What do you think about adding more motors to a 3D printer to increase print quality and efficiency? I tested it in 2 printers and liked the results. I also did video of some theories involved. My English is terrible, but animations help understand my thoughts.
Price is a big factor right now so it makes more sense just to compensate in software rather than adding additional mechanical components.
It will surely help but those steel rods will have much more springiness then the belts. I tightenen mine up so visible ringing will only occur over 200 mm/s.
Kind of came to the same conclusions a while ago: look at quadrap printer. 2 steppers per axis (XY).
Can say enough good things about it…
Two stepper motors within single axis is wrong and perform worse than single motor. This is often done to reduce the price as mechanics to transfer the movement to two axes in parallel are tow expensive. The problem is that both motors will never work in sync mostly one will step at front with the other and they will fight. The slope within z axes allow motors to work together as it tolarate some misaligment but in single belt loop this is not th case. In general don’t fo it for print you will gain zero benefit and only penalties.
@Michael_Memeteau I’m really impressed! I did not know Quadrap, it is a disruptive design. I never used bowden, I use combined, two stage extrusion (bowden+direct) It helps speed up prints with viscous materials like PETG and Tritan, that are my preferred. I would like to build a pure bowden for fast prints with PLA. If I build one from scratch quadrap is now first in my list. I like the idea of structural elements sharing the linear guide function, as well multi- filament fishing lines as belts. They don’t stretch, are cheap and precise. Do you have open CAD files for it? Thanks
@Eduardo_Schoenknecht If you go the Bowden way, be sure also to give a try to the extruder I’ve designed… If you like thinking out of the box, you’ll probably appreciate. #saintflint
@Michael_Memeteau Brilliant design! You sure have a privileged mind! I really like when things get balanced, liked the symmetrical load on axis of this extruder. Parabéns! (acho que também falas Português)
e Obrigado pela apreciação.@Michael_Memeteau I don’t see what will make me change my mind really. You can create whatsoever movement system but this don’t make it good. You have so much slope and elasticity and slippage in the cords that you should not afraid at all about a little misalignment between steppers. But in cnczone there are plenty of discussions and explanation about this and how two steppers could be synced and why it is not good idea. But if you use cords and printed bearings I guess this don’t matter much. But if you use Gates GT3 belt and quality components I guess it better to avoid this.
@George_Novtekov I knew this approach was controversy. It for sure is not neat. Of course precision, quality parts and simplicity are priority. But in a not perfect world, and in special cases such as large build volume printers with direct drive extruder I believe it can be functional. I achieved measurable improvements with it. Mechanics and electronics are cold, quite and reliable. Does it worth the extra cost and time to set it up? I don’t know.
@George_Novtekov I actually came to the conclusion that using 3D printed spools (even with SLA) was a no-no. Check my findings (if you think it’s worth the reading).
I’m now running a mix of GT2 belts (driving side) and spectra lines (other side, sorry, no “cords” here).
In general, for large scale FDM 3D printing it fits the bill. No sub-micron precision, but very decent performance for a reasonable price (340 x 340 x 340 mm printing volume for less than <800€ of BOM).
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MichaëlMEMETEAU/posts/SuUUVKw6pwH