I’m wanting to design my own delta printer. Is there a formula to find how long the arms are supposed to be? Or is it more of just a loose estimate?
Thanks!
Haven’t built one myself, but I have done some simulations. It looks like you want the arms to be no more than 30 degrees from vertical when the effector is centered. Making them closer to vertical will give you better resolution, but it will also make them longer, heavier, and more prone to flexing, not to mention the loss of build height.
Resolution is key. I have a well tined printer and don’t want to sacrifice any print quality. Thanks!!
If you don’t want to sacrifice print quality, make sure you’re throwing something like a smoothieboard on there. Cartesian machines are already way overtaxed, and with a Delta you’re already over limits.
@ThantiK this is going to be my main printer so I think I will take your advice and get a smoothie board. I think it would be worst the money.
It’s going to depend on the type of joints you’re going to use - magnetic joints can reach any tilt angle, but ball ends will severely restrict the usable print area if you make the arms too short.
In either case, I’d make the arms as short as possible, but long enough so that they are always at an angle greater ~10 to 15 degrees from horizontal.
The usual rule is you want the arms to be 60 degrees on the effector when centered.
Google Rostock Openscad parametric model