The quick answer is, yes it is possible. If you set an object on the build plate so that head movement is at a 45 Degree angle, only one stepper motor will engage. If you want to see this for yourself, power down the printer so that you can manually slide the head. Then move the head manually in a 45 degree angle in the X-Y plane. You will witness only one belt moving.
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However, as you already surmised. The Bambu lab printers are not the home built science projects of the past. They are fully evolved mechanisms. I liken it to the difference between an old style cable controlled carburetor vs a modern style electronic fuel injection. It is futile to try to isolate X-Y stepper motor movement. There is zero advantage to this in Bambu’s technology.
If I understand your goal however,. You’re trying to get the filament lines to align along the shaft length presumably for strength. If that is so, you may find that you would be better served doing so in the slicer, not necessarily by orienting the part differently, although that won’t necessarily hurt either.
So let’s take an example of where one creates a rod using a cylinder primitive of 10x10x100mm. The slice using defaults would look like this.
Now if one goes into the strength tab and make three changes.
- 100% infill
- Aligned rectilinear
this is the result. Straight lines and note that the filament movement is continuous thus increasing the bond internally with the outside wall.
- Change the angle to 180
Now you have your lengthwise filament strands and note the grid in the background hasn’t changed orientation. So you get your filaments running in the direction you want without the need to worry about independent stepper motor movement.
But here’s another trick. Abandon infill patterns altogether and just change the wall thickness. There is no limit to how many walls you have. What you get in return is an even concentric pattern.
Now if you really want to live on the edge and try something. Try this approach of no walls, no, top or bottom shells and 100% infill using concentric pattern. I’ve been wanting to do this with CF for a while and run a strength test. So as of now, I don’t know if this will work or if I will get a stringy mess.
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Another truly whacky suggestion.
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Now you sound like someone who has been at this awhile so what I’m suggesting next I wouldn’t even consider suggesting to a newbie. But I think if you’re going a rod shape and presumably it’s round(ish) then you’re likely going to run into aggravation with respect to getting the supports to align cleanly. So here’s another approach that would require some trial and error. Create a lattice part as your main structure, let’s say a cube primitive stretched to enclose the rod. Then create a part modifier that is the rod you want to create(or import it as an STL).
Such a wild approach might look like this.
The pattern chosen is 5% Gyroid with 0 walls, 0 top and 0 bottom layers. Wacky looking? Yes but it might work as an alternative scaffolding to using supports.
At any rate, this is just some food for thought. Let us know what you end up doing and share how it worked out.
