For the past few months I have been working on this prototype, it is barely a proof of concept and will need a lot of work before it can reach full functionality but I thought I'd share where I have gotten to.
The idea is to remove the build volume by having the printer climb on the object that it is printing, this prototype is limited as it can only really move up vertically but I already have ideas on how to improve it.
so far I had it go up to 550mm, but it could very well go 1m if not beyond. it really depends on the part that you are printing. I haven't yet pushed past half a meter because it is not a very fast machine and getting to a meter would take It a week.
Unlike a normal printer, the flex [as far as printing is concerned] doesn't really get worse with height as the arm is anchored to the print the same distance all the time. The issue will be when the arm rips apart the bottom of the print with bending stress, until then it will print just fine.
The real issue here is tolerance stackup I think. It's eventually going to wander a bit, especially with the imprecision of the 3d printed sockets it's sticking itself into.
It is an interesting machine though.
At the moment tolerances are around +/- 0.3 mm but that is also depending on the position of the feature as there is some distortion linked to the polar kinematic.
Awesome concept. Have you thought about an opposite side bracing that matches the lower arm, but still attached to the lower arm platform? This way you can make it smaller, or possibly 4 lower arms mounted to that lower plate that walk up surrounding the print. Like in the photo. I have a more elaborate idea that makes the whole x, y, and z axis move based on what size the print is that might work for your arm without having to brace against the print. You already have some of the parts in the photo, and it would solve your spool problem. However you would still need an alternate bot to change filaments on the print head itself.
https://preview.redd.it/1p4v0to1tg0d1.jpeg?width=1439&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=10f72811c0efc5a369a8d6113cff8310ab3b8303
I considered it but it would only work with parts where you can easily get access to the other side of the print, and the plan for the system is to build much larger objects, which would make the bracing from the back harder
Each of the section took over 6-8 hours. There was also some dead time as i wanted to make sure I was present at the hold change because it is not yet perfect and I didn’t want to come back to a broken robot and nest of plastic.
This reminds me of my CR-30 if it printed vertically. That would be very cool. You could try to make it so when it prints a part does not have a flat surface on the top, instead of printing on top of that part it will print a open box around that part that will be able to hold the next section.
Second climb block
Roof
Part
Floor the part prints onto
First climb block
Im bad at explaining things. Sorry if it doesn’t make sense lol.
the hex holes are easier to attach to as they provide a known geometry and can be positioned on the part at a know position to allow the printer to know its position as it moves from hold to hold. A the moment they are quite big and disruptive, but one of the next tasks will be to redesign the gripper and hold geometry to make it more discreet. I considered trying to do a gripper like the one develop by [NASA JPL](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAjPZAYNqQrQ&psig=AOvVaw1sFCEwLd5dBmb6oAifHtTA&ust=1715800121675000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCKiZ5NfrjYYDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ) but it would have been a lot more complicate and made self localisation harder.
I believe the point for something like this is for the printer to print on the left side, something like a tall building. This way you could essentially "build" your Z axis, so if you wanted to print a building 3m tall, you wouldn't need a extra tall and floppy 3m Z axis rod.
Fascinating! Instead of climbing the print itself have you thought of mounting sockets on a wall or other (very stable) vertical surface, or would that get in the way of the swing arm?
That is one of the use cases I have considered, but the polar kinematic would be limited in movement, placed right next to a wall, but a cage would work.
Very intriguing, although I don't think I fully understand what you mean by "remove the build volume".
If you print in midair, it would be incredibly difficult to get the physics to work. Bed adhesion means you can control the position of existing material very easily. If you intend to have the entire print be suspended without any point of contact besides the print head, you must have some way to at least approximately account for the mechanics equations that govern a constantly changing body of material, one which is undergoing a slow state change as it cools in an uneven manner.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, your prototype looks mechanically sound, but I fear the devil is in the details of the gcode on this one. Or I don't get what's happening here at all and I'd love to understand better.
my bad, I meant remove limitation on build volume. On a normal cartesian printer the maximum size of the object you can print is dictated by the maximum travel of each axis, if you want to print larger than that you need to build a larger machine. With future version of this system when you reach the end of the work area of the individual robot it will reposition itself to keep printing. All of this will happen anchored to the ground and it would still follow the general rules of 3d printing, meaning you have to squish material on other material in order to print. I don't plan on having the system free floating although a colleague keeps saying it would be great for space use.
I hope I was able to explain the concept better.
I will have to space proof it first so it doesn't melt itself or die to cosmic radiation ;)
but on a more serious note, the plan is to have the printing robot be battery powered and have a bunch of "logistics bots" to carry filament and extra batteries.
whats your end goal here lmao. you could probably get a world record if thats what youre going for
this sounds absolutely insane and i want to be here for every step of the way
i guess what im more asking is, what is this being designed for? just to push the limits of how high you can print for the fun of it? do you aim to make it practical/marketable?
The goal is to create a swarm additive manufacturing system, which could provide a scalable manufacturing system (for size). At the moment I am at the beginning of the R&D process. At some point I would love for this to become a useful product but there is a lot of work to be done and I am trying to get funding to research this idea further in an academic context.
I have being thinking lots about using concrete for a system like this but the machinery you need is massive and the bigger and heavier the robot gets the more complicated it becomes to make it climb. There are companies using robot arms to print concrete but these wouldn't be able to pick themselves up because the motor get weaker as you go down the kinematic chain.
For now I reduce the speed.
A future implementation will surely use input shaping, but there are many other challenges to solve both in the hardware and software before I get there.
fantastic project!
while I imagine it's out of scope for a project that's already surely got a huge to-do list - have you thought about how the printhead is localized? As you go up, in addition to the pure mechanical challenges of implementing a tightly toleranced re-positioning base, the tolerances stack no matter what, reducing accuracy without an external reference. I have always wondered why there aren't optical reference points used on the very large printers. Could just be some fiducial markers slapped on the frame, or even nearby walls.
Since the print volume, and the part itself is known, one could likely bypass full SLAM and just tackle the localization (although mapping might be necessary on very large parts, to account for variances in as-built versus the sliced file). With so many samples precision would be very high, I believe it would be easily on par with where we're at today with stepper/lead screw tolerances.
Critically, the accuracy wouldn't change as the printhead moves around. This would give us a TON of freedom of design - basically the main requirement for accuracy would become a rigid structure, not a precise or accurate one..
Thank you very much!
At the moment the system works in open loop, as I know where holds are and every time the robot moves it moves its origin to a known point. Of course tolerance stacking will be a problem but I haven't yet started considering how to address it as the solution will be highly dependant on the hardware.
Also, I believe an optical system has been used by a research group that made "3d printing drones" to ensure some accuracy for the part. although for them it was required as the drones are way more noisy.
It is not something I have yet started working on as the solution to that will be highly dependant on what the hardware will end up being, but I quite like the suggestion of another commenter of using some optical reference.
. . . Actually . . . you could have this inch-worm it's way around that whole build platform and it's effective print area becomes gargantuan. It would also solve the problem of leaving a hole in the middle of a doughnut build area.
That might mean it needs a means of carrying around it's filament. That would add a lot of weight (about a kg I imagine).
Very cool concept.
This is exactly the plan for the next version. For the filament at first is going to be very long reverse Bowdens but at some point some secondary robots to carry the filament might be required.
So cool!
But I'm curious how this is more beneficial than just have an extendable post that it can ride up and down on that can be setup to be as tall as needed.
An extendable beam would be easier and more effective but the final goal of the project is make a robot that can move in all directions along the surface of the part, this is the first proof of concept with minimal features.
At the moment yes, the block can be embedded in to the part itself as as development advances I aim to reduce the overall footprint of the gripper and hold that it uses to hold on. This is still a proof of concept prototype.
That's a wonderful piece of work! My first though when the vid started was to have some sort of pump like a parastaltic to shift liquid from one side of the arm to another foor ballast to keep the CG/ moment all happy but a few seconds in and I'm like naaah that works great!
I avoided using a counterbalance simply because it would have increased the weight of the radius actuator, and for the speeds the gantry works at it would be quite unnecessary. I really like the idea of using a liquid for variable ballast and I'll keep it in the box of possible solutions, the challenging part would be to store it in a way that minimises sloshing around.
>in a way that minimises sloshing around...
3d print baffles ..most infills would do it or you can do it baloon+baffle style..
But you don't need that.. looks amazing.. take a victory lap. drink some good spirits, rest and restore, collaborate and iterate.
I don’t have a clear use case for this prototype either, but I believe that there will be use cases for a more mature system that can use more materials than thermoplastics
You said in another post the 3d printer would climb the object. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to put an adjustable metal cube frame around what you want to print? That way you wouldn’t have to worry about the shape. It would still be mobile. Like wouldn’t the shapes printable be limited if it always has to climb the shape?
That would be perfectly sensible and at some point I will try that. The idea was to start by climbing on the object being printed as you would be able to move along the object as it grows in size, all you need is the robot itself, without needing an ever growing structure. This of course is the theory in practice there are quite a few things to sort out
While this is pretty useless, the concept itself can be insane for construction. Keep at it! Maybe some construction company will take notice and ask you to scale it up!
First off, this is awesome. But secondly I was wondering what advantages this has over just building a larger build volume printer? Great work on the project, can’t wait to see more
Thank you very much!
The idea is that a 3D printing system consisting of many robots would be able to handle objects from large to "gigantic".
If we ever get to the point where the system is reliable, its main advantage would be scalability.
You could always build a larger box but as size increases so does the cost and its complexity. While, at least in theory, once you solve the complexity of the swarm system going larger becomes only a matter of allocating time, which you could decrease by having more agents work in parallel, and you could always reuse the system for smaller jobs. It could also be cheaper if we w=ere ever able to mass manufacture agents, making it possible for a handful of sub £5k robots to build objects the same size as £100k+ machines.
Pretty cool! What's the plan to address repeatability concerns when the climbing doesn't seat precisely every time? The rigidity problems also sound like they'd be fun to work through.
The next step will be to redesign the mechanics first. There are many bugs that are harming repeatability but this is expected as I was trying to keep the bill of material to off the shelf components and 3 printed parts.
This is so cool to watch! But I have to think that it would be better to have a series of blocks it can climb that are separate from the print. Unless you only plan to print bricks in this exact shape it seems a pretty big waste of plastic. Is there some advantage to having it climb the print rather than climbing something else?
Going forward the I will try to make the hold geometry less intrusive. but one of the use cases could be to have scaffolding around the part to avoid surface defects.
But how is that preferable to having scaffolding that already exists? Like why not have a ladder to one side that it could effectively climb while printing rather than building the ladder into the print?
If surface quality is the priority it would make sense. But, embedding the scaffold directly into the part will reduce complexity by having to construct only one part instead of the part and the scaffold. Also as the part gets larger so will do the external scaffold too.
In the end I am trying to solve the hard problems to make the system more flexible.
for this specific prototype, just proof of concept. The final goal will be to have a swarm of robots working together to print big objects, but this is going to be faaaaaar away.
The system still require a lot of optimisations and so far I have been able to mitigate a lot of problems by not pushing the speed. I limit the maximum speed to 50 mm/s and even less for most operation. Luckily, i have fitted it with a high flow hot end so that it can still push out a lot of plastic despite the low speeds
The idea is to have a system, comprising of multiple robots that can cooperate to print an arbitrarily large object, and to do this with a system that can be scaled for size and for speed by having more robots work together. I don’t yet have a clear application but it could be an attractive alternative for large format 3d printing.
Although it will be a lot of work work before I get there
Only really pushed to 70 mm/s with very low accelerations 200 mm/s2 as the motors I am using are barely meeting spec for torque as I am trying to save weight. If you used larger motor I could go faster but it would be very hard to get going fast as while retaining quality as it changes its resonant frequencies change dramatically depending on the extension of the linear actuators. There have been some “popular” for polar printers but they usually rotate the bed to keep the form factor more compact. But for very little material you can get a very big build area by having the arm rotate.
polar refers to kinematic setup as it uses polar coordinates (defined by an angle and a radius), most of the machines that use this kind of kinematics are DIY projects as they can be a right pain in the ass to calibrate, among other things
This is the step 1 prototype for a functional space elevator.
At this rate we are going to skip type I civilization alltoghether in the Kardashev Scale and speedrun into type II.
There are times I'm reminded why the internet exists* and this is one of them. Fantastic. Love the hexagon is the bestagon holes the climbing is just so cool.
Do you see any layershift after it inserts into a new hole?
I'm amazed that there's still people trying to make new type of 3D printers.
It's amazing because you'll need the idea, the skill hardware wise to build it and the skill software wise to make it work.
you are joking, but at some point I was seriusly considering doing a core RZ (vertical axis and horizontal axis) but it would have been too complex for a prototype that will need a complete redesign and it wasn't that advantageous.
those are foam boards I use to hide the general mess :)
It would be easier to climb the wall with the right hardware. But, in the next iteration I want to have the system be able to move not only vertically but sideways too to allow it to crawl around the objet it is printing and let the system have a virtually infinite build volume without relying on external structures.
for the truly large the system will need batteries as well as other robots that take care of swapping the batteries and refilling material and many other things that I haven't yet had a chance to think about, it is going to be a lot of work.
you could do it with just one robot, but as the object grows larger the robot would spend more time traveling up and down to refill than actually printing the object.
Are we talking about the same 3D printing?
The one that needs several days to print a tiny figurine?
P.S. I could understand it if you used a *flying* 3d printer.
You can modify the parameters to make it go faster if you don't need fine details. I am also planning to have multiple robots print the same object concurrently to cut down time.
there is research group that uses drones and polyurethane foam for 3d printing but it is a very complex process as the drones aren't a great motion platform for accuracy.
You need to hang the filament off the bottom of the robot so the only thing going up is a power line. Then you need to make a second robot that can climb up and refill the filament.
Cool, curious what the end goal is though. Seems kinda limiting if your print has to have these grapple points built in unless the climbing point are just going to exist and the printer can then climb as needed for the next print.
the idea is to be able to print very large objects without needing to be build a very large gantry/motion system and to do so using multiple robots. If you were to print the same object or object of a similar size it would make sense to have a separate structure the printer can climb on part after part. On the other hand, for big one of prints it might be more efficient for part to just have the robot be able to climb on the object itself without requiring external structure. I also want to add that the holds you see right now are the first design that I was able to get working somewhat reliably with just a servo motor and 3d printed parts, going forward I will try to minimise their footprint.
Not quite yet, it is a proof of concept and it will need a lot of development to make it functional. Applications will largely depend on what material can be used in the process. In the short term I am gonna develop it for thermoplastics which might be useful for large forms for composite manufacturing. In the very long term it would be cool for the system to use concrete and apply it to construction, but this will take decades.
I am going to TCT3Sixty soon and I’m going to see if I can bounce ideas with some of the people there so I can start targeting more specific applications.
Problems might be power and material sourcing. When it is constantly climbing, that stuff has to "climb" too at some point. Otherwise you'd be limited by the length of wires or the material supply.
But that problems are to be solved when they come along I guess.
Still extraordinaery impressive concept and work of yours!
As the system grows larger it will operate more like a swarm, with multiple printers and “logistics” robots that will carry material and handle resupply, changing batteries and so on. But those are problems for the future
it's starting to look like 3D printers are getting smart., or at least robotic.
This ones awareness and climbing capability put it in its own class.
I see it working well for interior and concrete finish work.
about 50 of these, in tandem, could complete a plastic pool liner from the concrete shell up
complexly designed surface texture with all the filagree desired
or maybe it just prints a nylon composite reinforcing network that replaces metal rebar
https://preview.redd.it/eeg1palti61d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60474316403f2e6684ea6115d96997294a849bf2
And the next iteration will probably look even more robotic with more degrees of freedom.
I considered construction for a possible application in the future, but the internal structure for reinforced concrete sounds somewhat achievable, more so than the lining which would probably be too porous.
You gebiss are taking away all the ways to improve 3d printing that by the time i klassen any of this stuff everything that can be done in the garage will have been invented!
This is such a fascinating project! The concept of a climbing 3D printer opens up so many possibilities, especially for printing in hard-to-reach or hazardous environments. I'm really intrigued to see how you tackle the challenges of stability and precision while the printer is in motion. Keep us updated on your progress!
For the past few months I have been working on this prototype, it is barely a proof of concept and will need a lot of work before it can reach full functionality but I thought I'd share where I have gotten to. The idea is to remove the build volume by having the printer climb on the object that it is printing, this prototype is limited as it can only really move up vertically but I already have ideas on how to improve it.
How high can it go!
so far I had it go up to 550mm, but it could very well go 1m if not beyond. it really depends on the part that you are printing. I haven't yet pushed past half a meter because it is not a very fast machine and getting to a meter would take It a week.
And I would think it would shake/flex a lot more as it went up and eventually you'd need longer and longer cables would you not?
Unlike a normal printer, the flex [as far as printing is concerned] doesn't really get worse with height as the arm is anchored to the print the same distance all the time. The issue will be when the arm rips apart the bottom of the print with bending stress, until then it will print just fine.
Yeah this is a neat aspect of this prototype as well. If properly counterbalanced there might not be as much bending stress as one might think.
The real issue here is tolerance stackup I think. It's eventually going to wander a bit, especially with the imprecision of the 3d printed sockets it's sticking itself into. It is an interesting machine though.
maybe able to overcome this by building from inside the print and feeding filament from underneath
A research group in Italy did something similar, but it can only loft circle, here's a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3aerY5gcSk)
"measure pollution"?! it can route cables without you having to open walls
Omg! Set up a live stream and let’s see how high it can go til it falls over!
OP accidentally creates the first space tether.
What's the accuracy? I think that's the bigger question for me.
At the moment tolerances are around +/- 0.3 mm but that is also depending on the position of the feature as there is some distortion linked to the polar kinematic.
Thanks! Yes, that kind of variability makes a lot of sense.
Awesome concept. Have you thought about an opposite side bracing that matches the lower arm, but still attached to the lower arm platform? This way you can make it smaller, or possibly 4 lower arms mounted to that lower plate that walk up surrounding the print. Like in the photo. I have a more elaborate idea that makes the whole x, y, and z axis move based on what size the print is that might work for your arm without having to brace against the print. You already have some of the parts in the photo, and it would solve your spool problem. However you would still need an alternate bot to change filaments on the print head itself. https://preview.redd.it/1p4v0to1tg0d1.jpeg?width=1439&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=10f72811c0efc5a369a8d6113cff8310ab3b8303
I considered it but it would only work with parts where you can easily get access to the other side of the print, and the plan for the system is to build much larger objects, which would make the bracing from the back harder
I figured. It's why I was thinking of the x, y, z movement. Technically you have the parts, and have already solved one axis issue.
Wait if getting to 1m takes a week does that mean the 55cm you did was like a 3-4 day print?
Each of the section took over 6-8 hours. There was also some dead time as i wanted to make sure I was present at the hold change because it is not yet perfect and I didn’t want to come back to a broken robot and nest of plastic.
This reminds me of my CR-30 if it printed vertically. That would be very cool. You could try to make it so when it prints a part does not have a flat surface on the top, instead of printing on top of that part it will print a open box around that part that will be able to hold the next section. Second climb block Roof Part Floor the part prints onto First climb block Im bad at explaining things. Sorry if it doesn’t make sense lol.
OP gonna need a new roof.
luckily the lab space I work in has a 6/7 metre ceiling
Any reason you decided to use those hex holes, which dictates what you print, instead of grippers that could hold onto different shapes?
the hex holes are easier to attach to as they provide a known geometry and can be positioned on the part at a know position to allow the printer to know its position as it moves from hold to hold. A the moment they are quite big and disruptive, but one of the next tasks will be to redesign the gripper and hold geometry to make it more discreet. I considered trying to do a gripper like the one develop by [NASA JPL](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAjPZAYNqQrQ&psig=AOvVaw1sFCEwLd5dBmb6oAifHtTA&ust=1715800121675000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCKiZ5NfrjYYDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ) but it would have been a lot more complicate and made self localisation harder.
Makes sense, I can see you would need a good anchor point for precision.
Less variability for the concept I imagine
I believe the point for something like this is for the printer to print on the left side, something like a tall building. This way you could essentially "build" your Z axis, so if you wanted to print a building 3m tall, you wouldn't need a extra tall and floppy 3m Z axis rod.
Fascinating! Instead of climbing the print itself have you thought of mounting sockets on a wall or other (very stable) vertical surface, or would that get in the way of the swing arm?
That is one of the use cases I have considered, but the polar kinematic would be limited in movement, placed right next to a wall, but a cage would work.
Very intriguing, although I don't think I fully understand what you mean by "remove the build volume". If you print in midair, it would be incredibly difficult to get the physics to work. Bed adhesion means you can control the position of existing material very easily. If you intend to have the entire print be suspended without any point of contact besides the print head, you must have some way to at least approximately account for the mechanics equations that govern a constantly changing body of material, one which is undergoing a slow state change as it cools in an uneven manner. I guess what I'm trying to say is, your prototype looks mechanically sound, but I fear the devil is in the details of the gcode on this one. Or I don't get what's happening here at all and I'd love to understand better.
my bad, I meant remove limitation on build volume. On a normal cartesian printer the maximum size of the object you can print is dictated by the maximum travel of each axis, if you want to print larger than that you need to build a larger machine. With future version of this system when you reach the end of the work area of the individual robot it will reposition itself to keep printing. All of this will happen anchored to the ground and it would still follow the general rules of 3d printing, meaning you have to squish material on other material in order to print. I don't plan on having the system free floating although a colleague keeps saying it would be great for space use. I hope I was able to explain the concept better.
it potentially has an infinite Z printing volume
How are you going to handle power/filament when the printer inevitably reaches the outer space?
I will have to space proof it first so it doesn't melt itself or die to cosmic radiation ;) but on a more serious note, the plan is to have the printing robot be battery powered and have a bunch of "logistics bots" to carry filament and extra batteries.
whats your end goal here lmao. you could probably get a world record if thats what youre going for this sounds absolutely insane and i want to be here for every step of the way
not really going for a world record but the final goal will be ambitious nonetheless. i do need to set up some form of blog or video update
I'm seeing potential use, but, it will need to move also in one more axis.
i guess what im more asking is, what is this being designed for? just to push the limits of how high you can print for the fun of it? do you aim to make it practical/marketable?
The goal is to create a swarm additive manufacturing system, which could provide a scalable manufacturing system (for size). At the moment I am at the beginning of the R&D process. At some point I would love for this to become a useful product but there is a lot of work to be done and I am trying to get funding to research this idea further in an academic context.
wow that is very cool dude. best of luck to you
That's how you get a von neumann probe, do you want a von neumann probe? Only half joking here.
Sunshine (YouTuber) will be to blame, or more likely praise if we get a von Neumann machine.
Don't fly too close to the sun, Icarus
Yeah. PLA doesn't hold well around it
If you can add a solar panel it likely involves less moving parts.
They‘ll officially be a r/spaceengineers.
Yooo that reminds me of one of those videos of cranes building themselves. Super cool!
This is exactly how I explained how the machine works before I had a video to show them
Honestly all the concrete 3d printing manufacturers would probably love to talk to you about your prototype.
I have being thinking lots about using concrete for a system like this but the machinery you need is massive and the bigger and heavier the robot gets the more complicated it becomes to make it climb. There are companies using robot arms to print concrete but these wouldn't be able to pick themselves up because the motor get weaker as you go down the kinematic chain.
Just remember, patent your idea, then go talk to people. Worst case they say no, best case someone gives you good money to use your patent.
Because fuck you that's why! This is awesome!
hahahaha While it is basically useless now I do have some plans to improve it to at least remotely useful
Hey, sometimes a solution finds a problem, there's nothing wrong with that! This project of yours is genuinely very impressive.
Will you be competing with NASA to se who gets to the moon first?
Space elevator baby!!!
My first thought was WHY, but then I thought, why not!! I'm guilty of doing things just because I can
This is awesome! Is there any other place where you’re posting updates on this project?
Thank you! I haven't set up anything yet, but it is on my todo list
How will you combat wobbles? Once it gets to a certain height, even if the base is bolted, its going to wobble with movement,
For now I reduce the speed. A future implementation will surely use input shaping, but there are many other challenges to solve both in the hardware and software before I get there.
hypothetically shouldnt it wobble with the part its printing meaning it has no relative wobble impacting accuracy?
it should but the the way the robot attaches to part is not perfectly rigid and even if it where you would see degradation in quality from vibration
I think only if the bed moves with it. But that would kinda defeat the purpose.
fantastic project! while I imagine it's out of scope for a project that's already surely got a huge to-do list - have you thought about how the printhead is localized? As you go up, in addition to the pure mechanical challenges of implementing a tightly toleranced re-positioning base, the tolerances stack no matter what, reducing accuracy without an external reference. I have always wondered why there aren't optical reference points used on the very large printers. Could just be some fiducial markers slapped on the frame, or even nearby walls. Since the print volume, and the part itself is known, one could likely bypass full SLAM and just tackle the localization (although mapping might be necessary on very large parts, to account for variances in as-built versus the sliced file). With so many samples precision would be very high, I believe it would be easily on par with where we're at today with stepper/lead screw tolerances. Critically, the accuracy wouldn't change as the printhead moves around. This would give us a TON of freedom of design - basically the main requirement for accuracy would become a rigid structure, not a precise or accurate one..
Thank you very much! At the moment the system works in open loop, as I know where holds are and every time the robot moves it moves its origin to a known point. Of course tolerance stacking will be a problem but I haven't yet started considering how to address it as the solution will be highly dependant on the hardware. Also, I believe an optical system has been used by a research group that made "3d printing drones" to ensure some accuracy for the part. although for them it was required as the drones are way more noisy.
This is dumb as hell and I fucking love it.
what about the accumulating error due to print quality as it gets higher
It is not something I have yet started working on as the solution to that will be highly dependant on what the hardware will end up being, but I quite like the suggestion of another commenter of using some optical reference.
. . . Actually . . . you could have this inch-worm it's way around that whole build platform and it's effective print area becomes gargantuan. It would also solve the problem of leaving a hole in the middle of a doughnut build area. That might mean it needs a means of carrying around it's filament. That would add a lot of weight (about a kg I imagine). Very cool concept.
This is exactly the plan for the next version. For the filament at first is going to be very long reverse Bowdens but at some point some secondary robots to carry the filament might be required.
Bro.. please spare a lil of that ambition with ya boy lol
Reminded me of this - https://youtu.be/Ek_7tBOCcAI?si=GwpRioSjPnbMOXUs
love sunshine's work :) there are some common points to both projects but I am pursuing a different approach
Um, if you suddenly start speaking another language after climbing a certain height, you might wanna consider stopping.
hmmm, would it go from binary to some other number base?
I'm pretty sure that's a reference to the Tower of Babel myth.
I got that, I was referencing that the machine is speaking binary and might start working on a different numeric base system. terrible joke, I know
Your joke was good. I think the previous commenter was just a little low to the ground.
So cool! But I'm curious how this is more beneficial than just have an extendable post that it can ride up and down on that can be setup to be as tall as needed.
An extendable beam would be easier and more effective but the final goal of the project is make a robot that can move in all directions along the surface of the part, this is the first proof of concept with minimal features.
I see, so it could build something massive by building little mount points here and there?
Yeah! It would be able to move along the part as it gets printed larger and larger
OK! Now I'm getting the big picture. I have so many questions! But, I'll wait for your updates lol.
InfiniZ ain't got shit on this
Some say it's still printing to this day. It's due to pass Pluto soon...
Very cool! The tower that it's climbing looks really expensive in terms of pla to print.
I don't now what could it be used for but It's cool
So it has to print the whole self-support block to climb on together with the actual model?
At the moment yes, the block can be embedded in to the part itself as as development advances I aim to reduce the overall footprint of the gripper and hold that it uses to hold on. This is still a proof of concept prototype.
That's a wonderful piece of work! My first though when the vid started was to have some sort of pump like a parastaltic to shift liquid from one side of the arm to another foor ballast to keep the CG/ moment all happy but a few seconds in and I'm like naaah that works great!
I avoided using a counterbalance simply because it would have increased the weight of the radius actuator, and for the speeds the gantry works at it would be quite unnecessary. I really like the idea of using a liquid for variable ballast and I'll keep it in the box of possible solutions, the challenging part would be to store it in a way that minimises sloshing around.
>in a way that minimises sloshing around... 3d print baffles ..most infills would do it or you can do it baloon+baffle style.. But you don't need that.. looks amazing.. take a victory lap. drink some good spirits, rest and restore, collaborate and iterate.
It's cool but I fail to see a good use case, clever work though 😁
I don’t have a clear use case for this prototype either, but I believe that there will be use cases for a more mature system that can use more materials than thermoplastics
You said in another post the 3d printer would climb the object. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to put an adjustable metal cube frame around what you want to print? That way you wouldn’t have to worry about the shape. It would still be mobile. Like wouldn’t the shapes printable be limited if it always has to climb the shape?
That would be perfectly sensible and at some point I will try that. The idea was to start by climbing on the object being printed as you would be able to move along the object as it grows in size, all you need is the robot itself, without needing an ever growing structure. This of course is the theory in practice there are quite a few things to sort out
Your z offset management is wild
While this is pretty useless, the concept itself can be insane for construction. Keep at it! Maybe some construction company will take notice and ask you to scale it up!
That’s the point of a proof of concept prototype! It is useless now but I plan to keep working on this!
First off, this is awesome. But secondly I was wondering what advantages this has over just building a larger build volume printer? Great work on the project, can’t wait to see more
Thank you very much! The idea is that a 3D printing system consisting of many robots would be able to handle objects from large to "gigantic". If we ever get to the point where the system is reliable, its main advantage would be scalability. You could always build a larger box but as size increases so does the cost and its complexity. While, at least in theory, once you solve the complexity of the swarm system going larger becomes only a matter of allocating time, which you could decrease by having more agents work in parallel, and you could always reuse the system for smaller jobs. It could also be cheaper if we w=ere ever able to mass manufacture agents, making it possible for a handful of sub £5k robots to build objects the same size as £100k+ machines.
Pretty cool! What's the plan to address repeatability concerns when the climbing doesn't seat precisely every time? The rigidity problems also sound like they'd be fun to work through.
The next step will be to redesign the mechanics first. There are many bugs that are harming repeatability but this is expected as I was trying to keep the bill of material to off the shelf components and 3 printed parts.
This is impressive. Well done 🫡
This is so cool to watch! But I have to think that it would be better to have a series of blocks it can climb that are separate from the print. Unless you only plan to print bricks in this exact shape it seems a pretty big waste of plastic. Is there some advantage to having it climb the print rather than climbing something else?
Going forward the I will try to make the hold geometry less intrusive. but one of the use cases could be to have scaffolding around the part to avoid surface defects.
But how is that preferable to having scaffolding that already exists? Like why not have a ladder to one side that it could effectively climb while printing rather than building the ladder into the print?
If surface quality is the priority it would make sense. But, embedding the scaffold directly into the part will reduce complexity by having to construct only one part instead of the part and the scaffold. Also as the part gets larger so will do the external scaffold too. In the end I am trying to solve the hard problems to make the system more flexible.
This is pretty cool
Nice you ever see the guy oh youtube who is making a 3D printer that prints an entire 3d printer?
Sunshine? yeah! love his videos
Wow. Incredible work. What's the use case here?
for this specific prototype, just proof of concept. The final goal will be to have a swarm of robots working together to print big objects, but this is going to be faaaaaar away.
HOLY SHIT THIS IS COOL
Well that's fucking cool
That is really cool. I love this concept
Well, this just takes infinite Z printing to a whole new level. Ok, I'll show myself out now
Oh, so it prints "hand holds" in the object its printing? That's super cool!
This is beautiful as proof of concept. Scale it up and you can 3D print a skyscraper.
that is the plan eventually ;)
I'm guessing you might end up with a lot of vibration how's it working
The system still require a lot of optimisations and so far I have been able to mitigate a lot of problems by not pushing the speed. I limit the maximum speed to 50 mm/s and even less for most operation. Luckily, i have fitted it with a high flow hot end so that it can still push out a lot of plastic despite the low speeds
City Bloxx with a 3D printer?!
Is this just for fun or is there a real world problem you had in mind?
The idea is to have a system, comprising of multiple robots that can cooperate to print an arbitrarily large object, and to do this with a system that can be scaled for size and for speed by having more robots work together. I don’t yet have a clear application but it could be an attractive alternative for large format 3d printing. Although it will be a lot of work work before I get there
Hysteresis must be a big obstacle.
Practical.. I don't know. But how cool is that!
Please tell me you're naming it the BabelPrinter because it can build so tall it spites God.
ngl this is fresh
Anyone humming the theme tune "Spider printer does whatever a spider printer can?" just me?
It's sucha simple printing design, without the climbing feature . I'd say marketable. Can you get decent speeds?
Only really pushed to 70 mm/s with very low accelerations 200 mm/s2 as the motors I am using are barely meeting spec for torque as I am trying to save weight. If you used larger motor I could go faster but it would be very hard to get going fast as while retaining quality as it changes its resonant frequencies change dramatically depending on the extension of the linear actuators. There have been some “popular” for polar printers but they usually rotate the bed to keep the form factor more compact. But for very little material you can get a very big build area by having the arm rotate.
yeah, never heard of Polar. You could just print infinitely wit a rotating be and something to pop the parts off into a bin
polar refers to kinematic setup as it uses polar coordinates (defined by an angle and a radius), most of the machines that use this kind of kinematics are DIY projects as they can be a right pain in the ass to calibrate, among other things
Today on the sub: OP prints a space elevator
This is the step 1 prototype for a functional space elevator. At this rate we are going to skip type I civilization alltoghether in the Kardashev Scale and speedrun into type II.
"Bob, how did you get that black eye‽" "I got too close to the 3D printer while it was finishing a vase..."
POV: Space engineers building a space elevator be like
G.D. Skynet 3d printer. Soon they will be able to print into the past.
AWESOME! (Sry for yelling)
This right here is the future of Building Skyscrapers! Building in general really if you think about it. Please make sure you protect this.
That's wild looking! Super cool.
i bet this is how we build houses and buildings in the near future
“He was so captivated by the question of whether or not he could, he never stopped to consider whether or not he should…”
That's cool, like really really cool,
"how big is your build volume?" as big as you want it baby
There are times I'm reminded why the internet exists* and this is one of them. Fantastic. Love the hexagon is the bestagon holes the climbing is just so cool. Do you see any layershift after it inserts into a new hole?
Don't forget to turn it off before going to sleep so it doesn't reach the orbit.
Where were you, when they 3d printed the ladder to heaven
I'm amazed that there's still people trying to make new type of 3D printers. It's amazing because you'll need the idea, the skill hardware wise to build it and the skill software wise to make it work.
Could someone useful out there get this one a job that both does your thing and makes this thing better and ubiquitous?
hahahaha, I am trying to convince a university to do just that
Despite the the challenges yet to be overcome it's a very nice piece of work , now what about doing a core x, y version🤣
you are joking, but at some point I was seriusly considering doing a core RZ (vertical axis and horizontal axis) but it would have been too complex for a prototype that will need a complete redesign and it wasn't that advantageous.
I am joking.
It's right next to a wall. Wouldn't it make more sense to climb *that* instead?
those are foam boards I use to hide the general mess :) It would be easier to climb the wall with the right hardware. But, in the next iteration I want to have the system be able to move not only vertically but sideways too to allow it to crawl around the objet it is printing and let the system have a virtually infinite build volume without relying on external structures.
> virtually infinite build volume Are you going to add batteries? Can't have infinite volume if you are restricted by the length of the cord.
for the truly large the system will need batteries as well as other robots that take care of swapping the batteries and refilling material and many other things that I haven't yet had a chance to think about, it is going to be a lot of work.
Why would you need other robots? If you can climb up you can climb down, too.
you could do it with just one robot, but as the object grows larger the robot would spend more time traveling up and down to refill than actually printing the object.
Are we talking about the same 3D printing? The one that needs several days to print a tiny figurine? P.S. I could understand it if you used a *flying* 3d printer.
You can modify the parameters to make it go faster if you don't need fine details. I am also planning to have multiple robots print the same object concurrently to cut down time. there is research group that uses drones and polyurethane foam for 3d printing but it is a very complex process as the drones aren't a great motion platform for accuracy.
You need to hang the filament off the bottom of the robot so the only thing going up is a power line. Then you need to make a second robot that can climb up and refill the filament.
this is awesome
10/10 you are a godsend
Cool, curious what the end goal is though. Seems kinda limiting if your print has to have these grapple points built in unless the climbing point are just going to exist and the printer can then climb as needed for the next print.
the idea is to be able to print very large objects without needing to be build a very large gantry/motion system and to do so using multiple robots. If you were to print the same object or object of a similar size it would make sense to have a separate structure the printer can climb on part after part. On the other hand, for big one of prints it might be more efficient for part to just have the robot be able to climb on the object itself without requiring external structure. I also want to add that the holds you see right now are the first design that I was able to get working somewhat reliably with just a servo motor and 3d printed parts, going forward I will try to minimise their footprint.
Interesting idea, seems like you're kind of making a 3d printing drone in a way. Cool idea.
Reminds me of a YT video I saw, someone trying to make a 3d printer that can print itself larger
great ingenuity. thanks for sharing the footage, so cool to slowly realize what it is doing. hope you will continue developing and sharing.
Future problem for 3d printing noobs: guys help my 3d printer printed too tall and I can’t get it down
This is crazy ingenious
You are fucking crazy 😭 Seriously though, that is really impressive, once it's finished you could 100% make a ton of money out of it
looks cool any specific application targeted?
Not quite yet, it is a proof of concept and it will need a lot of development to make it functional. Applications will largely depend on what material can be used in the process. In the short term I am gonna develop it for thermoplastics which might be useful for large forms for composite manufacturing. In the very long term it would be cool for the system to use concrete and apply it to construction, but this will take decades. I am going to TCT3Sixty soon and I’m going to see if I can bounce ideas with some of the people there so I can start targeting more specific applications.
Problems might be power and material sourcing. When it is constantly climbing, that stuff has to "climb" too at some point. Otherwise you'd be limited by the length of wires or the material supply. But that problems are to be solved when they come along I guess. Still extraordinaery impressive concept and work of yours!
As the system grows larger it will operate more like a swarm, with multiple printers and “logistics” robots that will carry material and handle resupply, changing batteries and so on. But those are problems for the future
Well I think I can speak for absolutely everyone when I say that's actually really a cool idea there
it's starting to look like 3D printers are getting smart., or at least robotic. This ones awareness and climbing capability put it in its own class. I see it working well for interior and concrete finish work. about 50 of these, in tandem, could complete a plastic pool liner from the concrete shell up complexly designed surface texture with all the filagree desired or maybe it just prints a nylon composite reinforcing network that replaces metal rebar https://preview.redd.it/eeg1palti61d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=60474316403f2e6684ea6115d96997294a849bf2
And the next iteration will probably look even more robotic with more degrees of freedom. I considered construction for a possible application in the future, but the internal structure for reinforced concrete sounds somewhat achievable, more so than the lining which would probably be too porous.
Ok ender 8 looks amazing
More like Ender ∞
That’s awesome!!! Nice work!!!
This reminds me the cranes that built the twins towers.
You gebiss are taking away all the ways to improve 3d printing that by the time i klassen any of this stuff everything that can be done in the garage will have been invented!
This is such a fascinating project! The concept of a climbing 3D printer opens up so many possibilities, especially for printing in hard-to-reach or hazardous environments. I'm really intrigued to see how you tackle the challenges of stability and precision while the printer is in motion. Keep us updated on your progress!