Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?  

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@dimprov

People are lurky and waiting to respond.  

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@dragon1291

I think this feature may be a game-changer if they can pull it off.  Being able to heat a section or maintain temperatures across the bed will be a nice addition.  

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

I agree.  Mainly for expediency I settled on the CR-10 Max, which at 450x450mm build area is large enough to hold four Prusia i3 Mk3 build plates at once, but if I still get warping, then I'll be forced to either go the enclosure route or switch to some other filament.  It turns out the S4 and S5 are older vintage and would have required upgrades to reach parity.  I might have gone with ratrig, but it isn't shipping yet.

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

Honestly at that point might as well get another mk3 and just chop your items to fit. I understand the desire to avoid post processing but if flatness is of high importance I would rather have 4 5-hour prints that if something goes wrong with a print I only lose 5 hours vs a 20-hour print where if something goes haywire you lose all that progress. 

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@dragon1291

Same here.   I will buy an XL and a MK4 when released.  I need another printer to keep up with demand.  I keep them running.  

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

I'm have been looking at a Modix Big60.  I have seen numerous good reviews about it.  Anyone had any experience with it?  They offer lots of different sizes of large format printers at "reasonable" prices. 

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

Yup, it' a risk, but as long as it doesn't happen often I can live with that.  It will be big enough to handle anything I'm likely to throw at it, so less work for me overall.  Actual bed size is 470x470mm, but the quoted size is 450x450mm--I'm guessing because of  the ring-of-cold around the printable area.  

As far as filling the bed with smaller objects to be printed in parallel goes, there's an Octoprint plug-in that lets you disable printing of parts that are failing so that the rest of the printed parts can continue to completion.  I'll concede this isn't as good as multiple smaller machines working in parallel to print smaller parts, but for me it will be a good reason to install Octoprint.

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@westfield3d

I have no experience with it, but I like that it comes already built into an enclosure.  i.e. one less reason to fail.  Except for automated filament or hotend changes, it looks pretty complete.  The CR-10 Max has two power supplies, including one 750w one just for the heatbed, so the Modix might/probably require a 220v connection, as I imagine its heatbed draws a lot of power.

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@westfield3d

They have one at a maker space near me.  They are pretty neat.  

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

Its headbed is cast aluminum, and from the brochure it looks as though you're supposed to print directly on top of that.  I wonder how well that works?

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@dimprov

I can ask at the Maker Space.  

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

The MPCNC lowrider easily scales even to very large sizes without much incremental cost.  I wonder whether it could make for an adequate 3D printer if the router spindle were replaced by a hotend?  I mean for hobbyists, not something seriously industrial.

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

Posted by: @dimprov

The MPCNC lowrider easily scales even to very large sizes without much incremental cost.  I wonder whether it could make for an adequate 3D printer if the router spindle were replaced by a hotend?  I mean for hobbyists, not something seriously industrial.

Answering my own question, I just checked and it does claim it can be a 3D printer as well--presumably for a filament like PLA that can print cold.  I suppose that might well be the cheapest possible solution for 3D printing big.

The Mostly Printed CNC (MPCNC) is a platform to precisely control motion. This can easily be a milling machine, 3D router, 3D Printer, Laser Cutter, vinyl cutter, CNC plasma cutter, you name it.

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@dimprov

From the Modix website: re Big60

Print Bed

• 6.35mm thick, Alcoa Mic6 milled cast aluminum plate, made in the USA.
• AC powered bed heater 1370 Watt. Requires additional independent 15A AC source.
• Dual heating zones. Inner 200X200mm size for small objects and lower power consumption.
• Max temperature – 120^oc
• Print surface – PEI film with 3M high temp adhesive sheet.

So the bed uses a PEI sheet and an independent 15a power source.  I'm not an electrician, is that just a 110v outlet on a separate circuit?

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

Posted by: @dragon1291

Well Prusa does tout "Heatbed with cold corners compensation" as a feature.

 

Is that something fairly recent?  When Tom Sanlanderer measured it in May 2019, he found that the Prusa i3 MK3 corners were actually fairly cold (black is 50C or less  in this thermal picture that he took):

Source:

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@westfield3d

Yes.  And confirmed by the brochure.  

Or one circuit but rated for high enough ampacity to carry the total load.

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@dimprov

From what I remember and google it's been a "feature" since the MK2 release.

I'm pretty sure you'll never eliminate cold corners just due to how thermodyamics and heat transfer works. 

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

Posted by: @cwbullet

@dimprov

I can ask at the Maker Space.  

I'd be very interested to hear what you find out.  

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

Posted by: @dragon1291

I'm pretty sure you'll never eliminate cold corners just due to how thermodyamics and heat transfer works. 

 

I bet the corners could be fortified with extra heating  to produce a more even temperature, but until reviewers start measuring it and reporting on it in a standardized way, there's little reason for manufacturers to do it.  Which means that for now it's up to the end-user to do it if it's to be done at all.  Or maybe the cost of doing it right is actually greater than just buying the next size up printer and steering clear of the corners.... 

I did experiment with adding insulation to the bottom of the heatbed to produce a more uniform temperature across the build surface.  I don't think it's the complete answer, but in my first rough-and-ready pass at it I did shave 5C off the min-max temperature difference.

RE: Recommendations for a 3D printer with build area of 400x400mm or greater?

@dimprov

I will ask this weekend.