Hi,
about half a year ago, when I was building a frame for a Mendel, I started wondering if it was possible to design a printer that uses the inside of a house as its frame? I haven't been able to get the idea out of my head, so I thought I might as well try to build one.
What if we could just skip arms, smooth rods and frames, and just use wires instead? Like this:
![absolute_first_sketch.png]( "absolute_first_sketch.png")
This is just the simplified geometry of the idea. I suspect I need at least three wires from the ceiling to even get close to printing a single line reliably in the real world.
The further development of this idea that I like the most is to but all the hardware in one single unit, so the whole printer (except maybe power supply and filament spool) hangs in the anchor points in the house walls and ceiling.
Difficulties
Potential Rewards
I already have electronics, motors, power supply lying around, and 9 m of synchromesh cable is purchased. I just need some anchor points, a first version of the CAD and a gcode preprocessor (I'll start with 2d, no z-compensation) in order to try to draw my first open hardware logo. What do you guys think?
about half a year ago, when I was building a frame for a Mendel, I started wondering if it was possible to design a printer that uses the inside of a house as its frame? I haven't been able to get the idea out of my head, so I thought I might as well try to build one.
What if we could just skip arms, smooth rods and frames, and just use wires instead? Like this:
This is just the simplified geometry of the idea. I suspect I need at least three wires from the ceiling to even get close to printing a single line reliably in the real world.
The further development of this idea that I like the most is to but all the hardware in one single unit, so the whole printer (except maybe power supply and filament spool) hangs in the anchor points in the house walls and ceiling.
Difficulties
- Avoiding rotations around the x- and y-axis (or assuring that every rotation happens around the tip of the print head exactly, but acheiving that seems unlikelily hard) The hanging part of the printer will be subject to forces from the filament and a power chord, and forces from the four wires will not always point in the same direction. All motors must have vertically aligned motor shafts, and accelerations will have to be really low
- The special geometry imposes extra work on the math, writing the firmware (or gcode preprocessor) and possibly introducing hardware to help keep the xy-plane wires tight
- Finding a reasonable home position without imposing lots of constraints on the print start process and/or the position of anchor points
Potential Rewards
- The most compact, easily printed, easily installed and easily distributed RepRap out there
- Possibility to retract its strings and park close to the ceiling when not in use. Could make it popular where indoor area is scarce
- Extreme print heights (> 1 m)
I already have electronics, motors, power supply lying around, and 9 m of synchromesh cable is purchased. I just need some anchor points, a first version of the CAD and a gcode preprocessor (I'll start with 2d, no z-compensation) in order to try to draw my first open hardware logo. What do you guys think?