Is That 3D Printed Mega-Groot For Real?

Earlier we published a story on the massive CoLiDo Mega 3D printer, but some believed the print was faked. 

It does look a bit surreal in the image, however. For those accustomed to printing smaller items on smaller 3D printers, the sight of a giant print may seem, well, impossible. 

Armchair analysts speculated that the image was a fake, Photoshopped with a smaller “Groot” print blown up to large scale. Observations of the background may have suggested such editing could have been done. It was also thought that the weight of the print would have been far more than the model could have carried without visible effort. 

I reached out to CoLiDo to find out more about this particular print and was provided with some evidence that the print actually took place. Here’s the video: 

My contact also provided this image of a print just completed, also demonstrating the huge build volume of the Mega. 

But what of the Groot print itself. I did some very rough analysis, shown here in this annotated diagram. From this, we can estimate the height of the print at about 900mm. That’s not the maximum size a Groot could be printed on the Mega, but still quite large. 

I was told by CoLiDo that the Groot was printed with no infill, making the print a bit more believable.

But how big is it really? I did a quick test by slicing a similar Groot 3D model. In Simplify3D I created a simulated CoLiDo Mega configuration, and sliced a 900mm Groot with no infill, with two perimeter walls and found the following. 

Build time: 55 hours 46 minutes
Filament length: 1311771.9mm
Plastic weight: 3943 g (8.69 lb)

Thus it’s entirely possible such a print could weigh around 4 kg, which is not exactly light, but certainly possible for a model to hold, even briefly. 

The Mega is apparently Mega.