Rotary 3D printer?

Whilst on a long car trip, I got to cogitating about alternate 3D printer designs (as you do).

It occurred to me that a 3D printer could be simplified mechanically by printing onto a rotating platform. Instead of Cartesian coordinates, it would work in Polar coordinates (angle + distance from centre), plus a Z axis.

One way it could work would be for the platform to be driven by a simple DC motor at constant? RPM, not unlike a disk drive, with an encoder wheel to identify position. The head would move radially. At the right time, the head would extrude filament. I don't know how fast you could spin the platform, but I'm guessing that this approach could potentially be faster (and cheaper) than current Cartesian printers. Another advantage of this approach is that you could have multiple heads on different radials, potentially all building different parts of the model at the same time

Another way this could work would be to have a stepper controlling the rotation... the platform would spin backwards and forwards at varying speeds as the head moved radially to produce straight lines. This gets rid of one belt+idlers+tensioners, so again should be cheaper than existing printers.

Any thoughts? Is this feasible? Has someone tried this out?

PiMaker

Keep up the cogitating!

-a

Yeah really nice idea!!

But...
A ø200mm platform would make a 628mm outer circle. Which means at a normal steppermotor has 200 full steps.
Thats a 3,14mm resolution on the outside. 32-Times steppen would be 1/10mm. Well thats "ok" but not absolutly perfekt in my opinion.

With a very good encode (industrial standard) it would be possible. But I think the worst things would be:

- Seeing the roundness in the object like you see layerwobble on normal printers.
- Heated bed would lead to max. 1 rotation due to cables
- You need to rewrite the firmware very much, cause of calculations, not only the position, even the extrusion, the "headspeed" varies by the diameter!

Nice idea but i dont think its worth it

You may want to look at http://reprap.org/wiki/R_360 also.

I have designet one that is BiPolar - [en.wikipedia.org]
It's still i alpha, but it prints. My friend (the software guy) and I will release it as a kit and we are gonna open source it.
Target is KISS, so no heatbed, high speed or high resolution. (it's at the moment 50 micron per step at outer cirle)

The atteched file is from the first prototype, we have secound running, but I have no pictures yet.



Jesper

ps. next version we have change all the parts in size so the printer can print it self. Bed is 21cm diameter and height is 16-20cm. Depending on Z-axis length :-)

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2015 05:45AM by Kenzu.

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Kenzu
I have designet one that is BiPolar - [en.wikipedia.org]
It's still i alpha, but it prints. My friend (the software guy) and I will release it as a kit and we are gonna open source it.
Target is KISS, so no heatbed, high speed or high resolution. (it's at the moment 50 micron per step at outer cirle)

The atteched file is from the first prototype, we have secound running, but I have no pictures yet.

Jesper

ps. next version we have change all the parts in size so the printer can print it self. Bed is 21cm diameter and height is 16-20cm. Depending on Z-axis length :-)

That right there might be the coolest thing I've seen in 3d printing yet! Put a handle on it and make it ultra portable

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RickRap

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Kenzu
I have designet one that is BiPolar - [en.wikipedia.org]
It's still i alpha, but it prints. My friend (the software guy) and I will release it as a kit and we are gonna open source it.
Target is KISS, so no heatbed, high speed or high resolution. (it's at the moment 50 micron per step at outer cirle)

The atteched file is from the first prototype, we have secound running, but I have no pictures yet.

Jesper

ps. next version we have change all the parts in size so the printer can print it self. Bed is 21cm diameter and height is 16-20cm. Depending on Z-axis length :-)

That right there might be the coolest thing I've seen in 3d printing yet! Put a handle on it and make it ultra portable

I have put a handle on it :-) The footprint of the printer with 21 cm bed is 1½ times bed size :-) Maybe the smallest footprint compared to printarea on any 3D printer :-)

Looks great, How do I get one?

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appjaws1
Looks great, How do I get one?

Still no date (for the open source, but the printer is going on sale around november/december 2015. I will release the source closed after that.), but the next beta is just finished, now I need to finish the new electronics.



ps. sorry for the bad gimp work :-P

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2015 03:38AM by Kenzu.

Going to hijack this as I saw a vid of a rotory 5D metal printer and started thinking of your project.
I wonder if anything on it could be translated to your design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKnlmfuMSgo

How do you solve the printing issues at the centre of the baseplate? As far as I understand, that is the most problematic area in this type of printers. Also I was going to ask about straight lines, I hear they are too problematic with non-cartezian printers.

I like your design but i am contemplating about a solution that gets rid of linear rods, linear bearings but that wouldn't look so clean. I think the rotating geared arm around the linear rod is a touch of genius.
I would like to see this open sourced and have the community improve and speed its development. Any release date?

And btw, how much does it cost and is there a place in Europe It can be purchased?

Thanks.

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One more question: is the software based on an existing firmware you are improving upon which will be released open source or are you going to create a new firmware from the scratch. The benefits of introducing modularity in open source firmware is that you can just plug your type of rotary printer in the mix and soon people will have what to choose from. I'd love to see your code in Marlin or Teacup.

Cheers.

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Just a small video update

[goo.gl]

Quote
realthor
How do you solve the printing issues at the centre of the baseplate? As far as I understand, that is the most problematic area in this type of printers. Also I was going to ask about straight lines, I hear they are too problematic with non-cartezian printers.

I like your design but i am contemplating about a solution that gets rid of linear rods, linear bearings but that wouldn't look so clean. I think the rotating geared arm around the linear rod is a touch of genius.
I would like to see this open sourced and have the community improve and speed its development. Any release date?

And btw, how much does it cost and is there a place in Europe It can be purchased?

We have some ideas for the center, but we need to fix it in firmware. At the moment firmware is based on a marlin port by unlimitedbacon and his theta printer, but we are gonna base the release on a 32bit firmware (propperly smoothieware).

Release is gonna be around dec/jan. Sculpto [www.sculpto.dk] is gonna be the first to sell the printer in a closed version, but we are gonna release it later with some updates as a opensource version in a KIT edition. :-)
Price is gonna be around 300€

Hope that gave some answars :-)

Jesper

I am surely interested in guys who are selling it in kits and also offering it to the open source community for people that have no means of getting one. Good job and I wish it was released in kit earlier. I am mainly interested in purchasing it as a kit because the tansport will be cheaper and also because I like to thinker. I find it pretty hard to believe that a smoothieboard-base printer can cost E300 but i'm all in if it is .

One request though, can you have some more photos, videos? I am sure the blogs in the 3d sphere will feature you in the nick of time.

Cheers and keep it up.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2015 01:53PM by realthor.

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One mor3 question if i may, what is the resolution on xy? Doesn"t the herringbone gear introduce backlash? Thanks.

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realthor
One mor3 question if i may, what is the resolution on xy? Doesn"t the herringbone gear introduce backlash? Thanks.

You cant say what the xy resolution is. I the middle is infinite but at the outer cirkel our gearing is giving us 60 micron.
We dropped the planetarygear and now using a normal gear now. There will be backlash in time, but you can fix it with at simple screw.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2015 05:12AM by Kenzu.

Yes I was referring to the minimum resolution of the rotating arm. It is not even XY in the real sense but it's easy to express. That answered my question thank you.
Why aren't you considering an indiegogo or kickstarter campaign? People are well educated now about them and I am sure it's worth considering.

Thanks.

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Quote
realthor
Yes I was referring to the minimum resolution of the rotating arm. It is not even XY in the real sense but it's easy to express. That answered my question thank you.
Why aren't you considering an indiegogo or kickstarter campaign? People are well educated now about them and I am sure it's worth considering.

Thanks.

October 22 we will launch a kickstarter, so help us out :-)
[plus.google.com]

Thanks

Congratulations indeed.

I would like to see more of what it can do, maybe printing at the centre of the printbed? What printing speeds are achievable? Does it have a heatbed? Does it use the smothieboard you've mentioned?.
Give us more, at least I am drooling for a nice polar 3d printer.

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We are live... come and help us [www.kickstarter.com]

Thanks

Well, some more details would help people decide. There are a few things that i don't quite get and which had me raise an eyebrow when reading them on the kickstarter page:

1) "Success rate is significantly lowered when using non-proprietary PLA and the raft might not work properly." I don't have a problem printing non-proprietary PLA and I never use rafts. Is this such a problem that needs a notice or is this more like a disclaimer to protect yourself from complaints? I wouldn't want a 300Eur 3d printer and buy 40Eur PLA.

2) [...]"using bipolar cylindrical coordinates solves a number of issues compared with most other 3D printers.".What issues does a cartesian or delta have that the bi-polar solves? As a big fan of bipolar printers for their compactness and simplicity, their achile's foot is exactly the bi-polarity, with poor performance when printing at the centre of the bed.

3) "In order to ensure high performance and lower costs we made custom electronics." Is it cheaper to produce this board than the alternative open source variants or have you cut down on features to keep costs down? Is there a list of features so we can see what it can do? What are the on-board capabilities of upgrading? Adding more fans, a heated bed?

The simplicity and the elegant solution made me drool about it but the above questions make me wait
I am sure you will reach your goal as I can see the campaign looks like a hit after only a day.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2015 09:14PM by realthor.

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Only available in Europe + USA, so that cuts me out immediately

But even if it was available, I don't think I'd back this project:

1. I'd hoped that, as mentioned several times in the campaign statement, the simplicity of the bipolar design would result in a significantly cheaper price than a Cartesian or Delta printer. But at 300 Eur + shipping, this is a lot more expensive than (say) a Prusa i3 kit from AliExpress, and it's a long way from being a proven design.

2. Needing an IOS (apparently not Android) or web app to run it is also off-putting. Presumably all the slicing and so on is done in the Cloud? It's also implied that this app is how you'll get new objects to print, rather than from (say) Thingiverse... this is another downside for me. Presumably all this is to make it user-friendly. But it looks to me like an attempt to lock your customers in. (Maybe I'm excessively cynical). A clear statement that you can import and print (e.g.) .STL files would be a good idea (assuming it is possible).

3. Interesting that it only mentions PLA filament. The hotend looks like a pretty standard item, so I can't see why it shouldn't also handle ABS, etc. Maybe it's just because the printer doesn't have a heated bed?

4. Before shelling out *any* money, I would want to see some specs of resolution, etc. How accurately can you place plastic at the outside edge of the platform? How straight does it print straight lines? What's the nozzle size?

5. I'd also want to see some specs about printing speed. How long (e.g.) to print that frog in highest quality mode? In lowest quality mode?

6. I wonder if the "centre of bed" problem *hasn't* been solved, and that's why the photo shows the green dragon being printed off-centre?

7. Are all the props in the photos printed with the Sculpto? Some of them look too shiny to be PLA.

Quote
realthor
Well, some more details would help people decide. There are a few things that i don't quite get and which had me raise an eyebrow when reading them on the kickstarter page:

1) "Success rate is significantly lowered when using non-proprietary PLA and the raft might not work properly." I don't have a problem printing non-proprietary PLA and I never use rafts. Is this such a problem that needs a notice or is this more like a disclaimer to protect yourself from complaints? I wouldn't want a 300Eur 3d printer and buy 40Eur PLA.

2) [...]"using bipolar cylindrical coordinates solves a number of issues compared with most other 3D printers.".What issues does a cartesian or delta have that the bi-polar solves? As a big fan of bipolar printers for their compactness and simplicity, their achile's foot is exactly the bi-polarity, with poor performance when printing at the centre of the bed.

3) "In order to ensure high performance and lower costs we made custom electronics." Is it cheaper to produce this board than the alternative open source variants or have you cut down on features to keep costs down? Is there a list of features so we can see what it can do? What are the on-board capabilities of upgrading? Adding more fans, a heated bed?

The simplicity and the elegant solution made me drool about it but the above questions make me wait
I am sure you will reach your goal as I can see the campaign looks like a hit after only a day.

1. Sure it's a disclaimer, but I will asure you that we are not gonna sell our brand of filament for 40€ :-) I gonna be in the cheaper end.

2. you answered your own question :-) compactness and simplicity is what we think are a strong selling point for a family friendly printer and with big WAF :-P

3. I know we didnt include much info on the electronics, but our target audience is not maker/hackers so we didnt think it would mean much for most people.
But I will answer here. Electronics is gonna be 32bit arm based, with support for dual extruder, but no heatbed or extra fan (not our target again). It will have onboard wifi (with complete linux system). The reason for custom electronic is not only features or cost, but also to solve a lot of the cable mess other printers suffer from.

Hope that helped :-)

And have a nice day

Quote
frankvdh
Only available in Europe + USA, so that cuts me out immediately

But even if it was available, I don't think I'd back this project:

1. I'd hoped that, as mentioned several times in the campaign statement, the simplicity of the bipolar design would result in a significantly cheaper price than a Cartesian or Delta printer. But at 300 Eur + shipping, this is a lot more expensive than (say) a Prusa i3 kit from AliExpress, and it's a long way from being a proven design.

2. Needing an IOS (apparently not Android) or web app to run it is also off-putting. Presumably all the slicing and so on is done in the Cloud? It's also implied that this app is how you'll get new objects to print, rather than from (say) Thingiverse... this is another downside for me. Presumably all this is to make it user-friendly. But it looks to me like an attempt to lock your customers in. (Maybe I'm excessively cynical). A clear statement that you can import and print (e.g.) .STL files would be a good idea (assuming it is possible).

3. Interesting that it only mentions PLA filament. The hotend looks like a pretty standard item, so I can't see why it shouldn't also handle ABS, etc. Maybe it's just because the printer doesn't have a heated bed?

4. Before shelling out *any* money, I would want to see some specs of resolution, etc. How accurately can you place plastic at the outside edge of the platform? How straight does it print straight lines? What's the nozzle size?

5. I'd also want to see some specs about printing speed. How long (e.g.) to print that frog in highest quality mode? In lowest quality mode?

6. I wonder if the "centre of bed" problem *hasn't* been solved, and that's why the photo shows the green dragon being printed off-centre?

7. Are all the props in the photos printed with the Sculpto? Some of them look too shiny to be PLA.

Okay I will try to answer nice here... because I could be offended to think that you didnt read all the text or we might not have made the text clear ;-)

1. How can you compare this to a printer from aliexpress? 1. We use a proven hotend (E3D from UK), the prusa from aliexpress you have no idea of what you get, also you pay for our design and support, you will not get that from aliexpress either. But sure BiPolar is not a proven design yet, but someone has to be the first. :-)

2. As we write on kickstarter you should not fear if you cant find what you want i the app. You can design in whatever software you want and import a STL to our app or if you dont like IOS you could use the onboard webinterface with any browser. Slicing is done on you device, not in the cloud.

3. We try to give the target audience a high success rate, thats why we only talk about PLA (we work after KISS). But sure you could use whatever you want as long as you keep it within specs of the hotend E3D V6LITE.

4. The only think here that are not on kickstarter is how straight lines it can print. Hard to answer, but is prints straight line. As writen on kickstarter it has a resolution of 60micron at worst (outer perimiter) and the nozzle size i 0.6mm

5. Printing speed is 60mm/s (you could print faster, but it will start to suffer like most other printers)

6. Sure we have a printing in the center issuse, but it prints in the center, just not at the speed we would like. We do have a solution to that and are working hard on implenting it in firmware :-)

7. All things are PLA, but not all things are printed on the sculpto. All closeups are printed on the sculpto :-)

And sorry for my starting line but most of the info is on the kickstarter page :-) We will do take a look at making it more clear.
And last, were are you living?

Hope it helped... :-)

Thanks

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Kenzu

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realthor
Well, some more details would help people decide. There are a few things that i don't quite get and which had me raise an eyebrow when reading them on the kickstarter page:

1) "Success rate is significantly lowered when using non-proprietary PLA and the raft might not work properly." I don't have a problem printing non-proprietary PLA and I never use rafts. Is this such a problem that needs a notice or is this more like a disclaimer to protect yourself from complaints? I wouldn't want a 300Eur 3d printer and buy 40Eur PLA.

2) [...]"using bipolar cylindrical coordinates solves a number of issues compared with most other 3D printers.".What issues does a cartesian or delta have that the bi-polar solves? As a big fan of bipolar printers for their compactness and simplicity, their achile's foot is exactly the bi-polarity, with poor performance when printing at the centre of the bed.

3) "In order to ensure high performance and lower costs we made custom electronics." Is it cheaper to produce this board than the alternative open source variants or have you cut down on features to keep costs down? Is there a list of features so we can see what it can do? What are the on-board capabilities of upgrading? Adding more fans, a heated bed?

The simplicity and the elegant solution made me drool about it but the above questions make me wait
I am sure you will reach your goal as I can see the campaign looks like a hit after only a day.

1. Sure it's a disclaimer, but I will asure you that we are not gonna sell our brand of filament for 40€ :-) I gonna be in the cheaper end.

2. you answered your own question :-) compactness and simplicity is what we think are a strong selling point for a family friendly printer and with big WAF :-P

3. I know we didnt include much info on the electronics, but our target audience is not maker/hackers so we didnt think it would mean much for most people.
But I will answer here. Electronics is gonna be 32bit arm based, with support for dual extruder, but no heatbed or extra fan (not our target again). It will have onboard wifi (with complete linux system). The reason for custom electronic is not only features or cost, but also to solve a lot of the cable mess other printers suffer from.

Hope that helped :-)

And have a nice day

Hi Kenzu, thanks for the info, I hope my questions weren't offensive, they weren't intended in that way. I just felt that some of the statements are a bit misleading and streched, for example claiming that the bi-polar solves some issues of other printers implies that there is something inherently flawed with other printers while this one isn't. Compactness and simplicity are quite obvious when you first look at the printer.

Having a 32bit board with wifi onboard is a big selling point from my pov, i like that. The simplicity in mechanics is thus accompanied by an equally simple operation.

I would like to see a "maker father"-friendly variant with a few more GPIOs to add fans, a heated bed and a second extruder. But that would mean that the power source must be larger which will increase the size.

Please don't be mad at the ones with a more critical eye, you are having great success with your targeted audience by the numbers on the kickstarter. We are the likes that would like your printer to reach its potential.

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If you can wait, i promise you that I (my company) will release the printer as a kit edition / maker edition later on. It will be printed parts because it's gonna be an envolling thing. Everything is gonna be opensource and you will have access to electronics, firmware, software and openscad source files. But first we need to help Sculpto with production startup so we can get some money on royalties :-)
By the way, one og the sculpto guys is my little brother thats way we work so close.

Will keep you updated on the kit version here to :-)

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realthor

Quote
Kenzu

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realthor
Well, some more details would help people decide. There are a few things that i don't quite get and which had me raise an eyebrow when reading them on the kickstarter page:

1) "Success rate is significantly lowered when using non-proprietary PLA and the raft might not work properly." I don't have a problem printing non-proprietary PLA and I never use rafts. Is this such a problem that needs a notice or is this more like a disclaimer to protect yourself from complaints? I wouldn't want a 300Eur 3d printer and buy 40Eur PLA.

2) [...]"using bipolar cylindrical coordinates solves a number of issues compared with most other 3D printers.".What issues does a cartesian or delta have that the bi-polar solves? As a big fan of bipolar printers for their compactness and simplicity, their achile's foot is exactly the bi-polarity, with poor performance when printing at the centre of the bed.

3) "In order to ensure high performance and lower costs we made custom electronics." Is it cheaper to produce this board than the alternative open source variants or have you cut down on features to keep costs down? Is there a list of features so we can see what it can do? What are the on-board capabilities of upgrading? Adding more fans, a heated bed?

The simplicity and the elegant solution made me drool about it but the above questions make me wait
I am sure you will reach your goal as I can see the campaign looks like a hit after only a day.

1. Sure it's a disclaimer, but I will asure you that we are not gonna sell our brand of filament for 40€ :-) I gonna be in the cheaper end.

2. you answered your own question :-) compactness and simplicity is what we think are a strong selling point for a family friendly printer and with big WAF :-P

3. I know we didnt include much info on the electronics, but our target audience is not maker/hackers so we didnt think it would mean much for most people.
But I will answer here. Electronics is gonna be 32bit arm based, with support for dual extruder, but no heatbed or extra fan (not our target again). It will have onboard wifi (with complete linux system). The reason for custom electronic is not only features or cost, but also to solve a lot of the cable mess other printers suffer from.

Hope that helped :-)

And have a nice day

Hi Kenzu, thanks for the info, I hope my questions weren't offensive, they weren't intended in that way. I just felt that some of the statements are a bit misleading and streched, for example claiming that the bi-polar solves some issues of other printers implies that there is something inherently flawed with other printers while this one isn't. Compactness and simplicity are quite obvious when you first look at the printer.

Having a 32bit board with wifi onboard is a big selling point from my pov, i like that. The simplicity in mechanics is thus accompanied by an equally simple operation.

I would like to see a "maker father"-friendly variant with a few more GPIOs to add fans, a heated bed and a second extruder. But that would mean that the power source must be larger which will increase the size.

Please don't be mad at the ones with a more critical eye, you are having great success with your targeted audience by the numbers on the kickstarter. We are the likes that would like your printer to reach its potential.

When was the R-360 first shown, anyone know? Looks like 2 years ago.

I had the same vision, some time last year, I posted the idea on grabcad october 2014 https://grabcad.com/library/z-360-revolution-1 but as many people where downloading the images but not ticking the like button, I removed the images and kept them only on my own site, this happens with many other websites when you share the ideas/images/video's whatever, I dont know how the open source community or ideal survives...selling parts?

In reducing things down to the most simplistic form a number of versions where thrashed out, remember the old record players that stacked records, so then had the idea to make the simple look like a stylish modern record deck, with a hint of spyrographic loom thrown in, I looked at many linear tangental arms, and rotaing platters, a number of itterations where made, and posted on the blog, at the time I had not seen it done anywhere else, and I had seen quite a few printers. Knowing the problems as listed above(cool that people figured out the motion), I decided to develop the idea further, into the current machine, as it uses cartesian XYZ. but as the current system is modular one I can easilly replace the standard bed for rotating table, as soon as I know I can control it. I hope that this way of printing may be more suited to certain objects, vases, lamp shades or anything else thats basically round.


http://visual-image.co.uk/CAD/Design/index_3.html

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2015 03:47AM by MechaBits.

@MechaBits : Really, really beautifful design. I also want to stay away from any cartesian/linear components and so far my quest has arrived to two concepts: Polarworks Alta, unveilled in Oct 2014, which uses a similar design (the rotational movements happen under the rotating bed for Alta while Sculpto has the rotation spread between the bed and the Z) ), and Sculpto, which is an actual real printer rather than a prototype.

I have a goal to support open source endeavors only and that's why I emailed the Norvegian company about their printer, when will it be available and if it would ever be released as open source, at least the way Morgan 3D printer does it, releasing the code some time after they unveil new iterations. They answered that it will most likely be closed source and that they are designing a cheaper version to the one presented in videos because of too high production costs that will make it less competitve on the consumer market.

Now my hopes were on Sculpto since I first stumbled upon the design on reprap forums. I am glad it actually made it into a real project and I am hoping for a maker-ready Kit version with open sourced design and several options to choose from (heated bed, dual extruder, etc). The size to printing volume ratio is already there in the sweet spot so it is perfect for a desk. Buying it and improving or modifying to one's need is what the maker community is after and that's why open source designs are evolving at a much rapid peace than the closed source ones.

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The comments about the polarworks Alta creators on 3ders.org are Interesting(considering the current escapade I've been through)
I like the aluminium contruction, but the whole Z part looks similar to another printer thats floating around,
[www.ebay.de]
I love the solid looking construction of this, I was quite tempted to get one,
In the rotary version, I was playing with the idea of one motor for Z and rotation of the bed, as the Z needs to rise after each full rotation , belt drive or direct drive config's all ideas where played with. I still kept the 4 rods for Z as the core, my arm config looks similar to the R-360 but in aluminium.though my arm can work in 3 different arrangements, ie moving arm like R-360 or Printrbot, or fixed horizontal rods or placed 90 degrees above each other, I have a quick release for the arm, but as I built the first version I decided to remove superflous weight, but with all the weight this was a solid little robot.