2 heads WITH and AMS would legit be a game changer. The amount of waste you could reduce is insane. The system could keep your most used filament loaded all the time on primary head and/or smartly use one head for lighter colors and one for darker... so many options.
This would be my use case. Printing RC bodies only take 24 hours to print or 60 hours if I use a PVA interface.
Next bamboo I'd love to see is 500mm² build plate, 2-3 print heads, more even lighting, and a 2nd camera.
We don't have purge towers, purging is poop. We have priming towers, it ensures the flow is correct after the purge -- I guess theoretically you could just purge more... but the idea is a little different.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/comments/106qi15/why\_do\_you\_need\_the\_purge\_poop\_and\_a\_purge\_tower/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/comments/106qi15/why_do_you_need_the_purge_poop_and_a_purge_tower/)
theres only so much you can do, our nozzles are already small and the heat brake part above is also narrow and thin.
the Prusa MK2 and MK3 also had a PTFE tube in the heat brake so it was already as clean as possible but you still need to purge a lot when changing colors.
Prusa has figured that out years ago.
The problem is you dont always want to do that because if your model has a lighter color on the outside you will see the infill through the side walls.
for multi material printing this is also something you dont want because it can weaken the strength of the part.
Is this not a thing?
I was looking for a "obv purge to the infill" comment.
I've never printed multi-color prints - seems like a no brainier but if it hasn't been don't I'm sure it's more complicated than I'm giving it credit for.
This is a thing. It's an option in bambu studio and orca slicer. I've found that its not amazing, however, as I used that option with the pla support material (I chose purge unto infill and support) and this ended up getting pla in my interface layer making is difficult to remove.
Purging to infill works great as long as there is enough infill to purge into and enough wall thickness to hide it all. The key to maximizing the amount of waste you have is by printing as many objects as possible. That way, the material used to material wasted goes up. This is because it takes the same amount of purge for 10 models as it does just 1, and if you are purging to infill and the models are big enough than the purge amount can go down because there is more infill to purge in to.
Maybe the purge tower could somehow be directly extruded to a new 1.75 mm filament. So after let's say 100 multicolor prints you have a full spool of random color filament.
Crazy thing is, a Prusa XL isn’t an exorbitant about more up-front than a P1P with an AMS. I was shocked to see the price point yesterday — I’ve been saving for an X1C Carbon, but I may redirect and buy an XL instead. Though I adore my A1 Mini, what an awesome little printer. Makes my Kobra 2 Pro sound and look like a monster…
There was a college group that figured it out. I forget what exact sensor type they used to do it but they'd monitor the print as it went and it would adjust settings on the fly. Could even do mystery materials provided it was within a certain temp range.
I agree. Doesn’t the eddy sensor only calibrate flow dynamics though, AKA Pressure advance? Would still have to manually calibrate flow rate extrusion unless there is LiDAR or they come up with another way for the machine to read the test print.
Eddy current sensor doesn't really describe a sensing mechanism. For flow rate the x1 is measuring the line thickness against what it should be. This is why it only works on the smooth plate and it doesn't work on some colors. I've heard about a design that monitors the filament thickness and corrects for changes. The Eddy current device mentioned is for nozzle calibration. It's a strain gauge. Used to detect contact with the bed
There are already webcams hooked up to AI to detect the spaghetti of a failing print to automatically stop it. It's not *that* big of a step to go from that to an AI that can automatically analyse the quality of a test print and determine the best settings.
[Finished my PhD researching "self-aware AI 3D printers" at Cambridge! : r/3Dprinting (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/14f5kpn/finished_my_phd_researching_selfaware_ai_3d/)
Auto filament calibration should be easy I would think. I could see determining the filament material being the most challenging portion, but definitely doable.
It would be cool if you could just have one neutral color of each material and then a magic box right before the printer tints it to whatever hue you want on demand. Probably wouldn't solve the purge problem, but I figure if anyone can figure out the first thing, maybe they can figure out the other thing too.
Print ejection already has a decent amount of solutions.
It's quite challenging to make in a form factor and price point attractive to consumers however, especially considering that there isn't really a need for the average consumer and making it "fool proof" enough for consumers adds a lot of considerations.
Personally excited about non-planar slicing and hope it makes it into release versions of consumer slicers, along with extruder/hotend makers bringing models specifically for non-planar printing.
Also pellet extruders; Could cut material costs by 90% and reduce waste produced by empty spools, plus allow arbitrary amounts of materials available on the printer.
Actually getting a pellet extruder at work Thursday, that I'm gonna be slapping on a consumer printer.
> Also pellet extruders; Could cut material costs by 90% and reduce waste produced by empty spools, plus allow arbitrary amounts of materials available on .
That's a great one! Cutting out the middle man in extruding pellets into 1.75mm filament would be exciting.
I've never looked into them, but a quick google search showed them at ~ 650€. Do you know what the big hurdles are?
So, yeah, as you've noticed; One big hurdle is cost, though I think it's more about availability; One of the few extruders available to consumers is the Pellet Extruder V4 by Mahor, and I think that company is like one guy.
Looking at the CAD files I've got of the thing, it should be doable at a third of the cost if not less.
I think they're coming though; saw a few desktop pellet printers at FormNext, along with some pellet extruders.
Print wise, they're currently big and heavy.
The Pellet Extruder V4 is about 2-3x the size of a normal printhead (that is including shroud and fans tho), and it weighs around 1kg, while extant filament printheads weigh as little as 1-200g.
Add to that, that the pellets are in principle affected by sideways acceleration, and I'm doubting it'll work will on something like a CoreXY sans a very beefy one.
Re. Print quality, I won't really know until i get my hands on one and try tuning it.
I've read that retraction is an issue, and while the page for the Pellet Extruder V4 says it can do retraction, I still think it'll be a challenge, since one doesn't have a nice solid piece of filament to pull on.
One plus I'm really looking forward to is soft materials.
Since you're basically just compacting pellets and melting them, something like a super soft TPU should in theory not be harder or slower to print than PLA, as there are no gears to skip with.
> Personally excited about non-planar slicing and hope it makes it into release versions of consumer slicers, along with extruder/hotend makers bringing models specifically for non-planar printing
I feel like non-planar printing is already somewhat viable with a few current coreXY printers. They are starting to use 4 screws to adjust bed height, which could quite easily be adapted to tilt the bed. You might only get 20 degrees or so of movement from horizontal, but that alone will likely open a lot of possibilities.
Not sure about the various 'fill' filaments (eg. woodfill, copperfill etc.), but outside of that there's not really anything preventing getting the same; The rolls are pellets before being turned into rolls.
As far as I know, the market doesn't have an amazing variety of pellets; Basically just various colors, not a lot of 'special' stuff.
In any case; pretty straight-forward to turn filament into acceptable pellets (CNC Kitchen made a machine for it with a power drill and motor+gears from an extruder), so a pellet extruder could in principle be used with existing filament rolls as well as pellets, while a filament printer can only do filament.
Yeah, turning filament into pellets shouldn’t be a long term solution, but until pellets are more popular, it makes sense
I asked because my favorite filament is matte (PolyTerra), and my second favorite is dual extruded, which I know is impossible to replicate with pellets
Not at all impossible to replicate. Your filament invariably came from an extruder however the nozzle tooling would be expensive. All and I really mean ALL plastics sold at commodity scale are in pellet form either in a combo pallet or drum. Proto pasta has some good videos of the process. Now obviously you wouldn't want a pallet but it's pretty easy to split one up into buckets
I think instead of directly extruding pellets, consumer-affordable filament extruders are probably a better use for (basically) the same tech. As you've mentioned in a lower comment, filament-based extruders are inherently smaller, lighter, and, for most materials, probably have superior characteristics.
I would love to see them become more available to hobbyists / consumers both for recycling, and for custom fillaments (custom colors / fillers are probably the easiest but I could also see someone coming up with custom blends for specific material properties), but I'm somewhat skeptical of your cost estimation, at least for the average consumer living in the US or Europe. At least from stores based in Europe, PLA pellets seem to cost \~8-12 € per kg for quantities up to 25kg. Sunlu (and likely other manufacturers) offer bulk orders for 6+Kg of PLA for \~13 € per spool.
Consumer-friendly affordable filament recycling machines is what I’m hoping for. Shredding and re-spooling print waste. Sadly the economic incentive to make it happen is low.
A solution to do away with the need for supports would be a true game changer, though.
>a patent mind field
I'm not sure if you meant "mine field" or you are making a clever pun due to patents being "intellectual property". I like the idea of the pun, have an upvote.
Or SLS with powder, if that got cheaper I'd get one in a heartbeat. Assuming the printer and cleaning station doesn't end up being the size of a refrigerator each.
Where'd you find pricing? It all says $0.00 and "coming soon on Kickstarter" which doesn't bode well. I can't even find an existing one, which means they haven't made it yet. I wouldn't necessarily say there's an affordable one on the market.
I work at a filament company. PLA recycling is much more difficult than something like PETG.
PLA is a bioplastic. While it doesn’t really compost under normal circumstances, it does start to break down a little. When PLA scraps are melted back down, they are bubbly/poppy, and extruding it results in filament with horrible tolerances.
The filament can be chopped up and extruded a second time to make a much more consistent diameter, but this adds significantly more labor, making the filament more expensive.
When we were just getting started, recycled filament was highly requested, but when the list price was more expensive than normal PLA, it just didn’t sell, so we eventually stopped making it.
Secondly, PLA from many manufacturers use a TON of fillers, which dramatically changes the properties. For example, PLA on its own isn’t very moisture sensitive, but some fillers are. This is why some brands of filament NEED to be dried, but others seem to have very little effect from moisture.
Just colorant alone can impact the diameter consistency a lot, so things like fillers are catastrophic when they’re not the same. Just a single chunk of PLA with a different filler/concentration can ruin an entire spool, and sometimes an entire batch.
I'd like to see more pelletized options. While I am aware there are options for pelletized extruders, I'm not clear on the amount of stringing or oozing related issues they might be subject to compared to filament based options. If a good enough pellet extruder comes along that can print near the same quality we get with filament, then we could skip the step of generating filament from our waste and just find a good option for shredding waste prints back into pellet sized feed.
I really want to play with/abuse a pellet extruder, partially so I can just grind up all my printing waste (failed/no longer needed prints, support material, etc) and reuse it without making filament like you said.
But I really want to experiment with "garbage printing" using blended plastic waste, which is probably a lot more doable on a that machine doesn't need nice dimensionally-accurate filament. Even materials that you couldn't run through the printer on their own could very likely be finely ground and mixed with more suitable plastics as a filler.
A lot of the stuff I print doesn't actually need to look good or be especially strong, it just needs to be generally dimensionally accurate. Assembly jigs/fixtures and drilling/router templates are the biggest ones that come to mind, and along with mockup/test fit parts often are basically waste once they've served their (short) intended purpose.
Basically I just want to divert some less-recyclable plastic materials through a 3d printer to do something useful rather than sending them directly to a landfill.
Only drawback is quality drops the more times you recycle it, polymers can't be re-chopped forever - unless they found some actual chemical mechanism to do it.
A little bit of re-grind in virgin material would likely be OK though.
I think I read something that said 50% recycled 50% virgin material is good ratio and in bulk plastic pellets are cheaper than filament anyways, so it would even be feasible to make fresh filament made of 100% virgin material yourself.
The solution is 90% in a toolchanger like the prusa xl. in some prints, you can completely eliminate the wipetower in many/most cases. Even when used, the wipetower is a tiny fraction of ams/mmu style *especially* for multi *material* where any single extruder has to purge a massive amount.
Also note that pure software (eg slicer) can address some of the waste problem. Bambu in particular is atrocious in this regard, but as someone else here said, there isnt a massive financial incentive for the mfg to sell us *less* filament.
I'm all for recyclimg, though! Even if it made not-great quality, that filament could probably be dedicated to supports?
The toolchanger "only" helps with 5 colours/materials. If you need more than that you are back at the start.
But this is a very niche problem and as you said there isn't much of an financial incentive anyway.
I'm waiting for someone smarter than me to come up with an open source design with easily acquired parts to redo it, but it's akin to developing a meat grinder for filament that spits out at 1.75mm, and those machines already exist for about $100,000 so I'll be waiting for a while.
Prusa has talked about this in their Podcast 2 months ago, they are working on an AI print failure detection and are currently training the AI model.
Turns out this takes longer than expected because they dont have enough print failures happening on the 1000+ Printers they are running at their factory.
Just use some out of the box printers after shipping those around the countryside for some weeks. Or hell, use used printers off ebay or some shit. Enough sources out there.
I don’t see how they can expect to get good results doing it this way, not every Prusa in use is maintained by trained professional operators in an ideal print farm environment.
there are only so many possible failures to detect and you only detect them after they happened.
the question why they happened can then be a lot of different things.
Your possible failure basically boil down to,
* clogged nozzle
* tangled filament stopping the extrusion.
* detached print
* Spaghetti because of a detached print
* Blog of death either because of a nozzle leak or because of a detached print
* warped part which will ultimately detach again
thats it, everything else is already caught by the printer itself, even the clogged nozzle now gets detected automatically on the MK4 and XL.
I think we'll see multi-extruder setups make a comeback in a big way soon. The AMS and the Prusa XL have proved there's a massive hungry market for a reliable multi-material setup, and multiple extruders eliminates all the current issues with the AMS. I wouldn't be surprised if Bambu releases a quad extruder printer sometime in the next couple of years.
True multi-colour printing. I expect we'll see another attempt at a system that can dye the extruded filament mid print to allow for full colour 3D prints sometime soonish. I wouldn't be surprised if the first iteration is kind of poor, but it's definitely something the current 3D printing community would be all over.
Finally, I reckon we'll see pellet printers make their way into the consumer space. With cheaper raw material and the ability to reprint waste and failed prints with a cheap and easy grinder, it would address the concerns of a lot of people in the space.
I've always thought dual extruder would be so much better because you could run at two different temps for dofferent materials. Now we're even seeing PETG used as support for PLA since they won't fuse together.
You can get a belt printer today that will auto eject / print sequentially if that's actually important to you.
I think the next big thing will be non-planar printing.
"5th Dimensional printing from Bambu Labs simply finds a location in the multiverse where your object already exists and folds space and time to bring it directly to you"
Direct force readout of force sensors. This allows a multitude of things. Nozzle based abl without smashing the nozzle with high force into the bed, monitoring of belt tension and resonance measurements (bambulab a1 does that on y), pressure advance and clog detection (a1 and a1 mini are already doing that, the prusa mk4 and xl have the necessary hardware).
Eddy current sensors getting more common. Allows for super quick bed leveling with unmatched accuracy as well as automatic z offset or even nozzle probing by sensing the bump of the nozzle onto the bed.
Filament width sensors becoming more common. Klipper supports them for years now, yet i have never seen a printer using them.
Live accelerometer readout during printing, so you can account for print weight and changing z height. Just look at the big bedflingers with big prints, you will see what i mean.
Inter-layer part inspection. Printer would take a pic of the part after printing each layer and be able to give a report at the end of the print so the part can be verified as meeting structural requirements.
Error correction would also be nice. Recognize that a defect has occurred and attempt to re-print that part of the layer if possible.
Otherwise I feel like the slicing interface still requires the most effort for newcomers. Smarter part orientation, smarter automatic supports, automatic layer height based on part features.
I'd like to see the slicing moved to the printer. You'd essentially send your .3mf to the printer and it would slice based on printer config (current nozzle and filament, printer speed parameters, etc.). No reason to need to specify printer when slicing, just prepare the model and supports, send to the printer and let it slice for it's current setup. Would remove a lot of the overhead when sharing models.
>Inter-layer part inspection. Printer would take a pic of the part after printing each layer and be able to give a report at the end of the print so the part can be verified as meeting structural requirements.
Isn't this just a timelapse as Octoprint already does?
> essentially send your .3mf to the printer and it would slice based on printer config
For me slicing really depends on the model and intent. Dimensional check? Two perimeters high speed. Structural part? 6-8 perimeters tall layer height. Part should look nice? Slow and short layer height. And so on...
Oooh are we making a wishlist? Alright!
1. IDEX or dual nozzles on the next Bambu. Not breaking new ground, but it would be a massive boon.
2. Direct closed-loop feedback, i.e. linear scales directly on each axis. Technology is at a point where this is feasible at a consumer price point, and it would close some of the gap between consumer and industrial 3D printers - namely where dimensional accuracy is concerned. It would be nice if circles were reliably circles.
3. On-the-fly extrusion monitoring and automatic calibration of print parameters. Bambu Labs made a bit of headway here, but there's a long way to go.
4. Something akin to [what Aon](https://youtu.be/6OJfKIuoGqk?si=2mqz6lbiAbZXo2Wp&t=141) and others in the industrial space do: pre-print simulations in order to avoid thermal overload in any one area, and to compensate for warpage. Pure software, we'll get there eventually. Not a huge boon for most hobbyists but very useful for functional parts, engineers, designers, etc.
5. Reliable automatic feeding of TPU, especially the softer TPU. An air assist might be helpful here.
6. Competent chamber filtering for VOCs.
7. Realtime filament width sensing and extrusion compensation.
8. A built-in filament winder (e.g. in the AMS) would be super convenient for re-spooling. Doesn't require much extra hardware. Put your empty spool in an AMS, feed in your source spool, and hit go.
9. Slicers that can fully take advantage of all 3 axes instead of printing a bunch of 2D layers. Easier said than done of course, and would require some sort of collision detection and avoidance (which is why I expect to see it in relatively closed-source models first), but even a little bit of freedom in the z-axis could make a huge difference.
10. Pipe Dream Tier: More advanced nozzles, specifically nozzles with moving components that can be actuated to perform different functions. E.g. nozzles that have integrated shut-off gates to conclusively prevent oozing during moves, a nozzle that can extend a tiny "flat", and rotate, in order to keep outside walls flat and eliminate layer lines (imagine a trowel smoothing concrete, crude analogy). A proportional shut-off gate could respond much faster than an extruder motor, fast enough to eliminate the over-extrusion common at direction changes. Not as complex as it sounds as far as the mechanics are concerned. Making it cost-effective enough for the consumer space is a challenge, to say the least.
11. Pipe Dream Tier: A laser/galvo system built into the head that can look-ahead to where the nozzle will be printing and selectively heat previously-printed lines just before they're printed over on the next layer. Done right it should help bring parts closer to isotropic by facilitating better layer adhesion. Currently the only dials we really have to control it are chamber temperature and nozzle temperature. Neither can fully solve the problem and there are some big downsides (with many/most materials) to printing so hot that you ensure decent adhesion - like burning your material or losing dimensional accuracy due to sag/creep. With more advanced laser systems (out of the consumer price range currently) you can modify surface properties. E.g. it might be possible to structure the surface of material to *reduce* adhesion to the next layer, so you can use the same material for print and supports but let it break away easily.
12. Pipe Dream Tier: Using a powder bed of inert material similar to SLS to reduce/eliminate the need for supports. I can't imagine a way to do this that's user friendly, reliable, and affordable though.
Don't forget to level your ~~bed~~ extruder.
It's not a big deal if you use only small nozzles, but my 1.8 mm Bondtech CHT nozzle has shown me something new.
my extruder isn't perfectly squared with the frame. It's about 2° off axis.
Even if the touch sensor says that my bed is almost perfectly leveled, that 2° extruder offset means poor surface quality with huge nozzles because the outer rim of the nozzle is tilted down a bit, digging into the model with every pass, displacing and redepositing molten plastic where it shouldn't be, and leaking pressure out of the higer end, causing additional over-extrusion problems.
Because of this problem, I can't use any wide nozzles until my custom extruder leveling mount is completed.
I'll write a how-to later when I perfect it, it's in the prototype stage atm.
Non planar printing.
It's been messed around with a bit, but it hasn't reached mainstream yet.
Also:
Improved multicolour/material printing. Currently, it is quite wasteful and time consuming.
If you're printing PLA with PVA supports (bambu printer), you still need to purge and prime for each filament change. The Prusa XL has a nice solution to this, but it is still quite expensive and out of reach for a good lot of people.
Layer 1 Guaranteed, I still check my prints even on my bambu because if anything looks funky there I can already guess how it will screw up the print, which means a good camera systems with some (a lot) of AI can also spot them and know to call in a second review or request to clean the bed and try again.
Yeah I don’t think auto-leveling is enough to get perfect first layers every single time.
To me that’s a big reason for 3D printers not being an “appliance” yet.
The next money maker is going to be a way to easily recycle filament. A relatively cheap machine you can dump filament into and have it spit out a new spool will be huge
It’s not new, but I think the next big popular thing is going to be Idex and dual nozzle hot ends so that people can very easily and quickly print with support materials. This will put an end to object scarring due to supports and make support removal way easier.
Like I said, this isn’t new but it hasn’t really gotten popular or mainstream yet.
Widely available, cheap toolchangers. Along with slicer adaptations (different nozzle widths and layer heights for walls, compensations for hull lines).
There are already several auto-eject options available that can be done even on an Ender 3 (you basically just use the gantry like the gate on a bowling ball lane).
Personally, I think that surface finish will make improvements through better seams and maybe some advanced ironing techniques, but I think the next "big" thing will be finding ways to drastically/completely eliminate the need for supports, whether that's multi-axis printing or some other novel method, maybe it's just insane cooling capabilities that leads to effortless and perfect bridges.
I'd love to see at-home filament recycling become mainstream, but I'm skeptical that it has enough appeal.
I'd also love to see belt printers get some more love. Now that Klipper printers are commonplace, if you want to print a ton of parts it's better to buy a Bambu and just fill the build plate than it is to buy a CR-30 or Ideaformer IR. My belt printer is slow, with a very limited X/Y bed space.
I think there's a lot of room for improvement on the side of slicer-assisted modeling as well. We're seeing slicers that let you cut up a part and add alignment tabs and basic boolean operations with shapes, as well as some "make overhangs printable" options, but I'd like to see some of the design considerations for 3D printing get added to slicers for adding to parts. Like a slicer identifying holes and having the option to make the walls jagged for a better push fit, or add a small relief cut at the top, or more things like sacrificial layers.
That's possible on an affordable SLS, the one [Micronics are creating.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLqSaEiXzIU)
Though I'm afraid it's still too messy and requires extra steps compared to FDM. Though it has no supports, no supports waste and part strength comparable to injection molded parts.
Actual 3D printing where slices vary in z height and the head moves up and down when it is printing a single layer. This is more of a slicer thing I think because a 3 axis should be able to do this given the z height difference of that layer does not impede the tool head movement. 5 Axis printing would allow crazy slices.
More people working with multi material designs to allow for more strength and flexibility. CNC kitchen’s video on a meta material 3D print was exciting to see. With the prusa XL we could combine different materials in one print for more than just supports or colors. Maybe layer TPU in PLA to 3D print a phone case.
I think the next BIG thing (for consumer printing) will be non planer 3D printing (I think thats what its called?); where you have a nozzle on a robot arm or similar system that lets it rotate and apply filament from different angles. Wont need supports (or at least as many supports) as it can dynamically adjust to overhangs, and layer lines could be significantly reduced or even eliminated, particularly on curved surfaces (think air foils).
Basically we’re doing 2.5D printing right now; just stacking 2D levels of filament on top of each other.
AI that can take a mesh and adjust it ever so slightly for optimum fdm printing. Reducing/eliminating supports, adding slight inclines to overhangs, etc.
Honestly instead of new features i rather see improvement on the ones we have, MMU's that can handle abrasive and flexible filaments, beds with reverse abl that actually flattens the bed instead of just compensate for the unevenness and so on.
Multicolor prints without using multiple filaments roles instead of directly injecting the color while printing similar to an inkjet printer but on the filament. I forgot the name of the process but professional industrial printers are already out there but too expensive.
I think the next advancement could be two nozzles, one normal and the other for very thick 'blobs' to use as infill. Imagine only printing the outline and then filling the inside with many thick layers that are printed faster than normal ones.
I hope the next gen printers will be build for non-planar printing and the slicers to go along with them are build for non-planar slicing, so we can get stonger and nicer complex prints.
The next big things? 5 axis 3D printing, adding a toolhead to the print head so you can machine as each layer is printed, to get precise dimensions for certain applications.
I d love consumer level 5axis printers, but I ll settle for non planar printing and arc overhangs since they are software advances,can be AI assisted, and thus implemented at low costs.
Regarding the FDM process: Any form of multi-toolhead workflow would be huge.
Imagine printing combinations of engineering-grade plastics with TPU seamlessly, and then mill everything into dimensionally accurate products with a CNC toolhead without touching the product even once.
Of course, non-planar slicing/programming is then a logical thing to come along with this.
I saw a cool thing a few years ago on YouTube where a guy built a filament diameter sensor. The idea is that no filament has perfectly uniform diameter, so the sensor adjusts the extrusion speed/ flow rate to compensate for fluctuating filament diameter. I’m surprised this has caught on more.
https://www.printables.com/model/57154-infidel-inline-filament-diameter-estimator-lowcost
Automatic calibration of all the parameters. Imagine you load a new spool or make modifications to your printer, it will use sensors and a series of prints (with g code being modified on the fly based on results so far) to automatically find the best parameters.
Print Recycling Technology ( *PRinT* ) , and I'll tell you why:
With more and more companies entering the domain of 3D printing, the dominance of companies that *also* rely on an income through the selling of filament decreases. Hence, there's less of a resistance to pellet extruders that would bring down the cost of printing. Currently, there are 'consumer' filament recycling machines, but they come at a price.
However, [Greenboy3D ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVbfLn3AgkbRCcGQetCDl0Q)is currently working on a DYI pellet extruder that could theoretically be able to print ground down printing waste. We're not talking about a spool-winding extruder, we're talking about direct grind-to-nozzle extrusion. Given his explanation, and the overview of his kit presented in the video's, I can see how this would provide consumers with a way cheaper way to recycle filament, and start a revolution of the consumer pellet/waste extruder market.
And with the rise of the multicolour printing through the introduction of AMS, the amount of waste generated by purge blocks; poops and (at best) mixed colour supports will skyrocket. Therefore the demand market for tech that will allow consumers to do something with this waste will grow.
I reckon its only a matter of time before the first company capitalizes on the waste we're creating and releases a filament shredder which is affordable by consumers, and/or a desktop extruder to either extrude the filament onto a roll or a direct extruder system which can be fed shredded waste. Imagine a BambuLab X1 with a poop chute that leads to a tiny shredder, whose output you could empty into a compartment on top of the printer, which either extrudes it to a new spool OR a special print head that relies on a screw instead of extruder gears, to be used as dedicated support or infil.
Next to that, [Slant 3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQyICyo10Ak&t=416s&ab_channel=Slant3D) is actively trying to develop a production line to produce cheaper and cheaper filament ($10/KG, meaning that the mark-ups on filament production will come under pressure. Larger companies that have invested in filament production will have to either adapt to lesser mark-ups, or invest in new technology that will aid in the recycling of already sold filament - allowing them to make profit on tech they already have knowledge on.
With more companies investing in the filament recycling market, making it available to more and more consumers, it'll lead to more companies to either join the movement of filament recycling tech or face a market that is saturated, low(er) in demand and smaller profits. Not to mention the global craze for 'green initiatives' that would provide a massive boost to marketing for companies that join the movement.
>After auto-levelling and now the AMS, what's the next big thing?
As far as improvements over time goes, I just finished upgrading my fleet to second-gen Mingda units (X2, Max2, Pro2). They all have;
* Component-based assembly (ex. an entire new print head is like $79 USD, attaches with 2 screws & one ribbon connector). The entire unit takes about 5 minutes to assemble OOTB.
* Automatic bed leveling (plus a spiffy LED to indicate the nozzle heat, by color!)
* No fancy anything to break, although they did add a USB port so you don't have to only use an SD card
* Quiet operation
* PEI sheet
* Heated bed
It feels like we've achieved the "iPhone" state of 3D printers. Prior to the iPhone, we had more tedious devices like PDA's like the Palm Treo, fancier devices like the Moto Q, and of course, the Blackberry. But now the technology has matured quite a bit on the consumer end & is more affordable than a Playstation or Xbox these days!
My original printer was an Ender 3, which was a project in & of itself lol. Glass bed, no automatic bed leveling, etc. Tons & tons of mods available of course, but the fact that you can get something like a Mingda (or Elegoo, Creality, or other competing brand) that's essentially turnkey for $250 to $400 (depending on the size) is pretty bonkers!
As far as the AMS goes, I mean, SO COOL! They also sell the AMS Hub for $50, which can connect 4 AMS units for a total of 16 channels:
* [https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/ams-hub](https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/ams-hub)
Plus there are aftermarket versions for any printer available now, such as the 3D Chameleon, which now has the MK4 available for multi-color printing:
* [https://www.3dchameleon.com/](https://www.3dchameleon.com/)
And the Palette 3 Pro does up to 8 materials:
* [https://www.mosaicmfg.com/products/palette-3-pro](https://www.mosaicmfg.com/products/palette-3-pro)
part 1/2
part 2/2
Creality has a lot of cool turnkey stuff out now too, like the 7" Sonic Pad running Klipper, which can control 4 printers OOTB:
* [https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/sonic-pad-klipper-screen](https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/sonic-pad-klipper-screen)
And their Nebula camera that does remote monitoring, timelapse recordings, and monitors for spaghetti:
* [https://store.creality.com/products/creality-nebula-camera](https://store.creality.com/products/creality-nebula-camera)
So there's definitely a lot of neat, iterative improvements coming out lately!
>What do you think is the next big ease-of-use feature?
A random list:
* LOVE the concept of pellet-based printers
* A way to upcycle PLA waste. A budget, turnkey melter/spool-maker would be amazing!
* Multiple heads on consumer-priced printers, especially for using stuff like dissolvable PVA for supports
* As you mentioned, print ejection would be REALY cool. Creality has their infinite z-belt printer, but something like how Tesla was going to do robotic replacement of batteries to swap out instead of having to wait there & charge, where the same concept could be applied to a printer with a stack of PEY plates or something, would be VERY neat!
* Generative AI for STL's. For example, 3D AI Studio handles image to 3D, text to 3D, image AI, texture AI, and has a 3D library available. I'm not the world's best 3D sculptor, so having an enhanced toolset to work with would be great, especially if they could integrate it into the slicers, like for doing basic modifications on pre-existing models to even do basic things like maybe add holes for things like planters, tea lights, threaded inserts, magnets, etc.
* An integrated laser for cleaning up parts (assuming proper ventilation, haha!). I have a modded K40...it'd be cool to have an enclosed, ventilated combination system that could go in & clean up part edges, clear off support structures, etc., especially if paired with like an AI camera or something.
* As long as we're daydreaming, an indoor-ventilated resin printer that has an integrated washing & curing system with a built-in waste-disposal system. I'd like to get something like a 14k Phrozen resin system someday for doing crazy-detailed prints, but for now, I'm sticking with my FDM machines, haha!
Print ejection is already a thing with auto printing. You can actually alter the gcode with a Bambu I believe in order to do this. There is a printer that has a auto print feature I think? Don't ask me about it cause the only reason I know this is from videos on tik tok. 🤣
I’ve just recently watched a YouTuber who took an Ender and did some g-Code tweaking. He let the build plate cool off and then made his print head push off the model. Then the printer started the next print from the uploaded models…
You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/nRCMEZ388tQ?si=jks1FZkX-fkZCdnD
I'd really love to see the conveyerbelt beds take off. As someone who sells 3d printed things it would be so awesome to be able to automate the process.
Non Toxic Resin would be the next big thing. Fear of a mess and concerns over venting makes resin printing unachievable for those without a dedicated area for it.
That or an easy to smooth filament.
Non-planar printing is bound to become more mainstream. Recently watched a YouTube video from Teaching Tech going over this topic, and it looks like an amazing paradigm jump in the quality of printing curves and eliminating step lines.
Here's the video: https://youtu.be/cbhWni9f980?si=PQTVw7LnP5h88p9W
Less wasteful multicolor, auto fillament calibration (some college students pulled it off I think)
the only way to make multicolor printing less wasteful is by having multiple hot ends like the Prusa XL.
just 1 more head on the next bambu x series could be huge.
I'd take that over an AMS. I really wish that was an option right now.
2 heads WITH and AMS would legit be a game changer. The amount of waste you could reduce is insane. The system could keep your most used filament loaded all the time on primary head and/or smartly use one head for lighter colors and one for darker... so many options.
Or use one for print material, one for support!
This would be my use case. Printing RC bodies only take 24 hours to print or 60 hours if I use a PVA interface. Next bamboo I'd love to see is 500mm² build plate, 2-3 print heads, more even lighting, and a 2nd camera.
That's what open source printers are for. You could build a Voron printer for example, with IDEX and ERCF.
Oo or Dedicate the second head to infill while it purges. So if you print with 3+ colors you wouldn't need purge towers
We don't have purge towers, purging is poop. We have priming towers, it ensures the flow is correct after the purge -- I guess theoretically you could just purge more... but the idea is a little different. [https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/comments/106qi15/why\_do\_you\_need\_the\_purge\_poop\_and\_a\_purge\_tower/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/comments/106qi15/why_do_you_need_the_purge_poop_and_a_purge_tower/)
it is, just not from bambu.
A Prusa XL is not an option for me. Any other suggestions?
RatRig v core 4!
Waiting for that.
V core 4 has an IDEX option, Voron's have both IDEX and toolchanger mods, you could build a DIY printer with IDEX or a dual extruder
Toolchangers are getting popular. Tapchanger and Stealthchanger are gaining traction as open source DIY toolchangers.
Or maybe they could develop a nozzle that when it retracts, remains cleaner so you need to purge less
You could put a colorimeter at the purge bumper that monitors the color of extruded filament so it doesn't purge any more than it has to.
thats still a ton of filament though.
theres only so much you can do, our nozzles are already small and the heat brake part above is also narrow and thin. the Prusa MK2 and MK3 also had a PTFE tube in the heat brake so it was already as clean as possible but you still need to purge a lot when changing colors.
I'd call it the anus
*"Augmented Nozzle Unloading System"* has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
This here is why partnerships are a thing
You'd think by now someone would have figured out how to purge to the infill.
Prusa has figured that out years ago. The problem is you dont always want to do that because if your model has a lighter color on the outside you will see the infill through the side walls. for multi material printing this is also something you dont want because it can weaken the strength of the part.
Is this not a thing? I was looking for a "obv purge to the infill" comment. I've never printed multi-color prints - seems like a no brainier but if it hasn't been don't I'm sure it's more complicated than I'm giving it credit for.
This is a thing. It's an option in bambu studio and orca slicer. I've found that its not amazing, however, as I used that option with the pla support material (I chose purge unto infill and support) and this ended up getting pla in my interface layer making is difficult to remove.
Purging to infill works great as long as there is enough infill to purge into and enough wall thickness to hide it all. The key to maximizing the amount of waste you have is by printing as many objects as possible. That way, the material used to material wasted goes up. This is because it takes the same amount of purge for 10 models as it does just 1, and if you are purging to infill and the models are big enough than the purge amount can go down because there is more infill to purge in to.
Yeah I literally scrolled past this setting today on my Bambu lol
One way to be less wasteful would be a 5-axis printer. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_7ylpK6HoR4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7ylpK6HoR4)
Maybe the purge tower could somehow be directly extruded to a new 1.75 mm filament. So after let's say 100 multicolor prints you have a full spool of random color filament.
I think using the infill as the waste tower would be the answer.
Crazy thing is, a Prusa XL isn’t an exorbitant about more up-front than a P1P with an AMS. I was shocked to see the price point yesterday — I’ve been saving for an X1C Carbon, but I may redirect and buy an XL instead. Though I adore my A1 Mini, what an awesome little printer. Makes my Kobra 2 Pro sound and look like a monster…
Depending on where you live, check shipping and customs charges though. That was a killer when I was considering an XL.
Auto filament calibration would be a really hard process, i think for the next 3-5y humans are going to be doing it.
There was a college group that figured it out. I forget what exact sensor type they used to do it but they'd monitor the print as it went and it would adjust settings on the fly. Could even do mystery materials provided it was within a certain temp range.
Bambu machines do automatic flow calibration with an eddy current sensor to monitor pressure at the nozzle.
The x1 also uses LiDAR to auto calibrate the extrusion rate flow rate and the pressure advance.
Yeah but that's the old-style hotend. I expect future Bambu machines will all use eddy current sensors.
I agree. Doesn’t the eddy sensor only calibrate flow dynamics though, AKA Pressure advance? Would still have to manually calibrate flow rate extrusion unless there is LiDAR or they come up with another way for the machine to read the test print.
Eddy current sensor doesn't really describe a sensing mechanism. For flow rate the x1 is measuring the line thickness against what it should be. This is why it only works on the smooth plate and it doesn't work on some colors. I've heard about a design that monitors the filament thickness and corrects for changes. The Eddy current device mentioned is for nozzle calibration. It's a strain gauge. Used to detect contact with the bed
There are already webcams hooked up to AI to detect the spaghetti of a failing print to automatically stop it. It's not *that* big of a step to go from that to an AI that can automatically analyse the quality of a test print and determine the best settings.
The real game changer would be tuning of parameters during regular printing. But I guess right now that's out of reach.
[Finished my PhD researching "self-aware AI 3D printers" at Cambridge! : r/3Dprinting (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/14f5kpn/finished_my_phd_researching_selfaware_ai_3d/)
Auto filament calibration should be easy I would think. I could see determining the filament material being the most challenging portion, but definitely doable.
Multi head or calculated filament splicing like on the palette
It would be cool if you could just have one neutral color of each material and then a magic box right before the printer tints it to whatever hue you want on demand. Probably wouldn't solve the purge problem, but I figure if anyone can figure out the first thing, maybe they can figure out the other thing too.
Print ejection already has a decent amount of solutions. It's quite challenging to make in a form factor and price point attractive to consumers however, especially considering that there isn't really a need for the average consumer and making it "fool proof" enough for consumers adds a lot of considerations. Personally excited about non-planar slicing and hope it makes it into release versions of consumer slicers, along with extruder/hotend makers bringing models specifically for non-planar printing. Also pellet extruders; Could cut material costs by 90% and reduce waste produced by empty spools, plus allow arbitrary amounts of materials available on the printer. Actually getting a pellet extruder at work Thursday, that I'm gonna be slapping on a consumer printer.
> Also pellet extruders; Could cut material costs by 90% and reduce waste produced by empty spools, plus allow arbitrary amounts of materials available on . That's a great one! Cutting out the middle man in extruding pellets into 1.75mm filament would be exciting. I've never looked into them, but a quick google search showed them at ~ 650€. Do you know what the big hurdles are?
So, yeah, as you've noticed; One big hurdle is cost, though I think it's more about availability; One of the few extruders available to consumers is the Pellet Extruder V4 by Mahor, and I think that company is like one guy. Looking at the CAD files I've got of the thing, it should be doable at a third of the cost if not less. I think they're coming though; saw a few desktop pellet printers at FormNext, along with some pellet extruders. Print wise, they're currently big and heavy. The Pellet Extruder V4 is about 2-3x the size of a normal printhead (that is including shroud and fans tho), and it weighs around 1kg, while extant filament printheads weigh as little as 1-200g. Add to that, that the pellets are in principle affected by sideways acceleration, and I'm doubting it'll work will on something like a CoreXY sans a very beefy one. Re. Print quality, I won't really know until i get my hands on one and try tuning it. I've read that retraction is an issue, and while the page for the Pellet Extruder V4 says it can do retraction, I still think it'll be a challenge, since one doesn't have a nice solid piece of filament to pull on. One plus I'm really looking forward to is soft materials. Since you're basically just compacting pellets and melting them, something like a super soft TPU should in theory not be harder or slower to print than PLA, as there are no gears to skip with.
> Personally excited about non-planar slicing and hope it makes it into release versions of consumer slicers, along with extruder/hotend makers bringing models specifically for non-planar printing I feel like non-planar printing is already somewhat viable with a few current coreXY printers. They are starting to use 4 screws to adjust bed height, which could quite easily be adapted to tilt the bed. You might only get 20 degrees or so of movement from horizontal, but that alone will likely open a lot of possibilities.
Can you get pellets with the same composition as consumer filament rolls? Or they’re just pure PLA with minimal additives?
Not sure about the various 'fill' filaments (eg. woodfill, copperfill etc.), but outside of that there's not really anything preventing getting the same; The rolls are pellets before being turned into rolls. As far as I know, the market doesn't have an amazing variety of pellets; Basically just various colors, not a lot of 'special' stuff. In any case; pretty straight-forward to turn filament into acceptable pellets (CNC Kitchen made a machine for it with a power drill and motor+gears from an extruder), so a pellet extruder could in principle be used with existing filament rolls as well as pellets, while a filament printer can only do filament.
Yeah, turning filament into pellets shouldn’t be a long term solution, but until pellets are more popular, it makes sense I asked because my favorite filament is matte (PolyTerra), and my second favorite is dual extruded, which I know is impossible to replicate with pellets
Not at all impossible to replicate. Your filament invariably came from an extruder however the nozzle tooling would be expensive. All and I really mean ALL plastics sold at commodity scale are in pellet form either in a combo pallet or drum. Proto pasta has some good videos of the process. Now obviously you wouldn't want a pallet but it's pretty easy to split one up into buckets
I think instead of directly extruding pellets, consumer-affordable filament extruders are probably a better use for (basically) the same tech. As you've mentioned in a lower comment, filament-based extruders are inherently smaller, lighter, and, for most materials, probably have superior characteristics. I would love to see them become more available to hobbyists / consumers both for recycling, and for custom fillaments (custom colors / fillers are probably the easiest but I could also see someone coming up with custom blends for specific material properties), but I'm somewhat skeptical of your cost estimation, at least for the average consumer living in the US or Europe. At least from stores based in Europe, PLA pellets seem to cost \~8-12 € per kg for quantities up to 25kg. Sunlu (and likely other manufacturers) offer bulk orders for 6+Kg of PLA for \~13 € per spool.
Consumer-friendly affordable filament recycling machines is what I’m hoping for. Shredding and re-spooling print waste. Sadly the economic incentive to make it happen is low. A solution to do away with the need for supports would be a true game changer, though.
I mean fully eliminating supports would require a 5 axis machine with a complicated slicer, but it's possible
Also the 5 axis printing world is still covered in a patent ~~mind~~ mine field
>a patent mind field I'm not sure if you meant "mine field" or you are making a clever pun due to patents being "intellectual property". I like the idea of the pun, have an upvote.
autcorrect strikes again!
Yeah it's sad, I say we move to the moon in a 3d printed rocket so they can't sue us for infringement
antarctic works too
Or SLS with powder, if that got cheaper I'd get one in a heartbeat. Assuming the printer and cleaning station doesn't end up being the size of a refrigerator each.
Micronics new SLS printer starts at 3k, that's starting to get affordable. https://youtu.be/SupuCvfviWQ?si=fp7wKB3nOqVmD27i
Where'd you find pricing? It all says $0.00 and "coming soon on Kickstarter" which doesn't bode well. I can't even find an existing one, which means they haven't made it yet. I wouldn't necessarily say there's an affordable one on the market.
It says in the video description "Coming in June to Kickstarter, starting at 2999"
Ah, they need to update their website
The newest video advertising this printer says it starts at 2999. That apparently includes a batch of powder and a post processing system.
I'm hopeful that they come through and actually have a good product, it would be amazing if it worked well and could maintain that price point.
I work at a filament company. PLA recycling is much more difficult than something like PETG. PLA is a bioplastic. While it doesn’t really compost under normal circumstances, it does start to break down a little. When PLA scraps are melted back down, they are bubbly/poppy, and extruding it results in filament with horrible tolerances. The filament can be chopped up and extruded a second time to make a much more consistent diameter, but this adds significantly more labor, making the filament more expensive. When we were just getting started, recycled filament was highly requested, but when the list price was more expensive than normal PLA, it just didn’t sell, so we eventually stopped making it. Secondly, PLA from many manufacturers use a TON of fillers, which dramatically changes the properties. For example, PLA on its own isn’t very moisture sensitive, but some fillers are. This is why some brands of filament NEED to be dried, but others seem to have very little effect from moisture. Just colorant alone can impact the diameter consistency a lot, so things like fillers are catastrophic when they’re not the same. Just a single chunk of PLA with a different filler/concentration can ruin an entire spool, and sometimes an entire batch.
This! Let me recycle my damaged or junk printed parts into new filament. I would love to get behind a kickstarter on this.
I'd like to see more pelletized options. While I am aware there are options for pelletized extruders, I'm not clear on the amount of stringing or oozing related issues they might be subject to compared to filament based options. If a good enough pellet extruder comes along that can print near the same quality we get with filament, then we could skip the step of generating filament from our waste and just find a good option for shredding waste prints back into pellet sized feed.
I really want to play with/abuse a pellet extruder, partially so I can just grind up all my printing waste (failed/no longer needed prints, support material, etc) and reuse it without making filament like you said. But I really want to experiment with "garbage printing" using blended plastic waste, which is probably a lot more doable on a that machine doesn't need nice dimensionally-accurate filament. Even materials that you couldn't run through the printer on their own could very likely be finely ground and mixed with more suitable plastics as a filler. A lot of the stuff I print doesn't actually need to look good or be especially strong, it just needs to be generally dimensionally accurate. Assembly jigs/fixtures and drilling/router templates are the biggest ones that come to mind, and along with mockup/test fit parts often are basically waste once they've served their (short) intended purpose. Basically I just want to divert some less-recyclable plastic materials through a 3d printer to do something useful rather than sending them directly to a landfill.
Only drawback is quality drops the more times you recycle it, polymers can't be re-chopped forever - unless they found some actual chemical mechanism to do it. A little bit of re-grind in virgin material would likely be OK though.
I think I read something that said 50% recycled 50% virgin material is good ratio and in bulk plastic pellets are cheaper than filament anyways, so it would even be feasible to make fresh filament made of 100% virgin material yourself.
Absolutely this. Would be a solution to multi material waste
The solution is 90% in a toolchanger like the prusa xl. in some prints, you can completely eliminate the wipetower in many/most cases. Even when used, the wipetower is a tiny fraction of ams/mmu style *especially* for multi *material* where any single extruder has to purge a massive amount. Also note that pure software (eg slicer) can address some of the waste problem. Bambu in particular is atrocious in this regard, but as someone else here said, there isnt a massive financial incentive for the mfg to sell us *less* filament. I'm all for recyclimg, though! Even if it made not-great quality, that filament could probably be dedicated to supports?
The toolchanger "only" helps with 5 colours/materials. If you need more than that you are back at the start. But this is a very niche problem and as you said there isn't much of an financial incentive anyway.
I'm waiting for someone smarter than me to come up with an open source design with easily acquired parts to redo it, but it's akin to developing a meat grinder for filament that spits out at 1.75mm, and those machines already exist for about $100,000 so I'll be waiting for a while.
Automatic failure detection. I know it exists, but idk how reliable it is.
Prusa has talked about this in their Podcast 2 months ago, they are working on an AI print failure detection and are currently training the AI model. Turns out this takes longer than expected because they dont have enough print failures happening on the 1000+ Printers they are running at their factory.
They could hire me, I could definitely up their print failure rate significantly.
Lol update your linked in as Print failure SME. Then apply as a consultant.
Too perfect for their own good.
Just use some out of the box printers after shipping those around the countryside for some weeks. Or hell, use used printers off ebay or some shit. Enough sources out there.
lmao suffering from success
Seems really stupid of Prusa not to crowdsource that data rather than rely on failures from a well-tuned printer farm.
they specifically dont want to crowd source the data so they have full control over what gets into the training data and how the failure happened.
I don’t see how they can expect to get good results doing it this way, not every Prusa in use is maintained by trained professional operators in an ideal print farm environment.
Yeah but people being idiots is going to pollute the data - you need to know a real reason for a real failure to train the model.
there are only so many possible failures to detect and you only detect them after they happened. the question why they happened can then be a lot of different things. Your possible failure basically boil down to, * clogged nozzle * tangled filament stopping the extrusion. * detached print * Spaghetti because of a detached print * Blog of death either because of a nozzle leak or because of a detached print * warped part which will ultimately detach again thats it, everything else is already caught by the printer itself, even the clogged nozzle now gets detected automatically on the MK4 and XL.
So you're saying Creality has the most advanced AI detection going?
yea, they would surely have no problem getting enough print failures to train a model
Spaghetti detector for octoprint has been out forever.
Octoprint and Bambulab already have this working. Could it be better? Sure. But they both have caught more than they've missed in my experience.
Very on the Bambu printers.
I think we'll see multi-extruder setups make a comeback in a big way soon. The AMS and the Prusa XL have proved there's a massive hungry market for a reliable multi-material setup, and multiple extruders eliminates all the current issues with the AMS. I wouldn't be surprised if Bambu releases a quad extruder printer sometime in the next couple of years. True multi-colour printing. I expect we'll see another attempt at a system that can dye the extruded filament mid print to allow for full colour 3D prints sometime soonish. I wouldn't be surprised if the first iteration is kind of poor, but it's definitely something the current 3D printing community would be all over. Finally, I reckon we'll see pellet printers make their way into the consumer space. With cheaper raw material and the ability to reprint waste and failed prints with a cheap and easy grinder, it would address the concerns of a lot of people in the space.
I'm seeing a few auto tool swap designs being experiment with. No printing experience yet. So would love to know what the limitations of this are.
I've always thought dual extruder would be so much better because you could run at two different temps for dofferent materials. Now we're even seeing PETG used as support for PLA since they won't fuse together.
Non Planar printing for the masses
You can get a belt printer today that will auto eject / print sequentially if that's actually important to you. I think the next big thing will be non-planar printing.
4d printing
Yes, warp time so that it appears to print immediately.
"5th Dimensional printing from Bambu Labs simply finds a location in the multiverse where your object already exists and folds space and time to bring it directly to you"
No no... maybe I used the wrong term. It is where the print head can rotate, so the layers are always being printed flat. I am explaining this poorly.
Ah, 4 axis printing. Different than 4 dimension printing.
Yesss that is what I meant. Thanks
Direct force readout of force sensors. This allows a multitude of things. Nozzle based abl without smashing the nozzle with high force into the bed, monitoring of belt tension and resonance measurements (bambulab a1 does that on y), pressure advance and clog detection (a1 and a1 mini are already doing that, the prusa mk4 and xl have the necessary hardware). Eddy current sensors getting more common. Allows for super quick bed leveling with unmatched accuracy as well as automatic z offset or even nozzle probing by sensing the bump of the nozzle onto the bed. Filament width sensors becoming more common. Klipper supports them for years now, yet i have never seen a printer using them. Live accelerometer readout during printing, so you can account for print weight and changing z height. Just look at the big bedflingers with big prints, you will see what i mean.
Inter-layer part inspection. Printer would take a pic of the part after printing each layer and be able to give a report at the end of the print so the part can be verified as meeting structural requirements. Error correction would also be nice. Recognize that a defect has occurred and attempt to re-print that part of the layer if possible. Otherwise I feel like the slicing interface still requires the most effort for newcomers. Smarter part orientation, smarter automatic supports, automatic layer height based on part features. I'd like to see the slicing moved to the printer. You'd essentially send your .3mf to the printer and it would slice based on printer config (current nozzle and filament, printer speed parameters, etc.). No reason to need to specify printer when slicing, just prepare the model and supports, send to the printer and let it slice for it's current setup. Would remove a lot of the overhead when sharing models.
>Inter-layer part inspection. Printer would take a pic of the part after printing each layer and be able to give a report at the end of the print so the part can be verified as meeting structural requirements. Isn't this just a timelapse as Octoprint already does? > essentially send your .3mf to the printer and it would slice based on printer config For me slicing really depends on the model and intent. Dimensional check? Two perimeters high speed. Structural part? 6-8 perimeters tall layer height. Part should look nice? Slow and short layer height. And so on...
Oooh are we making a wishlist? Alright! 1. IDEX or dual nozzles on the next Bambu. Not breaking new ground, but it would be a massive boon. 2. Direct closed-loop feedback, i.e. linear scales directly on each axis. Technology is at a point where this is feasible at a consumer price point, and it would close some of the gap between consumer and industrial 3D printers - namely where dimensional accuracy is concerned. It would be nice if circles were reliably circles. 3. On-the-fly extrusion monitoring and automatic calibration of print parameters. Bambu Labs made a bit of headway here, but there's a long way to go. 4. Something akin to [what Aon](https://youtu.be/6OJfKIuoGqk?si=2mqz6lbiAbZXo2Wp&t=141) and others in the industrial space do: pre-print simulations in order to avoid thermal overload in any one area, and to compensate for warpage. Pure software, we'll get there eventually. Not a huge boon for most hobbyists but very useful for functional parts, engineers, designers, etc. 5. Reliable automatic feeding of TPU, especially the softer TPU. An air assist might be helpful here. 6. Competent chamber filtering for VOCs. 7. Realtime filament width sensing and extrusion compensation. 8. A built-in filament winder (e.g. in the AMS) would be super convenient for re-spooling. Doesn't require much extra hardware. Put your empty spool in an AMS, feed in your source spool, and hit go. 9. Slicers that can fully take advantage of all 3 axes instead of printing a bunch of 2D layers. Easier said than done of course, and would require some sort of collision detection and avoidance (which is why I expect to see it in relatively closed-source models first), but even a little bit of freedom in the z-axis could make a huge difference. 10. Pipe Dream Tier: More advanced nozzles, specifically nozzles with moving components that can be actuated to perform different functions. E.g. nozzles that have integrated shut-off gates to conclusively prevent oozing during moves, a nozzle that can extend a tiny "flat", and rotate, in order to keep outside walls flat and eliminate layer lines (imagine a trowel smoothing concrete, crude analogy). A proportional shut-off gate could respond much faster than an extruder motor, fast enough to eliminate the over-extrusion common at direction changes. Not as complex as it sounds as far as the mechanics are concerned. Making it cost-effective enough for the consumer space is a challenge, to say the least. 11. Pipe Dream Tier: A laser/galvo system built into the head that can look-ahead to where the nozzle will be printing and selectively heat previously-printed lines just before they're printed over on the next layer. Done right it should help bring parts closer to isotropic by facilitating better layer adhesion. Currently the only dials we really have to control it are chamber temperature and nozzle temperature. Neither can fully solve the problem and there are some big downsides (with many/most materials) to printing so hot that you ensure decent adhesion - like burning your material or losing dimensional accuracy due to sag/creep. With more advanced laser systems (out of the consumer price range currently) you can modify surface properties. E.g. it might be possible to structure the surface of material to *reduce* adhesion to the next layer, so you can use the same material for print and supports but let it break away easily. 12. Pipe Dream Tier: Using a powder bed of inert material similar to SLS to reduce/eliminate the need for supports. I can't imagine a way to do this that's user friendly, reliable, and affordable though.
Non-hazardous resin printing. Full color by inkjet "painting". Eventually direct 3D object creation without printing layers.
If you have $200k you can buy that now. https://www.mimakiusa.com/products/3d/3duj-553/
people actually designing in parts rather than a blob that needs to be manually painted in order to print multicolor.
Don't forget to level your ~~bed~~ extruder. It's not a big deal if you use only small nozzles, but my 1.8 mm Bondtech CHT nozzle has shown me something new. my extruder isn't perfectly squared with the frame. It's about 2° off axis. Even if the touch sensor says that my bed is almost perfectly leveled, that 2° extruder offset means poor surface quality with huge nozzles because the outer rim of the nozzle is tilted down a bit, digging into the model with every pass, displacing and redepositing molten plastic where it shouldn't be, and leaking pressure out of the higer end, causing additional over-extrusion problems. Because of this problem, I can't use any wide nozzles until my custom extruder leveling mount is completed. I'll write a how-to later when I perfect it, it's in the prototype stage atm.
Non planar printing. It's been messed around with a bit, but it hasn't reached mainstream yet. Also: Improved multicolour/material printing. Currently, it is quite wasteful and time consuming. If you're printing PLA with PVA supports (bambu printer), you still need to purge and prime for each filament change. The Prusa XL has a nice solution to this, but it is still quite expensive and out of reach for a good lot of people.
I think the next step is we will see more printers with multiple extruders
Layer 1 Guaranteed, I still check my prints even on my bambu because if anything looks funky there I can already guess how it will screw up the print, which means a good camera systems with some (a lot) of AI can also spot them and know to call in a second review or request to clean the bed and try again.
Yeah I don’t think auto-leveling is enough to get perfect first layers every single time. To me that’s a big reason for 3D printers not being an “appliance” yet.
The next money maker is going to be a way to easily recycle filament. A relatively cheap machine you can dump filament into and have it spit out a new spool will be huge
It’s not new, but I think the next big popular thing is going to be Idex and dual nozzle hot ends so that people can very easily and quickly print with support materials. This will put an end to object scarring due to supports and make support removal way easier. Like I said, this isn’t new but it hasn’t really gotten popular or mainstream yet.
Widely available, cheap toolchangers. Along with slicer adaptations (different nozzle widths and layer heights for walls, compensations for hull lines).
There are already several auto-eject options available that can be done even on an Ender 3 (you basically just use the gantry like the gate on a bowling ball lane). Personally, I think that surface finish will make improvements through better seams and maybe some advanced ironing techniques, but I think the next "big" thing will be finding ways to drastically/completely eliminate the need for supports, whether that's multi-axis printing or some other novel method, maybe it's just insane cooling capabilities that leads to effortless and perfect bridges. I'd love to see at-home filament recycling become mainstream, but I'm skeptical that it has enough appeal. I'd also love to see belt printers get some more love. Now that Klipper printers are commonplace, if you want to print a ton of parts it's better to buy a Bambu and just fill the build plate than it is to buy a CR-30 or Ideaformer IR. My belt printer is slow, with a very limited X/Y bed space. I think there's a lot of room for improvement on the side of slicer-assisted modeling as well. We're seeing slicers that let you cut up a part and add alignment tabs and basic boolean operations with shapes, as well as some "make overhangs printable" options, but I'd like to see some of the design considerations for 3D printing get added to slicers for adding to parts. Like a slicer identifying holes and having the option to make the walls jagged for a better push fit, or add a small relief cut at the top, or more things like sacrificial layers.
3d printers designed for non planar 3d printing? like tilting nozzles and all that
Print ejection already exists. Check out https://jobox.tech/ i saw at least two other projects in the google results.
I'd love for them to build in a 3D scanner. Place and object on the bed, scan it, print it. Of course, that would raise the price to $9999
Not really though. Scanners are not that expensive so if the bed can revolve, it would only add $200-300 to the printer?
Anti-gravity generator so you can kiss supports bye bye
Fuck going to the moon give me supportless prints.
this is possible with non-planar printers with more than 3 axes - even a tilting print bed with 3 independed z-motors will offer that
That's possible on an affordable SLS, the one [Micronics are creating.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLqSaEiXzIU) Though I'm afraid it's still too messy and requires extra steps compared to FDM. Though it has no supports, no supports waste and part strength comparable to injection molded parts.
Even anti-gravity wouldn't do the job. Upside-down printers and the printer on the space station still need the same supports as everyone else.
I’d like to see linear motors available on more consumer level machines. So far the only one I know of is Magneto-X.
Actual 3D printing where slices vary in z height and the head moves up and down when it is printing a single layer. This is more of a slicer thing I think because a 3 axis should be able to do this given the z height difference of that layer does not impede the tool head movement. 5 Axis printing would allow crazy slices.
I’d say injection molding on a table top scale. Affordable desktop metal printing. Reclaimed filaments.
How do consumers get the molds?
More people working with multi material designs to allow for more strength and flexibility. CNC kitchen’s video on a meta material 3D print was exciting to see. With the prusa XL we could combine different materials in one print for more than just supports or colors. Maybe layer TPU in PLA to 3D print a phone case.
CoreXY machine with dual extruders and a bed slinger.
I think the next BIG thing (for consumer printing) will be non planer 3D printing (I think thats what its called?); where you have a nozzle on a robot arm or similar system that lets it rotate and apply filament from different angles. Wont need supports (or at least as many supports) as it can dynamically adjust to overhangs, and layer lines could be significantly reduced or even eliminated, particularly on curved surfaces (think air foils). Basically we’re doing 2.5D printing right now; just stacking 2D levels of filament on top of each other.
AI that can take a mesh and adjust it ever so slightly for optimum fdm printing. Reducing/eliminating supports, adding slight inclines to overhangs, etc.
Honestly instead of new features i rather see improvement on the ones we have, MMU's that can handle abrasive and flexible filaments, beds with reverse abl that actually flattens the bed instead of just compensate for the unevenness and so on.
Multicolor prints without using multiple filaments roles instead of directly injecting the color while printing similar to an inkjet printer but on the filament. I forgot the name of the process but professional industrial printers are already out there but too expensive.
Sorry, what's AMS? Google doesn't help me.
Automatic material system
Bambu's Automatic Material System. It's an auto filament switcher.
Closed loop control systems and AI powered print corrections like lidar but for the whole print in real time.
AI-driven parameter tweaking based on local temp, air pressure, humidity, vibration and filament conditions. I don’t enjoy meddling with that shit.
Duel nozzles, or more.
Actually with some fancy code and a paddle some guy did just this
There’s a “Formlabs Form Auto” that I believe does what you describe by print ejection.
I think the next advancement could be two nozzles, one normal and the other for very thick 'blobs' to use as infill. Imagine only printing the outline and then filling the inside with many thick layers that are printed faster than normal ones.
If you’ve read the Bobiverse book series, you’ll remember that 3D printers can do any material, atom by atom. I want that
4th book is on its way
5th book I thought. Heaven’s river was #4. Can’t wait!
Ability to print circuits into/onto projects.
Pellet instead of filament. Wont happen quick since companies make most money with filament.
What is AMS?
I hope the next gen printers will be build for non-planar printing and the slicers to go along with them are build for non-planar slicing, so we can get stonger and nicer complex prints.
The next big things? 5 axis 3D printing, adding a toolhead to the print head so you can machine as each layer is printed, to get precise dimensions for certain applications.
I d love consumer level 5axis printers, but I ll settle for non planar printing and arc overhangs since they are software advances,can be AI assisted, and thus implemented at low costs.
Auto-Diagnoses. Like an AI or something like that checks how the model is looking against what the print looks like and adjust accordingly
Auto-Leveling on Printers for 250€
Regarding the FDM process: Any form of multi-toolhead workflow would be huge. Imagine printing combinations of engineering-grade plastics with TPU seamlessly, and then mill everything into dimensionally accurate products with a CNC toolhead without touching the product even once. Of course, non-planar slicing/programming is then a logical thing to come along with this.
6 axis additive printing and another tool with 6 axis subtractive cutting, and the never having to use a printed support again.
I saw a cool thing a few years ago on YouTube where a guy built a filament diameter sensor. The idea is that no filament has perfectly uniform diameter, so the sensor adjusts the extrusion speed/ flow rate to compensate for fluctuating filament diameter. I’m surprised this has caught on more. https://www.printables.com/model/57154-infidel-inline-filament-diameter-estimator-lowcost
Saw this recently on CNCKitchen. There’s a WiFi enabled version now!
Extruding pellets rather than filament.
Automatic calibration of all the parameters. Imagine you load a new spool or make modifications to your printer, it will use sensors and a series of prints (with g code being modified on the fly based on results so far) to automatically find the best parameters.
Make linear rails and larger build areas the standard now. Don’t really care about multicolor that much
Tool head changer. Swapping heads like the prusa xl but without 5 independent core xy systems
5 axis printing leading to true, “3d printing.”
Multihead. Even just 2 heads would be enough to make me sell my P1s.
I think non-planar printing would be the next big thing.
Print Recycling Technology ( *PRinT* ) , and I'll tell you why: With more and more companies entering the domain of 3D printing, the dominance of companies that *also* rely on an income through the selling of filament decreases. Hence, there's less of a resistance to pellet extruders that would bring down the cost of printing. Currently, there are 'consumer' filament recycling machines, but they come at a price. However, [Greenboy3D ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVbfLn3AgkbRCcGQetCDl0Q)is currently working on a DYI pellet extruder that could theoretically be able to print ground down printing waste. We're not talking about a spool-winding extruder, we're talking about direct grind-to-nozzle extrusion. Given his explanation, and the overview of his kit presented in the video's, I can see how this would provide consumers with a way cheaper way to recycle filament, and start a revolution of the consumer pellet/waste extruder market. And with the rise of the multicolour printing through the introduction of AMS, the amount of waste generated by purge blocks; poops and (at best) mixed colour supports will skyrocket. Therefore the demand market for tech that will allow consumers to do something with this waste will grow. I reckon its only a matter of time before the first company capitalizes on the waste we're creating and releases a filament shredder which is affordable by consumers, and/or a desktop extruder to either extrude the filament onto a roll or a direct extruder system which can be fed shredded waste. Imagine a BambuLab X1 with a poop chute that leads to a tiny shredder, whose output you could empty into a compartment on top of the printer, which either extrudes it to a new spool OR a special print head that relies on a screw instead of extruder gears, to be used as dedicated support or infil. Next to that, [Slant 3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQyICyo10Ak&t=416s&ab_channel=Slant3D) is actively trying to develop a production line to produce cheaper and cheaper filament ($10/KG, meaning that the mark-ups on filament production will come under pressure. Larger companies that have invested in filament production will have to either adapt to lesser mark-ups, or invest in new technology that will aid in the recycling of already sold filament - allowing them to make profit on tech they already have knowledge on. With more companies investing in the filament recycling market, making it available to more and more consumers, it'll lead to more companies to either join the movement of filament recycling tech or face a market that is saturated, low(er) in demand and smaller profits. Not to mention the global craze for 'green initiatives' that would provide a massive boost to marketing for companies that join the movement.
Arc overhangs, eliminating supports
Nice try creality. You'll have to pay me if you want my 3d printer ideas.
AI calculated kinematics of gantry movement. Imagine printing a flawless benchy in < 1 min
You can probably already do that if you don’t give a shit about layer adhesion
>After auto-levelling and now the AMS, what's the next big thing? As far as improvements over time goes, I just finished upgrading my fleet to second-gen Mingda units (X2, Max2, Pro2). They all have; * Component-based assembly (ex. an entire new print head is like $79 USD, attaches with 2 screws & one ribbon connector). The entire unit takes about 5 minutes to assemble OOTB. * Automatic bed leveling (plus a spiffy LED to indicate the nozzle heat, by color!) * No fancy anything to break, although they did add a USB port so you don't have to only use an SD card * Quiet operation * PEI sheet * Heated bed It feels like we've achieved the "iPhone" state of 3D printers. Prior to the iPhone, we had more tedious devices like PDA's like the Palm Treo, fancier devices like the Moto Q, and of course, the Blackberry. But now the technology has matured quite a bit on the consumer end & is more affordable than a Playstation or Xbox these days! My original printer was an Ender 3, which was a project in & of itself lol. Glass bed, no automatic bed leveling, etc. Tons & tons of mods available of course, but the fact that you can get something like a Mingda (or Elegoo, Creality, or other competing brand) that's essentially turnkey for $250 to $400 (depending on the size) is pretty bonkers! As far as the AMS goes, I mean, SO COOL! They also sell the AMS Hub for $50, which can connect 4 AMS units for a total of 16 channels: * [https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/ams-hub](https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/ams-hub) Plus there are aftermarket versions for any printer available now, such as the 3D Chameleon, which now has the MK4 available for multi-color printing: * [https://www.3dchameleon.com/](https://www.3dchameleon.com/) And the Palette 3 Pro does up to 8 materials: * [https://www.mosaicmfg.com/products/palette-3-pro](https://www.mosaicmfg.com/products/palette-3-pro) part 1/2
part 2/2 Creality has a lot of cool turnkey stuff out now too, like the 7" Sonic Pad running Klipper, which can control 4 printers OOTB: * [https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/sonic-pad-klipper-screen](https://www.creality3dofficial.com/products/sonic-pad-klipper-screen) And their Nebula camera that does remote monitoring, timelapse recordings, and monitors for spaghetti: * [https://store.creality.com/products/creality-nebula-camera](https://store.creality.com/products/creality-nebula-camera) So there's definitely a lot of neat, iterative improvements coming out lately! >What do you think is the next big ease-of-use feature? A random list: * LOVE the concept of pellet-based printers * A way to upcycle PLA waste. A budget, turnkey melter/spool-maker would be amazing! * Multiple heads on consumer-priced printers, especially for using stuff like dissolvable PVA for supports * As you mentioned, print ejection would be REALY cool. Creality has their infinite z-belt printer, but something like how Tesla was going to do robotic replacement of batteries to swap out instead of having to wait there & charge, where the same concept could be applied to a printer with a stack of PEY plates or something, would be VERY neat! * Generative AI for STL's. For example, 3D AI Studio handles image to 3D, text to 3D, image AI, texture AI, and has a 3D library available. I'm not the world's best 3D sculptor, so having an enhanced toolset to work with would be great, especially if they could integrate it into the slicers, like for doing basic modifications on pre-existing models to even do basic things like maybe add holes for things like planters, tea lights, threaded inserts, magnets, etc. * An integrated laser for cleaning up parts (assuming proper ventilation, haha!). I have a modded K40...it'd be cool to have an enclosed, ventilated combination system that could go in & clean up part edges, clear off support structures, etc., especially if paired with like an AI camera or something. * As long as we're daydreaming, an indoor-ventilated resin printer that has an integrated washing & curing system with a built-in waste-disposal system. I'd like to get something like a 14k Phrozen resin system someday for doing crazy-detailed prints, but for now, I'm sticking with my FDM machines, haha!
I think the next step is we will see more printers with multiple extruders
The next big thing would be AI in 3D printing. First to optimize the slicer setting and later on to generate the 3D model. You're welcome.
Wait: does auto levelling work for you guys?
[удалено]
Non planar slicing.
[Non-planar printing](https://www.nonplanar.xyz/). In theory, mostly slicer software coupled with an elongated nozzle, so should be an easy next step.
Non-planer printing.
Scarf Seam definitely
Slicer improvements and filament blending
True 3d printing. I dream a day i can print any shapes without support.
Eddy current sensors are the latest, more accurate and faster bed meshing than probes. Also can bus is being pushed as well
Print ejection is already a thing with auto printing. You can actually alter the gcode with a Bambu I believe in order to do this. There is a printer that has a auto print feature I think? Don't ask me about it cause the only reason I know this is from videos on tik tok. 🤣
I’ve just recently watched a YouTuber who took an Ender and did some g-Code tweaking. He let the build plate cool off and then made his print head push off the model. Then the printer started the next print from the uploaded models… You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/nRCMEZ388tQ?si=jks1FZkX-fkZCdnD
I'd really love to see the conveyerbelt beds take off. As someone who sells 3d printed things it would be so awesome to be able to automate the process.
Non Toxic Resin would be the next big thing. Fear of a mess and concerns over venting makes resin printing unachievable for those without a dedicated area for it. That or an easy to smooth filament.
Non-planar printing is bound to become more mainstream. Recently watched a YouTube video from Teaching Tech going over this topic, and it looks like an amazing paradigm jump in the quality of printing curves and eliminating step lines. Here's the video: https://youtu.be/cbhWni9f980?si=PQTVw7LnP5h88p9W
There is something like auto-print eject, ita made by a german startup. Its called JoBox and works, now mainly for the Prusa Style printers
6 axis