A very interesting – and inexpensive – 4-axis 3D printer concept has appeared.
YouTuber Joshua Bird seems to have completely rethought how you can build a 4-axis 3D printer. Today’s typical desktop 3D printers have three axes, which results in the problem of printing overhangs. The solution has been the use of support material, which causes extra work and uses more material.
Four or five-axis 3D printers have the advantage of not requiring support material because they can angle the printing process in a way to avoid overhangs. The problem has been that 4 or 5-axis 3D printers tend to be incredibly expensive, often made from super-expensive robotic arms.
Enter Bird’s concept, which involves a rotating build platform and a single toolhead. The toolhead moves in and out (X axis), and up and down (Z axis). But it also includes an amazing trick: the nozzle can be rotated during printing.
This is done through an ingenious use of a belt mechanism. If the belts pull in alternate directions, then the toolhead moves in and out. If they pull in the same direction, then the nozzle rotates.
Bird then built a slicer to make use of this capability, which isn’t present in today’s typical slicing software. He also used RepRap firmware, which supports an extra axis.
The resulting system can quite easily 3D print arbitrary geometries without the need for support materials. Incredible!
All of this has been deployed onto GitHub, open-sourcing it to the world.
The design is so straightforward that I cannot imagine 3D printer manufacturers not adopting it. The advantages seem to be significant, and when combined with high speed and multimaterial capabilities, we’d have quite an amazing machine.
There would be a lot of work required to refine the concept to a commercial level, but I am pretty sure several parties will attempt doing so, especially since it has been open-sourced.
Via YouTube (Hat tip to Benjamin)
