5-axis 3D printer on Prusa i3

Freddiester

Hello,

I recently designed 5-axis conversion on Prusa i3 Hardware.
This is based on Duet2 board + duex5. The total price of conversion was roughly around £400 including the boards but excluding 3D printing and the CAD license.
Still have few areas for improvement and some more techniques that could be implemented.
But here it is!

Conformal slicing was done using Grasshopper on Rhino 3D.
All the configuration and script file, STL will be shared on Github very soon! It would be great to have various contributions from more users

More on the link :
https://freddiehong.com/2022/02/28/open5x-accessible-5-axis-3d-printing-and-conformal-slicing/

RAFFACNC

hello, very beatifull progect, i started to make a 5 axis slicer gcode generator from 1 months, whith grasshopper, but is in progres, im alone in this adventure, your team make very good job, today i found you on youtube, im subscribed to channeli wate for more updates,

jackantubis

@freddiester Nice setup, what is your slicer ?

RAFFACNC

@jackantubis he use Grasshopper a plug-in for rhino3d

o_lampe

@freddiester
Awesome project!
Is there any reason, why you picked the I3 hardware as starting point? Was it easier to rebuild than eg. a coreXY or Delta printer?

o_lampe

As a sidenote: I just started to build a rotary axis for my CO2 laser, but now I'm wondering if that device would come handy in a laser, too?

Freddiester

@raffacnc Hello, excited to hear that you are also working on 5-axis printing. I expect that the Github repository will go public and you can download the grasshopper definition and try!

Freddiester

@o_lampe I picked i3 hardware because it's common and inexpensive. I have another machine built into coreXY but they work quite similar in principal. I assume it is harder to implement the kinematics on delta.

RAFFACNC

@freddiester
thank you so much, in git hub insert a link for donations, for support your project.

T3P3Tony

@freddiester really interesting work, thanks for sharing it here!

@xyzdims is also doing interesting work in this area.
(https://xyzdims.com/)
As are others on this forum.

This has felt like a chicken and egg issue for a while: not a huge amount of focus on the hardware because there were not a lot of optins on the software tool chain side. Similarly not a lot of work on the software because there were few hardware options available. I think the corner is being turned in that regard!

T3P3Tony

This was great to see in person at 3d Meetup Sweden

Would love to hear from anyone else who is planning on building one!

o_lampe

@t3p3tony said in 5-axis 3D printer on Prusa i3:

Would love to hear from anyone else who is planning on building one!

I don't have enough imagination to see what else could be printed by it?
OTOH, I proposed this rotary table to my friends in a laser-forum, where I'm currently working on 2.5D laser engraving (aka powermapping)

T3P3Tony

@o_lampe this has so much potential both for support less printing, and for non planar printing where the layers are oriented and optimised for the shapes function.

o_lampe

@t3p3tony said in 5-axis 3D printer on Prusa i3:

where the layers are oriented and optimised for the shapes function.

I see, but the blades of the propellers from the example prints are no good example then. Their strength relies completely on layer bonding, which IMHO is the weakest. (except for ABS cured afterwards)

In other words: I want to see more prints

T3P3Tony

@o_lampe said in 5-axis 3D printer on Prusa i3:

Their strength relies completely on layer bonding, which IMHO is the weakest

For some materials printed incorrectly this is true (e.g. HIPS at too low temperatures) but is interesting to see research done to show that interlayer adhesion is not always the dominant failure mode:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341289167_Interlayer_bonding_has_bulk-material_strength_in_extrusion_additive_manufacturing_New_understanding_of_anisotropy

That said the ability to orient the extrusion path with more freedom using 5 axis printing will certainly help in a lot of situations, especially when continuous fibre tools are used.

CNCModeller

Hi All,
Seems to me that if we could find a way to print a first wall in the optimum direction for printing and then wrap a second around that core with the filament direction aligned for strength this would be an optimal solution. It'd be a bit like a fibre placement machine.

Very impressive

Looking forward to seeing how the slicer works too.

All the best
Barry M

T3P3Tony

@cncmodeller the "slicer" is currently written in grasshopper which is part of the CAD software Rhino.

@xyzdims is working on open source slicing options for non planarity, I highly recommend following his blog.

CNCModeller

@t3p3tony said in 5-axis 3D printer on Prusa i3:

@cncmodeller the "slicer" is currently written in grasshopper which is part of the CAD software Rhino.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll have a look when I have some spare headroom.

It'd be interesting if the approach could be ported over to Fusion 360 as they have a fully integrated CAM approach.

I've often wondered if a 5 axis 3D surface toolpath with a ball end mill would work as a way to generate a wrap layer for such an application.

Anyway great stuff!

Cheers
Barry M