very much hope so :-)

[3dm]

Hi, DrL, if I understand your suggestion correctly, our machines are specifically designed to do just that. You can mount up to 4 completely independent extruders on all our machines, each with its own autonomous temperature control. That means you can use up to 4 completely different materials. In the future, they won't even have to all be plastics.

For example:
- you can use an expensive, pretty, sparkly PLA filament for perimeters
- a cheap plain PLA filament for structural infill
- a PVA support filament
- a conductive PLA filament as an RF shield

Later next year, when we ship a low-temp paste extruder, you'll be able to add paraffin wax as ballast and/or filler to make the part differently stable then the normal weight distribution will allow. Or you could 3D print a composite hybrid rocket motor grain made of a combination of ABS and paraffin wax. If the current efforts to develop low-resistivity conductive filaments succeed, you'll be able to print wires right inside the structural components, as well.


Multi-material printing is a very important capability for us, and we're working hard to make it available to as many Makers as possible.

[DrLuigi]

Hi, DrL, if I understand your suggestion correctly, our machines are specifically designed to do just that. You can mount up to 4 completely independent extruders on all our machines, each with its own autonomous temperature control. That means you can use up to 4 completely different materials. In the future, they won't even have to all be plastics.

For example:
- you can use an expensive, pretty, sparkly PLA filament for perimeters
- a cheap plain PLA filament for structural infill
- a PVA support filament
- a conductive PLA filament as an RF shield

Later next year, when we ship a low-temp paste extruder, you'll be able to add paraffin wax as ballast and/or filler to make the part differently stable then the normal weight distribution will allow. Or you could 3D print a composite hybrid rocket motor grain made of a combination of ABS and paraffin wax. If the current efforts to develop low-resistivity conductive filaments succeed, you'll be able to print wires right inside the structural components, as well.


Multi-material printing is a very important capability for us, and we're working hard to make it available to as many Makers as possible.

Ah i already had a feeling that you would do 4 extruders on it since i just seen your Logo on your avatar.
Its just that i didnt see one on your printer that was shown above,

I would kinda suggest a heated bed tho, Its like a must for a 3D printer imo. Perhaps a milestone upgrade if you get * dollars pledged?

After that it looks like a great printer and very sturdy with your own ideas behind it.

[3dm]

Hi, Geoff,

I've spent a little time thinking about this. I think that with a heated bed an arm that is only 15mm tall might end up being straight to much larger size than what you currently do. I've already printed an object to 13" just on the 12" prototype that we have (it was printed diagonally) - see the snakes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/3dmonst...n/photostream/ the larger snake is 13", the smaller (printed earlier) is 5"-ish and is there for comparison.

Would you like to send me a test design that I can try on my prototype machine in PLA (even w/o a heated bed)? I'm curious to see what will happen.

[Geoff]

Hi, Geoff,

I've spent a little time thinking about this. I think that with a heated bed an arm that is only 15mm tall might end up being straight to much larger size than what you currently do. I've already printed an object to 13" just on the 12" prototype that we have (it was printed diagonally) - see the snakes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/3dmonst...n/photostream/ the larger snake is 13", the smaller (printed earlier) is 5"-ish and is there for comparison.

Would you like to send me a test design that I can try on my prototype machine in PLA (even w/o a heated bed)? I'm curious to see what will happen.

That would be great!

This quad arm takes me pretty much exactly 1.2 hours to print. I print them at 25 percent infill, obviously higher will yield a stronger arm but the idea is to keep it as low as possible, but without warping.
When I print them, they are dead straight, when I pull them off however, even after a full cooldown, the flat section will warp slightly. PLA didnt seem as bad, but since the ABS needs heat and I really sort of need to print them in ABS :/ PLA is no good even for small crashes with a quadcopter, ABS is alot more forgiving.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/3h...u3/quadarm.zip

The arms in question are like these:

[3dm]

Thanks, Geoff, they look pretty cool. I love the truss design. I'll take a crack at them some time next week, I think.

[ferdinandcook]

This is the streamline for 3D printing industries, including the used of 3D printer filaments. Coming From individual consumption to bigger industries such as automotive, architecture, medical, commercial and consumer products and even for concept modeling 3D printing machines works accurate and precise.

[DangerousThing]

I do not intend to work in PLA at all unless necessary. My first goals are ABS and nylon.

i already have another machine on order that is much smaller, but has a heated bed and has been tested with PLA and I believe nylon. Though of course they are trying to push their own filament.

However, I do like the larger size of your -24 for some of the projects I want to try. I am still worried that it hasn't been tested with anything that would prove that it would work at near the full envelope size. I would love to see a 23" open cube displayed to show no warpage. Once you have the machine, of course.

One thing I'm worrying about is that at such a large perimeter there would be too much time for the previous layer to cool before the next layer gets laid down, and I don't know how this will effect things. And yes, I'm worrying about SSYS being lawsuit happy right now. But I suppose I can make my own enclosure...

[3dm]

Hi, @DT,

I'll try to answer these one at a time:

I do not intend to work in PLA at all unless necessary. My first goals are ABS and nylon.

Understood. We've heard it loud and clear from a lot of folks. Done deal. We'll have a heated bed. In fact, I just got off the Skype with Ed, one of our engineers, who's started prototyping our solution. I'll keep posting updates as we get progress. The next time you hear about it from me will be either because someone else has asked this question, or because we have something working in the lab.

i already have another machine on order that is much smaller, but has a heated bed and has been tested with PLA and I believe nylon. Though of course they are trying to push their own filament.

Oh, boy, do I understand this! But no, we're not going to do that. Basically, we've designed our extruder to have the widest possible material spectrum we could, based on what we knew. And we're going to continue testing with various materials (I have some cool new filaments from Taulman sitting under my desk waiting to be cracked open).

However, I do like the larger size of your -24 for some of the projects I want to try. I am still worried that it hasn't been tested with anything that would prove that it would work at near the full envelope size. I would love to see a 23" open cube displayed to show no warpage. Once you have the machine, of course.

Yes, we're very much looking forward to being able to test this.

One thing I'm worrying about is that at such a large perimeter there would be too much time for the previous layer to cool before the next layer gets laid down, and I don't know how this will effect things.

We've done some PLA prints in the 13" range (diagonally on the 12" bed) and we didn't see any issues with layer adhesion, even when layers were fairly complex and took a long time. I'm pretty optimistic that there's not a step function there, as layers cool in a continuous decaying function, so a small incremental increase in time between layers should have diminishing negative effect on adhesion. But, of course, the proof is in the printing. Soon.

And yes, I'm worrying about SSYS being lawsuit happy right now. But I suppose I can make my own enclosure...

Re: enclosure: yes, this is an unfortunate situation. Although I can't help directly, I suspect that either some commercial entity may produce an enclosure for some other purpose that you may be able to re-purpose, or that the user community will come up with a shared solution.

Ben.