Milling Tool for ASMBL Manufacturing
Now that Prusa has a working tool-changer I'm keen to add a milling toolhead in addition to the filament toolhead for ASMBL manufacturing. For the next 12 months I reckon Prusa will be busy just delivering orders and will focus entirely on filament toolheads. But surely ASMBL must be something they're thinking about. Has anybody heard or overheard anything about alternate toolheads? Roadmaps, rumors, hints in the code, anything like that.
RE: Milling Tool for ASMBL Manufacturing
I’d settle for open sourcing the mechanical, electrical, and software interfaces required to interact with the tool system so people could start work on developing these solutions. Prusa’s pivot to closed sourcing this machine is really going to hamper the ability for folks to take this printer to the next level.
I pre-ordered this machine from a company lead by a dude with an open source hardware tattoo on his arm and I figured that was a good enough guarantee that the XL would be as open as the rest of their printers. Two years later I took delivery of a printer from a company who has changed their mind about that.
Milling tools would generate so much swarf and debris that the 3D printing function would stop working immediately.
More useful would be paste extruders, pellet or block extruders (Chocolate anybody?) and for those who are obsessed with colour, an inkjet head.
Cheerio,
RE: Milling Tool for ASMBL Manufacturing
Agreed, you aren't likely to have much luck running anything that will involve force being applied to the tool. That still leaves a lot of options, a laser head could be possible, pick and place for SMD assembly, surface probe for 3d scanning, who knows what someone else will think of?
What I do know is that nobody will be able to do anything until Prusa open sources the interfaces.