Zatsit: Polypropylene 'living hinge' based Delta mechanics

[ezrec]

Marc Peltier has been working on a super-lightweight delta mechanic, based on the aluminum/polypropylene 'living hinge' sandwich material Hylite (his videos explain it better), and a lightweight water cooled hotend.

The speeds he's achieved for vase-style prints are simply amazing.

The mechanical-only kit is called 'Zatsit' and he's (after 3 years) launched a Kickstarter promoting it:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...3dprinter-with

This mechanical design brings a lot of innovative thought to the problems of 3D printer mechanics, and could be leveraged for polar and SCARA mechanics also.

Full disclosure: I'm an early funder, and have been following Marc's work for years, and wish him the best of luck!

[curious aardvark]

well it's different :-)

Trying to workout why the watercooling doesn't leak as you're just pushing a metal tube through a silicone tube.

But at $300 for a fairly small frame - way too rich for my blood.
But definitely an interesting project !

Mind you given me some cool ideas for dual extrusion projects with pla and flexible pla :-)

[ezrec]

well it's different :-)

Trying to workout why the watercooling doesn't leak as you're just pushing a metal tube through a silicone tube.

But at $300 for a fairly small frame - way too rich for my blood.
But definitely an interesting project !

Mind you given me some cool ideas for dual extrusion projects with pla and flexible pla :-)

The watercooling works because the punch make a hole just slightly smaller than the metal tube for the filament - the silicone squeezes on the tube and makes it watertight - at least for the low circulation pressure used here.

Marc's watercooling mount has strain relief for the silicone tube, so it won't stress the tube over the seam.

I'm really excited that Marc's made the subsystems of the Zatsis (the gimballed frame extruder mounts, Titan 'flying extruder' mount. and the watercooled hotend kit) as separate incentives, at very reasonable prices.

I'm seriously considering upping my funding to cover getting 2 more hotend kits and the frame extruder mount for my other printers (since I could have all 3 on the same coolant pump loop).

[ezrec]

Duet3D has come out of the blue to offer a 20% discount for their controller boards for any Kickstarter purchase of a Zatsit:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects.../posts/2327418

It's very encouraging to see this!

[curious aardvark]

that's worth doing, those boards are bloody expensive !