3D Printers, Makers, DIY hacks, solutions and post printing tools

Hi..... Glass? hmm.... maybe print with a glass glaze type paste (ceramic glaze) then fire it.

Just a thought :-)

Have you done a FEA analysis to see if the gantry has minimal twist or play?

all the gantries have twist and play, the trick is to tackle with them according to needs, gear and pulley systems for cranes shake them a lot but for a crane use is irrelevant, to compensate for that on a printing job we have slower speeds in movements, especially start and stop is more gradual, no gears or pulleys on the heavy moving parts, all movements are on screw to smoothen the inertia shocks and to be accountable for the step by step count in the actuators.

thats some big size printer there :D i hope u get it working .im making a printer as well but don't have the full model cause i sketch most of it on papers , the size is 1.5m/1.5m/90cm , not the work area but the hole machine , made with 40/40 metal tube , i don't have a big budget so i went and made a lifting base with the same one used in the car jack (don't know the technical name of it ) , the goal is to get it working with 3 stepper motors for the axes and one for the extruder with a belt system from both ends ,in the future a conveyor belt at the base might be helpful to get the finished pieces out of the way to start the others . i will update the work if its interesting or will be helpful to anyone or if im wrong in some points that might help for sure .

Interesting hack, I can see some problems here with only one central jack that lives your four corners free to go out of level anytime, maybe 4 jacks, one per corner two in line on the same screw on the left and two in line on the same screw on the right, one actuator in between moving both sides with a bicycle chain up and down in the same time might sort things out at a cheap budget.

interesting design.. I have also made myself a large scale 3D printer. Measures : 2000mm x 1300mm x 950mm. Problem that I am working on is how yto fully use the whole damn thing :) Designing an extrusion system to output at least 3kg an hour of plastic material...

don't know if its clear but if u look at the picture there is one corner with a L shaped metal , that one have bearings mounted so that the table will slide on the the 4 corners of the structure that way i will need only one jacking system in the middle , and instead of having a commune pivot point of the jack there will be a distance between those 2 to decrease the wiggling that might happens . im almost done with the making i will upload real life image when its done

i didn't get to think about the extrusion system but , what if somehow u make the same injection system used for plastic molding , that infinite screw might give bot the amount and the speed a compact size since u cane make the heating coils above each others so the system will go up word instead of going wider, i doubt what im saying is logical or possible but might be ^^

that has already being in use in large 3 D printing, with one issue thou... accuracy goes low as the hole in the extruder goes larger... that is why I want a multiple extruder head, like 100 of them working in sinthony, for accuracy.

I have already designed it 10 years ago, problem is coding to make the whole 100 extruders printer head work in sintony. Need cosing support.

what if some how the printer have a sort of self awareness of what it is doing , now the printer is doing what the code says dose not know if its right or not i mean that can be done like it is done when after u finish making the part u make a comparison with the modeled one to see how much difference between the tow , quality check nevertheless , but the point is what if the printer is being monitored by the software while it is printing live , comparing between what u modeled and what it is being printed , and with multiple heads it can be done by giving each head a certain space to print on and make sure that at some point they will need to print in a intersection between them so that the print become solid and not each print independently of the other i know what im saying is nonsense but that might be a thing .

No idea is nonsense, some might even work, some not, the trick is to test them live.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxhBMiyy3y0

I would build a scale version to test with. I'll just bet you will make many design changes before the full scale version. I would propose that multiple nozzles are not necessary just one or two larger capacity ones.

track length wiggle will be less noticeable since the overall change per distance is smaller, but nozzle height will be critical for decent prints, as layer thickness is critical for adhesion and layer separation issues can be a large pain...... Materials will also be an issue unless this is in a heated or controlled environment. IMHO

I would maybe start with an older 4 wheel boat lift, that way no tracks needed and it would be mobile, yet heavy enough to create decent prints. Just a thought