First a quick intro: I’ve been successfully printing proprietary industrial machine parts with a X1C for a couple of months now. I’ve been involved with Industrial Machinery Maintenance for over 25 years.
Onto my idea/question: I’ve done some searching online to find if anyone has merged two P1P/P1S/X1/X1C to form a single taller printer and come up empty. I can’t be the only one who would love to print taller parts in one continuous print (with our favorite 3D printer platform)? Seems like it shouldn’t be too difficult on the hardware part of the process, join and reinforce the frame assemblies, longer screw and guide shafts and maybe some wiring? Of course, there would be some calibration and software issues to overcome. Possibly limiting print speed due to flex in longer shafts and maybe some kind of support for them near the middle?
If anyone could share any information on if this has been tried or done, I would be very grateful!
This is an interesting thought-experiment. I see a couple of challenges here:
The length of the Z-Axis may be defined in firmware and if that is the case, unlike the open-source RepRap counterparts that Bambu copied, Bambu has decided to not play by the rules and has kept the firmware proprietary.
The audience of the Bambu Printer was intended to be predominantly the “non-tinkerer”. This is a sea change from other “assembly required” RepRap descendant products. So you may not find an audience for heavy modification of the electro mechanical properties like one would find in let’s say the Prusa or Ender communities. Which might explain why you’re the first.
In the end, somebody has got to be first, so why not you?
BTW: The STEP files with full mechanical parameters are on the Wiki page just in case you hadn’t seen it before and want to import these into your own CAD. It’s at the bottom of the page. If you have fabrication abilities, you might be the first to fabricate a new enclosure.
There are parameters that specify the dimension of the build volume, so conceivably you could make the printer bigger and change those parameters to access the increased volume. But this printer works by characterizing mechanical resonances and then compensating for those resonances when it prints. You change the size/shape of the mechanics, you’re going to move those resonant frequencies. Making things bigger should lower the frequencies but also increase the amplitude of those frequencies. So the printer might be configurable to use the larger volume but it might not print well when it does.
If you want taller parts, I recommend a belt printer. There are a few options on the market. This type of FDM printer can do an infinitely long Z-axis. And for some prints, because the printhead is mounted at 45º relative to the build plate (belt), you can print stuff without supports that would normally require them.
I have an iFactory belt printer in a box, unassembled, in my workshop. Waiting for enough free time to tackle the build.
