domenica 27 luglio 2025
martedì 15 luglio 2025
Organic engineering, the eternal conundrum with no solution in sight
domenica 13 luglio 2025
Farming humans, but make them believe they are free...
sabato 12 luglio 2025
Tool Changing 3D-Printers, the incoming wave...
I have being into designing and building customized 3D printers from 2011 onwards, dreaming of a multy-tool changer for a decade, and there was like a wall that nobody would be able to jump over, all hit their head against it and nothing could smash a hole in it to let us cross forward, untill;
E3D ToolChanger and Motion System came alive
They actually broke the ice for good, not some timid attempt by some daring DIY nut like me, nope, industrial produced in series for the masses, but... with a Ferary price tag, some 5000 USD, plus some long waiting list, factor into it some month or two of assembly, programing, fine tunning, errors hunting and debugging... nerve wrecking but they were the "Ford Model T" of the tool Changers, now discontinued.
And than nothing, nobody dared to follow them up, take them on their own challenge, enlarge the niche in the wall.
So back to the miriade of peniless enthusiasts that invented their own tool changers on their own, like DAKSH , not necesarelly with E3D system (fixed alignemnt electromecanically locked or unlocked via an actuator) but with magnetic retention for the tool and side sliding to release it from the magnets, or with self aligning mechanical approach where the parked tool kind of floats on a horizontal loose system that allows for parking and picking position like Blackbox3D errors that E3D would simply crash the machines if it had it, or selling kits to modify existing printers like the Open Source Jubilee Tool Changer Kit or the 3D mential print yourslef manual tool changing Flipper, or the Automated Flipper or clones of the E3D like dhm-online toolchanger-motion-system kit you can buy ready made, well machined and compatible with many existing 3D printers etc...
Of course if you go DYI be it by buying ready made kits or by buying STL files to print your own, than you have the whole burden of the E3D initial haeadache, just with little or no support at all so... forums and other discussion to figure it out how to integrate the mechanics you have in the firmware... reliably.
But now something happens, after the wave of CoreXY printers from 2016 onwards getting better and better, culminating with Bambulab series copied by just about any other major player from Creality to Quidi and the rest, Prusa included, now a new wave is about to hit the market, the cheapper tool changers ever, ready made and ready to print out of the box... and it started with Prusa, that obviously went the E3D way, expensive, buggy... let the comunity help them out to make it work... and it worked... somehow.
After a short pause of... preparations, all of a sudden we have on kickstarter cheaper options, about half the price or less, getting ready to hit the market, like:
Moso MT Automatic 4 Tool Changer
ProForge 5 from Makertech3D
Or Snapmaker U1!
flooding with ads Facebook, Tik-Tock and Instagram, plus a wave of Youtube promotional videos by various influencers, maskerated as "unboxing" or "testing" or even "review", and the heavy players are not even in yet, except for Prusa.
Creality, Quidi, TronXY and the rest are still in devellopement, most probably for the software bugs that keep them up at nights... but they are due to come, 3 years from now a Tool Changer might cost you less than 1000 USD, have a printing volume around 400X400X400 MM or bigger (E3D was ... shy, 300X200X300, but ... bed temp 200C and hotend 500C... things that will go unmatched for the next 3 to 5 years by the heavy players).
So my reliable E3D toolchanger just become obsolete, but... stil reliable.
venerdì 11 luglio 2025
I'd rather have a question that I cannot answer, than an answer that I cannot question.
domenica 29 giugno 2025
Blessed they that can ignore the others, for they will enjoy peace on a daily basis.
domenica 22 giugno 2025
Revolution, involution, evolution.
Iscriviti a:
Post (Atom)