The RotBot is a 4-axis 3D printer that allows printing completely horizontal overhangs without any support structure. Let me show you how it works, how you slice part for it, and what the limitations of the technology are. And the best thing is, that the Toolhead, as well as the slicing scripts, are fully open-source! Let's find out more.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:37 Trip to the ZHAW in Switzerland
03:02 RotBot Toolhead
05:17 Conical Slicing
09:07 Limitations
11:50 Sponsored Section
#3Dprinting #4-axis #nonplanar
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What do you think about the RotBot and Conical Slicing? Niche application or the next evolution of 3D printing!
wow
I've always been interested in multi-axis printing but there is like no software support. Their approach to slicing is super interesting and makes a ton of sense!
I want to know more about the potential strength increases. This could be really big. I also want to see what happens when you try to build more complex parts.
As you said, mind blowing. I mostly use my printfarm to print nosecones for the model rocket kits I sell. Due to the method of layer adheasion they have a weakness for dropping hard surfaces. This method could change the way the layers form this making them stronger without needing more infill or walls.
Anything that helps in reducing the mechanical anisotropy of printed parts is welcome, that actually interests me more than the overhangs not needing supports because for that we have many solutions (good profile and printer tuning for easily removable supports, dissoluble supports) whereas we don't have a lot of ways to drastically increase inter-layer adhesion. Having used a Blackbelt printer in the past, just having a different strength distribution was already quite interesting, this new concept must be even more exciting ! What about doing some mechanical tests on these conical printing samples :D Also, kinda cool to see some open source 3D printing from my own country :p
We are getting there folks. Our hardware has been capable of multi axis for a while. This is huge
Well hardware is basically just steppers. Slicing algorithms are everything
Now we only need to get software developers on board!
Actually, the hardware was never the bottleneck, as a cnc post processor programmer, we know as a matter of fact that you can add more axes on the go but trajectory calculations for that axis is a much harder task. And it gets harder as we add non linear axes. But hopefully more developer's will join on the train.
And Im still forgetting to level the bed, in not a long time I will be able to forget to level the bed non planarly
I would love to code for this project if possible, i am a CAD DEVELOPER , not sure if that can help.
i´m a machinist programming 9 axis mill turn on a daily basis and i can´t wait for 3d printing getting rotational axis, there is so much potential in 5 axis 3d printing. No supports, parts with reinforcing layers that are going three dimensionally over the part, that help distributing forces, reinforcing the weakspots and eliminating layeradheasion as a limiting factor etc. ...
my thought was similiar "if we add another axis to be able to rotate the nozzle, we could smoothly switch between different print methods" but the approaches all have the same issue we need a slicer code able to execute it i think the mechanical challenge will always be the smallest part it will always be about the code that causes the slow development
Like 3d plywood
@@firebladeentertainment5739 agreed.
I am no engineer, but I'm worried more axis might be a little two much stress and complication for the filament that we use today. And what if the new printers need different material and non of the producers catch up. Burring new printers from the beginning? Like others said we are still on the dawn of additive manufacturing. Nothing is set. I just don't trust the big industries. I will put my trust in us, the creators because this is really exciting
@@mad-0614 I can see this being a problem with some materials, with abs I don’t think that it would be much of an issue but I have had pla‘s that we’re pretty brittle wich definitely could be a problem
Seeing techniques like this shows that we're still at the dawn of FDM printing, and I'm certain that we're going to see great advances in coming years to improve speed, quality, and function!
To me, it's like we're just getting into the Model T era of printing. We're going to places that we only dreamed of even a few years ago at this price point.
@@BigBlack81 It's like looking back at CD-R's when the first drives were hundreds of dollars, and wrote to $50 blanks at 150kb/s. Now we stuff GBs worth of data to SSDs in mere moments, and it costs next to nothing to do so!
We are not at the dawn of FDM. We are simply at the point where 2.5D printing is finally getting the 3 and up axis it should have had a decade ago! LinuxCNC is open source and has had multi-axis capabilities for well over a decade(EMC was from the 90's). Why has it taken this long for additive technology to catch up? Clearly it is all about managing angles with flow, that is rather simple volumetric math. You remember that robotic FDM (6 axis + rotating table!) FDM That was YEARS ago. Where is it now? It made non-planar prints with ease. Money. That is what the real hold-up is. People want to earn a living. I don't blame them, giving thousands of lines of code away to everyone for little to no return is not very appealing in these days. Not to mention all the complaints and bug reports ;-) Multi-axis printing has been around but has only slowly been trickled to the printing world we all reside in. Maybe it also has something to do with patents.
@@leofortey7561 yes it is all old 80s tech. people forget it was patents that kept it from being widely available, not tech. just wait for more newer patents to shut this down too...
Have you seen the upside down 3D printers ? these are so cool and solve many of the problems of traditional printers !
This is one of those "why didn't I think of that" ideas. So elegant - I'm hoping it catches on.
impressive project! 👏
Thank you! Cheers!
@@CNCKitchen were you involved? I thought this is a ZHAW project
Yooooo
The idea of pre-distorting the object before slicing it and then un-distorting the code afterwards to get the desired results from an existing slicer without writing a whole new slicer to do the task is genius. I did think that the extra axis would be to control head tilting, that way it can still behave like a regular FDM 3D printer, but the tilt ability would then allow the printer to do overhangs etc. without support.
This is what one of the rocket manufacturer does with its 3d welding machine to print the whole tank. Its slices and adds some pre-deformed calculations and so when it prints it is now a proper print. This is done because welding deforms the metal so without this technique it would be a very distorted tube.
If you can get the RotBot team to print you some testing dog bones and some test hooks I'd love to see a strength comparison of this conical slicing compared to planar slicing!
Absolutely! For a vertical dog bone, there's quite a bit more inter-layer surface area for bonding.
Working on it!
An IDEX printer which combines both technologies would be absolutely killer. One printhead could completely cover the weaknesses of the other, and it still eliminates significant waste because IDEX doesnt need a large purge tower.
Pre deforming the part and then running it through a regular slicer is freaking brilliant. I can't believe I never thought of that. There is so much you could do with that. Heck screw cones, use a parametric curve. No more shear planes that way...
I would reall love to see this 6-axis printer, with tilting base. This should make printing overhangs with no support even better, but of course it is more complex and costly, so this modified prusa with tilted nozzle is an interesting cost-effective option.
my employer makes 5-Axis CNC machines which have FDM functionality as well.
@@CypherAod And what slicer do you use with it?
@@greatestevar Given that WE would not be programming it, your claim applies to the select few who will do so, the rest of use would just be users of the software….but even then, not so much as 6 Axis machines have been around for awhile. So it’s not like the human race hasn’t had any experience with it. Also, there was one int he video. So it has already been done.
There was one in the video….
Wow, this looks huge! Simple, yet effective. Making it open source will make it possible for many people to try out this new technique and improve the design further. Maybe a design with an additional axis to tilt the printhead between -45 and 45 degrees could take care of the inwards facing overhangs.
I’m glad you finally got to go and see this. I was hoping you would since the it first hit the 3D printing news sites. Very interesting indeed. The conical slicing is a clever trick. With some effort, I could see it being somewhat more generalized with a tool that segments a more complex part in to blocks each having their own pre-warp and post slicing de-warp.
Wow that spinning head made my head spin, had to watch this twice & finally understood the basics about conical slicing, thanks for explaining that Stephen.
I like these non planar printing discussions. And adding more axis it’s always good too
This is amazing. I'm looking forward to seeing your tests on the strength of parts made using this method.
I’d almost be impressed if I didnt just see a 5 axis machine on a Prusa i3 earlier today. ERRF attendees talked about you a lot today Stefan! Hope we can see you at a future ERRF!
Thanks! I'm a bit heartbroken to not be at ERRF this year but it was just too much traveling for me this month. I'll hopefully be there next year.
I think this the the best and decievingly the simplest approach to the non-planar slicing thought process.
I've been looking forward to non-planar layer deposition for a long time, but mainly to improve top layer surface quality. Extending it through the part looks likely to significantly improve part strength due to the effect you mention.
This was a truly great video, you made the complex Sclicing understandable for the masses.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention! Fantastic!!!
Another great video, the cutting edge of 3D printing is not exposed enough, great job for showing this. More content like this wouls be welcome.
Thanks! Appreciate this!
Danke für das Klasse Video hoffe sowas wird weiter entwickelt. 💪💪💪💪
This is the coolest thing i've seen in this week. Danke Stefan
Hi Stefan this is amazing and I'll have a look for details for sure, I'm thinking to update my diy Prusa based 3d printer, as soon I have a time I'll start to implement it, thanks for sharing!!! Greetings from Cham/ BY
Respect to whoever programs the slicer for these things . I can't imagine how you do that
There is an chinese approach which does the following: 1. Define the object in a voxel grid. (Small box of size dxdxd, where d is the diameter of the nozzle) 2. Calculate the reverse print aka how a CNC machine would destroy our object in layers, one voxel at most per layer. 3. Calculate the moving convex hull of our object, while simulating the print. 4. Calculate reachability of voxels, while simulating the print. 5. Use 2/3/4 to define an order of voxels to print, while printing on existing voxels. 6. When done, combine the voxels of step 5 to groups of voxels. 7. Calculate the actual geometric layers, from step 6. => The result are 3D complex layers that can only be printed on a 4+ Axis system.
This is a fantastic idea and what would make it even more versatile is to have a head that can tip to any angle instead of just a predefined 45 degree angle. I could see taking a dual filament machine, setting up one head on the 45 and the other on the standard and then creating the code so that the best head is used for each independent layer.
There is a 5-axis version of this somewhere around (I think even Rene Mueller built one) but this introduces even more complexity into slicing and flexibility into the tool head.
I love this video and would love to see more of this kind of videos on new developments in the field
Stephan never ceases to amaze with his ideas to cover the unique and fringe applications of 3D printing and the excellent quality of his videos, congratulations and thanks. This technique would be perfect on my TronXY X5SA-400 or ANY large format printer were you can imaging printing a section of a car bumper skin that no mater how you angle it in slicer still has considerable overhangs, print time, and waste plastic, With this printing technique, there would be essentially no supports (or very minimal) and print time would be dramatically reduced, and waste almost eliminated.
This is incredible!! Just the cost this cuts in filament is outstanding
watching the RotBot print is so mesmerising!
This is amazing!! Fantastic work! The maths behind the scripts must be quite hefty.
It's honestly really simple.
Impressive find Great video as always 😀 Thanks for sharing your expirence with all of us 😃
Really interested in a parts strength testing episode on this! Very cool tech.
I think it is "next evolution of 3D printing", as this will help speed up CAD/CAM effort, material waste, more automation. Yes, will be slow and hard at first but it is an investment in the right place. I have been trying to do the same and seeing this is very encouraging , thank you for awesome content!
Ok the "pre deformation" step is absolutely wild! _that_ is fricken cool
Michael is my Professor at the ZHAW!! I really enjoy his lectures.
Finally, 3D Printing is moving beyond 2D. Kudos to the team. Now we need Slicers to catch up with hardware.
I'm always amazed by the insightful videos you create, they are very interesting. Great work.
Thank you very much!
Thats tottaly amazing!! Hope to see that in a future very close. Thanks for sharing this video man
VZbot might need a Hevort bed; this would work great then…
Waiting anxiously for the strength tests. Exciting.
Having access to conical slicing would be really interesting for certain applications, I think especially so if you want to make a print watertight, so having it on most printers would be really cool
This seems really similar to your non-planar 3d printing video you made a little while ago! It's cool that so many tricks can be pulled off by modifying what the "plane" is in planar slicing, and it feels like we're just scratching the surface of what's possible.
I would love to see them print some of your test parts so we could see how much of a strength improvement it might make.
I need this. Thanks CNC kitchen.
This is essential for FDM to move forward. We have stalled on 2D printing + Z (a more accurate description) and weak layer adhesion. Would be interesting to see strength differences and see if we can get true anisotropy. The next step would be a rotating nozzle from 45-90 degrees.
I studied there 4years ago mechanical engineering with focus in 3D printing. Nice to see it on youtube
I really enjoyed visiting the ZHAW!
What a great idea, this is going to change everything
Wonderful, removing support structures is huge save both in time and material. Huge step into advance 3D-printing
Wow! Amazing stuff. Thanks for showing us all this. Just amazing
I want this on my printer yesterday. I hope Prusa3D is taking a good look at this and trying to implement it, because I would buy that printer instantly. I do mostly mechanical parts and not having to worry about overhang limitations is an absolute gamechanger.
Great video Stefan. I suspect the mechanism can be simplified substantially, so it will not be long before we see neater ones. Do follow up on the conical slicing topic and what can be achieved with our current printers.
4D printing is going to be big! My biggest problem with small parts is the supports! i’ll be busy researching this!! 🎉
1:45 i love how they're using high voltage insulators and cables as supports (or looks) that's cool :D
HOLY SHIT I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS. This is amazing work
Wow I can see this system on future 3d printers!
As someone who managed applications for a 5 axis 3d printer building company, this is huge! We've mostly used a modified version of Mastercam, which doesn't really make itself available for makers, let alone the custom plug in.
I think I might try to implement 5-axis in my next printer build to future proof it. (Adding rotation and adjustable angle.)
Would live to have one. Its like adding a new specialty machine to your production inventory. 👍🏼
Alleine die Bewegung des Druckkopfes ist schon einfach nur satisfying 😀
Ich hab' minutenlang einfach nur den Druck angeschaut. Wirklich toll!
Definitely interested in strength testing of this method of printing!! 💯
Finally i hope quality manufacturers will put more Research and development into this
I'm really excited for mainstream non-planar printing and slicing. I hate wasting material because I just never throw the stuff away. And from an engineering standpoint being able to compensate for the (material) non-linearity of 2.5D printing with non-planar printing is a huge improvement.
Brilliant! I think there really is something here.
It has been amazing watching an entirely new manufacturing discipline take form.
Looks very impressive!
This is pretty incredible
Looks really interesting, will keep an eye on it, and when bed levelling is re-introduced, I think I’ll probably convert a prusa to one.
I was wanting to get a 4th printer and didn't have a idea what I wanted...I think this is a great project to build...
Awesome video!! I'm tempted to give it a go!! Thanks for sharing!
Appreciate the SuperThanks! Definitely take a closer look at it and if it's just the "Variable Angle" Version for regular printers.
Very cool and amazingly practical in the engineering. I think there is a great potential in a slicer on a standard printer that could just do even a small conical angle, to improve print strength.
Amazing, and about 50% over my head. the rest makes me happy to follow your channel.
I hope I was at least a bit able to explain the principle in an easy to follow way.
@@CNCKitchen You where. I was making fun of the fact that I am still so uneducated in many things. Watching your channel teaches me many things. So thank you for your hard work. Baie dankie, ek sien uit na die volgende video.
When companies perfect this, just like CNC's, it's going to be EPIC.
An approach to fixing the inward overhang would be morphing the stl non uniformly, basically instead of a 45° cone, you could make it so that along the y axis you are at 45° inward, and along the x 45° outward, making a saddle shape or even slicing inwards to 1 inch off of the center, and then outward, it's fairly free, you're already converting cartesian to polar and then scaling up or down, so you just have to apply a curve that takes into account the position along the polar coordinates and applies a pair of curves instead of a set angle from just the distance. Automatic overhang detection exists, so mapping overhang position vs the angle and distance should be doable, and automatic curves may be created.
You're exactly right. Came to the same conclusion as I watched. Some of the edge cases could be trickier to fix - detecting and modifying travel moves that would otherwise result in a crash, for example - but not impossible I'm sure.
The big concern with that is collisions. There are cases where you can't get a tool (nozzle) in the space available with any arbitrary transformation.
@@bobthecannibal1 Good point. Sounds like an interesting problem though. No need to complete one "layer" before starting the next, necessarily, so perhaps there's an ordering problem buried in here.
Strengthening of prints beyond the standard print axis - totally fresh. :)
Sounds like the industry is going forward. Might be great as a separate tool head in the Prusa XL. There is also the the opportunity to and an additional axis for all angles for the extruders.
Would like a strength test video for conical vs planar slicing please. Great topic
Awesome to see this. Like so many, and said many times, I don't have the time right now... but I had wanted to do something like this for belt printers because so much work has been done on slicing systems but going "hey, let me completely change how slicing is done" means you produce a branch in the slicing logic and loose the ability to access new features. It's why BlackBelt Cura is so old, IdeaMaker only goes so far (from when I used it), and Kiri Moto is also stagnant on it (last I checked). If Cura, Prusa, or others introduced Arachnie or similar... it wouldn't work on belt printers because of that branch. But... deform the model, slice, inverse-deform the sliced parts and you suddenly have the ability to use the latest slicing features and more while getting belt, non-planer, conical, etc. support. Or at least, that's the theory. Maybe with more time, I'll be able to try it. (Yes, I know, the slice-step between the deformations still requires some specialization and can't be naive in processing, but there is still the chance that something _does_ work without modification. Just need to try it out)
Thank you for the great video Stefan. Very well explained (I could not do it better... ;-)).
Thanks for the opportunity to visit you!
Ever since I saw the cr-30 and its weird overhang requirements, Ive been thinking about a printer that could rotate the hot-end all the time! Its so crazy to see something straight out of dream-land!
Amazing concept
I am incredibly intrigued what this does for the strength of parts. Considering the layer lines are no longer a straight cut across the Z axis, which is present even on belt printers, this is quite the interesting proposition, along with the idea of getting away from supports. I hate supports. They're a necessary evil, but the fewer the better and this seems like a fantastic alternative for a number of applications.
Good afternoon all, This is a phenomenal breakthrough, I have been looking in to all the files including the script files in Python, excellent work, nevertheless one thing is missing is all that, the marlin configuration and modification files, also how and where connect the Z-Rotation motor to, it would be nice to have some complete concise Opensource compilation of all this so that amateurs like me can make one and be part of the testing bodies. Thanks guys
Great, thanks 👍
The hobby needs new ideas like this to keep the fire going
This looks so cool! Of course when I see an extra stepper on the hotend, *my* first thought is “ooh! Move the second stepper to the other end of the X axis! CoreXθ!”
Hey Stephan, thx for showing this great project! i often thought about a complete rotating printer to fight gravity - have you ever then something like that? combined with tilting printhead AND bed you should be very near to print everything.
IMO its not only fighting gravity, because overhangs on upside down printers don't look that much better - it's also fighting warping of the material and that requires precise cooling or physical supports.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the "sample overhanging part" shown at 6:28 is the z-axis bearing holder from a Hypercube Evolution. Kinda cool to see a part I've printed for one of the first printers I ever made on a big channel like this.
I've never seen anything like this. this is the future of 3D printing
Great thanks for still good and interesting videos!
Don't know if it has been mentioned, there is also an older attempt for nonlinear slicing called Curvislicer which builds on an older Slic3r version , and open source is awesome, printing with a robot arm was shown off at Formnext 2018 but proprietary of course
It would be great Stefan if you could do some strength testing on parts printed with this technique. I am really curious what the results would be.
Conical slicing! Super impressive.
Agree, over hangs is a big limitation and conical printing while adds a layer of complexity is an ingenious step forward. Super interesting and curious to see where this is going to go.
I'm hoping that Prusa is internally testing this out. I'd totally buy one of these.
Das Beste an der Metote zu drucken ist, das man keine Stützstruktur mehr benötigt! Deswegen fände ich es cool wenn diese Technik bald für Privatanwender verfügbar wäre! Zum Beispiel wäre es doch schön, einen Prusa Mk4 mit der 4 Achsentechnik kaufen zu können! Dieses Thema finde ich sehr interessant und werde es weiter verfolgen! :)
Creality, hear this guys out! XD (amazing video as always my friend. Regards!)
I like the aproach better where you have a normal CoreXY printer with independent tripple-z axis (like many use for planar printing) because you utilize gravity in order to print overhangs. New ideas like this one here help us to get better 3d printers and slicers for makers. Thank you for showing us, Stefan :) Greetings from Germany ✌️
yes, tilting bed is probably the better solution in the end.
Wow, this is awesome.
Oh damn, I was imagining a system to no longer need supports!!! I thought of a 45° swivel head, but in my idea, the plate should also tilt. I see we're never the only ones thinking the same thing..