3D printing on a rotating axis
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I'm building a new Duet powered machine and I'm attempting to 3D print on a rotating mandrel, kind of like a rotational axis engraver in reverse. I believe I can modify the firmware to do this by taking pieces of code from the polar printer kinematic profile, but slicing is going to be the hold up. For simple test cases I probably won't even have to modify the firmware.
I did a quick search online and I haven't seen anybody solve this, but I bet people have tried this before and I just haven't found it.
I see two paths forward.
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Start from CAM and trick the software into thinking I have an engraver, then post process the G-code to add extrusions or whatever I need. CAM will probably handle the motion more easily, but not the extrusion.
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Start with slicing to handle the extrusions and other printing parameters, but post process the G-code to account for the new kinematics.
Either seems possible, but I'm not familiar with much CAM, so I'm hoping for some input.
Edit:
This is a similar question to this thread, but slightly different I think. Looks like there is some interest.
https://forum.duet3d.com/topic/13964/using-a-4th-rotary-axis/ -
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I had a similar approach of point 2 for my 5 axis 3D printing: I wanted to print portions of sphere.
What I did is:
- map the STL on the plan
- slice the new stl as any planar part
- unmap the resulting g-code to the sphere
The last step adds the 2 new axis, A and B. In fact, I never built the 2 additional axis, and only used XYZ, but it was true 3D printing (Z was following the sphere). I had some success, but it was far from perfect.
I described the project here:
https://wiki.logre.eu/index.php/Impression_pseudo_5_axes/en
Complete code on framagit (link in the wiki).
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Thanks for the tips! I was thinking I might do something like that. For the cylinder it would make sense to unwrap it and design a rectangular STL part and wrap it back onto the cylinder. Getting rid of the seam seems difficult though.
