I am not a 3D printing nerd even if I love my bambulab because it works every time without asking me for 3 hours of settings. And I also know how to recognize when an idea is cool and this is the case here with this 3D printer which uses a treadmill as a tray, which allows it to print long pieces.
This is called a band and trade printer it is sold for example by Creality for a little over a thousand euros & mldr; But doing it yourself with sports equipment is still cooler. Especially when you find carpets of racing on Leboncoin at 50 balls, abandoned by their owners after three cardio sessions and an awareness that Netflix and M & M’s is still much more nice than to sweat.
This idea of genius, we owe it to Ivan Miranda And John de proper printing2 makers who have decided to combine their disturbed brains to transform an ordinary racing carpet into a 3D printing machine capable of spitting theoretically infinite objects.
Their ultimate project?
Print a fucking kayak. Yes, a whole kayak to sail on the water with a real human in it. They are crazy the ricans 🙂
But before I explain to you how they did it, let’s talk a little about this concept of a band printer which is still not very common & mldr; In a classic 3D printer, the extruder (the thing that spits melted plastic) moves in a cubic volume. It is therefore limited by the physical dimensions of the machine. Suddenly, if you want to print something bigger than your tray, you will have to cut it into pieces in your 3D software and assemble it afterwards, or possibly buy a larger printer (and prepare your banker for bad news).
The strip printer is therefore a small revolution since instead of a fixed tray, you have a treadmill. The structure is tilted at 45 ° and the extruder moves only in a fixed plane. Suddenly, it is the carpet that is progressing gradually, taking printing with it. And when the object reaches the end of the carpet, it naturally stands out & mldr; Here is & mldr;
And as the carpet is endless, bah you can theoretically print an infinitely long object in a direction.
Suddenly, it is the top to print absurdly long objects, like rails, beams, tubes, or & mldr; A whole kayak. Without cutting, without assembly, without compromise! The great thing with a recovery carpet is that half of the job is already done: you have a robust structure, a powerful engine and an already installed carpet. It is just “enough” to adapt it.
Ivan and John therefore tilted the lateral amounts at 45 ° with 3D printed media. For the heating system of the print bed (because yes, print on a cold carpet, it does not work terrible), they used floor heating wire. Basically, they created a thermal sandwich: wood, heated thread, aluminum plate, and the carpet belt over it. Ingenious and economical.
Then the brain of the beast is a card DUET 3Dcapable of managing the strong engines and the heating system and all the electronics has been integrated into the carpet’s original console, just to keep a little class.
Now, the centerpiece of this creation is the extruder. Ivan has developed a double belt extrusion system that uses a little more strong belts than those found on most 3D printers. Larger, more powerful, more efficient. And to feed this monster, they opted for a NEMA 23 engine much more strong than the usual 3D printing engines.
Then, the whole is cooled by an aluminum thermal dissipator designed to measure and manufactured by PCB Way. The nozzle was modified with a chamfer on the side in contact with the belt to avoid transforming the carpet into a colander. Thus, after several days of galleys, adjustments and errors (Ivan also specifies that “It only took 11 attempts to succeed in the first time”^^), they managed to operate this racing beast. And the result is mind -blowing !! they printed a room 2.10 meters long. It is longer than the biggest object that Ivan had been able to print on his previous giant printer.
To print such a length, it took 36 hours of continuous printing. The quality is surprisingly good for such an experimental machine. And all that with a racing carpet that would probably have finished at the recycling center.
As for the kayak project, it is still in progress. Ivan and John plan to test their creation during an event near the Prague Maker Fair. I don’t know for you, but seeing someone test a 3D printed kayak from a treadmill, it seems to me to be the perfect mixture between science, madness and “throwing yourself in the water”.
Beyond the kayak, this type of printer opens up really interesting possibilities: printing of rails, gutters, architectural moldings, pieces for furniture & mldr; Everything that is long and fine becomes suddenly printable in one room.
Here, so if you are curious to see the evolution of this crazy project, I advise you to follow the YouTube chains ofIvan Miranda And Proper printing. They promise to publish the rest of their adventures, including the test of the famous kayak.
I admit that I can’t wait to see if it floats or if it flows.
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