Large Format Printer
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Time to share. When my basement is more clean I'll make a video. The build volume is 610 x 610 x 760mm.
-Fully enclosed by means of window shrink wrap over lightweight doors. With the basement around 50F and the build plate at 55C, the internal temperature stabilizes at 70C with no additional heating, "Space blanket" covering on build plate and downward-facing top surface of printer help reduce radiative heat loss.
-It's meant mainly for production work. I have both single- and four-extruder toolheads which mount via a kinematic quick-change end effector. No screwing and unscrewing, and the height registration really is repeatable. Spring-loaded latches hold the toolheads in place (no screws). The quad-toolhead subdivides the HBP into 12"x12" squares for 4x parallel printing. I've only made test prints with that toolhead so far, but it works.
-HEPA filtered exhaust fan.
-I used guide tube intended for 3mm filament even though I run 1.75mm filament. The tube paths are so long that the narrower guide tubes gave carbon-filled filaments too much resistance. This works just fine though, and the filament seems much less likely to break within the guide tube.
-The HBP has 5 zones: 4 12" square silicone heater pads, and a nichrome wire permieter wire, to counteract the temperature gradient at the edge. The Duet moderates each zone very nicely. The heaters are plugged into AC, which would draw over 3kW with everything on. To avoid such large surges and let it plug into a 15A breaker, a Variac is used to reduce the peak power to a more sane 1kW.
-A large (14") Raspberry Pi-powered touchscreen provides access to Duet Web Control.
-All the white plastic parts in the pictures were self-printed. The control panel is in two pieces.
-Because I really don't want to burn my house down (this runs often when I'm not home):
- 8 smoke sensors, any one of which will turn off a master relay. The arduino-powered logic for that is powered separately. Each toolhead has a smoke sensor next to each extruder, and there are others peppered around the electronics, and over the big Variac.
- A separate, off the shelf HAVEN automatic fire extinguisher, which activates on its own if the temperature gets to 135F.
~Justine
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What an amazing machine! That bowl looked wonderful! Looking forward to learning more in the future.
Great Job!
John
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That looks fantastic! I am really interested to see more with the 4 heads.
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Impressive build!
Please please make a video of the 4 toolheads in action
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OK Wow I just saw the huge touch screen in portrait next to the Duet + Duex. DWC looks quite good in portrait on a large screen.
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OUTSTANDING !! Yes, yes, videos please!
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@deckingman large printer club?
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This is amazing
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Fantastic! Almost as good as a big delta! (Sorry, couldn't help it.)
In all seriousness, it looks like you've built a very nice machine there. Keep us updated with more details.
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Wow. Great build. What do you print with it? It looks production run ready.
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Wow! A beautiful printer. A video would be lovely when you have time. Here I was thinking my custom printer was a good size at ~300mm square.
Nice idea with the cheap stretched plastic enclosure, i might have to borrow that:) -
@t3p3tony said in Large Format Printer:
@deckingman large printer club?
I feel inadequate....
Amazing job Justine. I continue to be impressed. Getting 4 heads to print concurrently over that area is a major engineering feat.
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Fantastic build! The tool mount looks very interesting. Waiting for more pictures.
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Whoa thanks everyone. I'll take some detail shots of the toolhead mount soon. Also been debating about whether to publish the BOM and design files.
By the way, that big black bowl-looking thing is half of an integrating sphere.
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Sweet looking Printer. The print quality on that sphere looks fantastic!
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@justine-haupt said in Large Format Printer:
Whoa thanks everyone. I'll take some detail shots of the toolhead mount soon. Also been debating about whether to publish the BOM and design files.
By the way, that big black bowl-looking thing is half of an integrating sphere.
I didn't notice that - I was too busy looking at the tin of Piroulines
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@justine-haupt said in Large Format Printer:
Whoa thanks everyone. I'll take some detail shots of the toolhead mount soon. Also been debating about whether to publish the BOM and design files.
By the way, that big black bowl-looking thing is half of an integrating sphere.
I'm curious at how you made your cost structure for big parts.
I'm also looking into building a big machine like this for some of my customers that need big parts (mostly for investment casting).
However my actual cost structure (excel sheet) gives me ridiculous prices. I figured that since i'm outputting a lot more plastic per minute (1.0mm vs 0.4mm nozzle) the cost should be adjusted but was curious to see how other figured this outBTW, loving the quality of the build here. Everything seems well thought. Have you considered using some insulation panels on the side instead of just the plastic sheet?
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