Advice time! I need a 1 meter square printer and wanted to get some insight from others whom used such big printers. Any surprises? What models did you use and what features would you like to see? Is 1.75 still the ideal or am I expecting to go back to good 'o 2.85?
Here’s what I’m expecting: lower part definition from large nozzle diameter, extrusion issues being more visible, and a somewhat constant battle with layer de-lamination.
The only printer this big I’ve ever seen personally is the BigRep and that was in Belgium 3-ish years ago. https://bigrep.com/bigrep-one/
Oh shit… It’s the beginning of the end times people…
This guys going to build a life size killer robot and take over the world…
@Ben_Van_Den_Broeck I guess I should pledge my allegiance to you now so I’m one of the “chosen few” to survive?
Did I ever tell you Ben that I think you’re a really great guy?
@Ben_Van_Den_Broeck my first thought would be the bed (with respect to difficulties and surprises) I can extrude anything any size, bed always gets me.
There is a group here in Houston that has a huge printer they sell, can’t recall the name. Don’t know it is a meter by a meter either though. Gigga something maybe.
There is a group (I can’t disclose who) that put an OX on Z axis that move. It is kind of stupid awesome. Hope we will get to show it off soon. It’s a freaking huge printer and looks crazy accurate.
I’d go big with a delta like seemecnc did. That thing was amazing and didn’t seem to care about anything.
Do you NEED 1m square? You can’t glue/fasten together multiple smaller prints? I strongly recommend against building anything over 500mm cube unless you’ve got a >$10-20k budget and high tolerance for losing $100 of filament in a single print failure. You can buy ten Prusa Mk2s for less than a good 1m cube printer costs, and the Prusas-farm will output way more finished product at the end of the day, even factoring in your post-processing labor to fasten together smaller prints.
@Ryan_Carlyle I run a service and we already run 8 machines 300mm square machines. I agree but my clients dictate these things. The budget is $10-$20k yes.
At a high level, for 1m cube you need a stationary build plate, an extremely solid frame and vastly larger and higher quality linear hardware (to keep deflections of long spans down), an extremely high flow rate extruder design plus extremely good print cooling to match, servos on all motion axes for reliability, filament jam/runout detection for reliability, 5-10kg spool capacity plus a good mid-print filament swap routine, a good Z probe for mesh leveling the bed, headless operation (eg print from USB/SD) and AC mains bed heater. I also recommend a temperature-controlled enclosure with good air mixing (even a 30C one for PLA) to keep warping down.
There’s some fun experimental stuff like the Printrbot Big-E and the PartDaddy, but I wouldn’t try to run a business with those. They’re more or less huge scale-ups of hobbyist/desktop designs, not serious “month-long print absolutely must not fail” designs.
A couple of weeks ago we got in touch with them but they showed no real interest in collaborating. After some more research we decided to go for smaller printers and we will glue the parts together (the project is still in its early stage). http://www.wasproject.it/w/en/3d-printing/deltawasp-3-mt/
