Originally shared by Joseph Chiu
A new printer announcement from some friends working at Idealab.
http://toybuilderlabs.com/blog/2014/5/8/new-matter-printer
Maybe you should lunch a kickstarter to raise money for a campaign that will promote a kickstarter.
No no no, you have to have an indiegogo campaign that will raise money to promote a kickstarter. Also, the machine is a pile of garbage. Stationary head, and bed moving in the X/Y? Haven’t people learned by now?
Not sure if this is the same project, but I saw pictures of what might have been a prototype for this. Interesting system driven by pinion wire with racks under the platform (each rack slips axially along its pinion while as the other pinion turns to move that axis along its rack). Clever, but like @ThantiK said, X/Y platform is a dumb idea. It’s worth building a proof-of-concept device like what I saw, but not a “consumer device” like in the rendering.
@Whosa_whatsis , there’s a single exception I could make for a moving X/Y gantry. That exception, would pretty much only be if the extruder mechanism was too bulky and complex to be moving around (for example if someone created a full color nozzle)
I don’t see why a moving X/Y platform is inherently a bad idea except for the foot-print requirements that it imposes?
@Joseph_Chiu it either imposes that footprint, or reduces the buildable area. When you can get the same footprint of that machine, but with 160% more buildable volume, it’s pretty hands down that a moving X/Y bed is a bad idea.
@ThantiK The bulky/complex extruder that is stationary or moves only in Z is something we have really considered for our full colour printing. But we are actually making good progress on keeping it small enough to be a moving extruder.
@ThantiK
It comes down to design tradeoffs, you might want to optimise cost etc instead of build volume efficiency. Doesn’t make it inherently bad.
@ThantiK - Right, so I agree that there’s a footprint penalty (and by extension volume – though only if you are printing something where the footprint matters). But outside of that tradeoff, I don’t see why it has to be bad?
@Joseph_Chiu , you’re also adding weight to the bed as you print. Our acceleration values don’t adjust on-the-fly based on how much mass the bed is moving around, tall objects tend to tip and break off because of the inertia, slower build speed required if you want to overcome the inertial effects, etc. MANY problems with XY bed, not just build volume.
@bob_cousins see this reply for other reasons why it’s inherently bad.
Fair points. FWIW, some of my best prints were on the ToM which has a relatively heavy moving bed. For smaller build volumes and low infill (think consumer market), I just don’t see it being as big of an issue.
It is a big issue. If we don’t solve these things, and keep letting people buy shitty printers with these kinds of drawbacks, then they have a shitty time with them and the field never advances. The idea is to get the ideal setup on a machine, so that it’s reliable, prints well, is the most efficient use of space, etc. Saying “oh, well, I know this is a drawback, but it looks pretty” just does a disservice to everybody.
I object to the assumption that a printer with a X/Y bed is inherently junk.
I also reject the notion that only the “BEST” machines will advance the market, while any drawbacks will only hold things back.
I’m sure we can all agree that there are always tradeoffs about various design approaches. Delta? CoreXY? Cartesian? Bowden? Direct-drive? FFF? Resin? Water-drip? Threaded-rods? Ball-screws? Belt? Spectra? Ball bearings? Sleeve bearings? Yada yada yada.
The ultimate test will be in how well a product (any product) lives up to its price/quality/performance expectations. Actually, there’s even more than those three factors that go into the “value” of the product including support, documentation, ease-of-use, aesthetics, delivery time, community.
By your argument, the original Volkwagen was a disservice to the auto industry because it made many tradeoffs against the luxury cars that dominated the industry at the time. But it made the car accessible to people and grew the industry. People eventually traded up to whatever the next vehicle that was the right value to them…
It is inherently junk. Because there aren’t any tradeoffs to be made, or if there were any, nobody’s actually trading them off…it’s just simply worse. You get a bunch of drawbacks, with no benefits. I mean, they even have a bowden system. Flip the entire assembly upside down and suddenly you’ve got a better machine with more build space, faster travel speeds, and no increase in parts. It’s stupid that people are still making X/Y build plates, except for my previously mentioned reasoning behind a stationary build head (because it’s complex, heavy, etc)
It’s a waste of money, waste of space, and has no benefits on this machine especially.
The Volkswagen made cars more affordable and accessible. It made them easy to work on. There were PLENTY of actual benefits to a Volkswagen at the time. The same cannot be said for an X/Y bed.
@Joseph_Chiu a heavy bed is different from a heavy print. Or let’s just say you’re printing a skinny tall object, that object would sway and possibly tip over as it grows vertically. Best case scenario the swaying alone would change the absolute position of the part so your print quality goes down as Z goes up.
Agreed that on a high-aspect ratio print, that becomes a factor. But I’ve seen that happen on high-aspect print with a non-moving bed as well. Using hop (z-lift) helps a lot in such circumstances.
@ThantiK that enclosure on the Z looks big enough that it could contain the extruder mechanism, which would mean that the tube isn’t a bowden, just a feed tube. I agree that if it is a bowden, that’s a really dumb idea, as the only advantage of a bowden is the reduction in mass that allows the higher acceleration rates that benefit the X/Y. A little extra mass on the Z can actually be a good thing, keeping it more steady.