Here’s a question I’d guess is a new one for most: What do people think about the idea of having a Bambu 3D printer on a cruising sailboat? And the subquestions there would be:
In a slip/in port – the boat is essentially motionless, but not entirely stable like a building on ‘terra firma’.
At anchor – the boat is probably gently rolling back and forth something like +/- 5 degrees or so.
Under way – the boat is usually heeled over (i.e. rolled) anywhere from 15 - 45 degrees in either direction, also tipping front to back a little (i.e. pitch) and tacking or jibing (i.e. yaw) every once in a while.
My guess is that printing in port would be fine, printing at anchor would be somewhat less fine, and printing under way would require some heroics like a gimble mount.
My reason for asking is that I am considering going to sea for a while, and I’ve been thinking back about all these situations I’ve seen in the past where having a 3D printer would have been an absolutely AMAZING godsend to crank out emergency parts, or to iterate on ‘storage hacks’, and stuff like that.
Naturally, I fully understand that operating a 3D printer in a salty air environment is going to dramatically shorten its life/maintenance interval. I’m asking more about how much being perfectly perpendicular to the local gravity field matters? What other concerns am I not thinking about? Has anyone tried this?
I don’t think the motion of the boat will matter all that much. 3D printers have advanced a long way and these newer printers are able to handle a lot more and not lose quality.
Here’s some examples of printers operating in undesirable conditions:
Both of the above examples are bed slingers and I’d imagine that a CoreXY printer link the P1 series , X1 series, or H2D would be even more stable. I think as long as you have it properly anchored so it doesn’t slide off the surface it’s sitting on, you should be okay.
I don’t know a lot about sailing or ships in general, but my only real concerns, besides salty air, would be powering the device and humidity. Depending on the printer, it can have a substantial amount of power draw so I’d at least take that into consideration. With you being on water, humidity is going to cause you issues with your filaments. I’d suggest figuring out a storage method where you can keep the filament dry.
Marine environments are murder on electronics and mechanics that are not specifically designed for those environments. Salt air is highly corrosive. It will attack the copper in the printed circuit boards aggressively. Marine electronics are usually “conformally coated” (the PCBAs are sealed with a plastic coating) to give them resistance. It will also quickly rust even mild steel and it will gum up things like bearings. Wave action generates a microscopic mist of particulate that gets in to everything not sealed to prevent it. It’s why the ocean smells like the ocean.
Will the motion system care? Not unless you’re printing in really rough weather. But will the printer last very long in that environment? I’d be surprised as heck.
Considering how wobbly ikea lacks are and this community’s obsession with reinforcing them to hold printers despite the fact that they’re cardboard holding itself together simply to spite god I think you’ll be fine as long as the water isn’t too choppy.
I’d be more worried about humidity and/or salt. I live 30 minutes away from the ocean and anything metal rusts absurdly fast. We’re rebuilding our deck and it isn’t even that old and all the screws are so corroded that they’re unrecognisable; at least the ones that can come out are anyway. The rest might as well just be dust now.
Depending on the size of your vessel, it is very likely that your only problem may be wave impact / slamming.
Since you have power and space for a 3D printer on board, I guess it is not a small nutshell floating around.
If you want to put more thought into it:
The closer the printer is positioned near the metacenter of your vessel the better.
Since the acceleration of the vessel and the motion components of your printer are superimposed it may be good idea to reduce acceleration and velocity(speed) settings.
A very simplified example along one motion axis:
If your P1S printer wants to accelerate with its default 10000mm/s² = 1g and your boat’s roll period induces 0.5g along that axis you get a layer shift because the superimposed 15000mm/s² in one direction overwhelmed the available motor torque. If you dialed the acc down to below 5000mm/s² = 0.5g and the roll period weighes in, the motor torque would still be enough to move the system within the 10000mm/s² acceleration induced forces.
In terms of longevity, you have already been warned by others…
Yeah, as mentioned, I know that keeping salt air out of the printer, and keeping filament dry and salt free are obvious concerns. The way I look at it is like so: If having the 3D printer, sealed in a giant plastic bag, and some sort of dry box for the filament, if it costs me $1000 a year to replace the printer, but it prints me even ONE part that saves me $1,000 worth of grief (really not that hard, as any big-ocean sailor will know) then I can just replace it all every year, and still be golden. I was mainly worried about how the printer would tolerate the “motion of the ocean” as they say – I was thinking maybe the filament coming out the nozzle might fly all over the place, etc. but it sounds like that’s not really a big concern.
I used to live on a boat. It’s fine. Your main problem will be internet connectivity not the motion of the ocean. Only exception would be something that’s perpetually wet, like an ocean racing yacht.
I intend on taking her around. The moment I’m going to need the printer is going to be on the high seas. And internet connectivity at sea is better than what I get on land thanks to StarLink.
In that case I would consider just putting a small amount of grease/oil on a towel and once a week just rubbing down any metallic portions of it to create a barrier to avoid damage from moisture and salt.
Just a very nice, thin layer. Also keep some spare belts and other parts in a zippy bag.
Salt and moisture will be more problematic than the motion system. You should try shaking the table violently while your printer is going. The worst you get nowadays is a z-band. The spool dismounting from the holder is probably more of a danger
As a sailor myself - the motion of the boat wouldn’t be a concern. These printers can handle it. You might notice it in the quality of your prints but I doubt it would cause failures.
I would be concerned with the humidity and environment as a whole. Plus power usage when not in a slip with shore power.
