Last week, the Blackbelt 3D printer introduced on Kickstarter. What makes the Blackbelt 3D printer different than any type of other 3D printer on Kickstarter? This printer has an unlimited develop volume. It’s developed for continuous production. As long as you have a big sufficient spool of filament, this printer will keep creating plastic parts without any downtime in between. The Blackbelt is a really amazing and innovative machine. Yes, it’s a bit expensive, however it’s developed for production as well as manufacturing, not some man tinkering in his garage.
However, the Blackbelt 3D site includes two words that have sent the 3D printer neighborhood into an uproar. ‘Patent Pending’ is something nobody in the neighborhood wishes to see provided the history of the market as well as a few bad decisions from the very first movers during the fantastic 3D printer awakening of 2010. The concept of an unlimited develop volume printer that enables for constant production is not new; we saw one last March at the Midwest RepRap Festival. The question, therefore, is what is covered by the upcoming Blackbelt patents, what is the prior art, as well as is it still possible to develop an open source printer that utilizes these ingenious techniques?
MakerBot’s Automated develop Plate. when offered as open source Hardware, the Automated develop Plate has been expunged from MakerBot literature, patented, as well as obviously forgotten. [Makerbot CC-BY]
Lessons of the Automated develop Platform
Questions about the Blackbelt printer arose soon after its soft introduce last month. It was, simply, the second printer demonstrated in a few months that utilizes a tilted print airplane as well as a conveyor to enable constant production in an unlimited develop volume.
The very first such public application of this style was at fast 2016 as well as at the Midwest RepRap Festival in March, a product of [Bill Steele]. [Steele] wasn’t releasing a product, this was just the culmination of an concept that began as a mechatronic middle finger to MakerBot as well as their Automated develop Platform (ABP).
The ABP was rather smart when it was released as well as was utilized in production by MakerBot in their salad days to manufacture parts for the Thing-O-Matic. Unfortunately, the APB was patented by MakerBot, all references to the ABP were expunged from the MakerBot site, as well as all advancement on an open source conveyor-based production device stopped.
In short, the 3D printer neighborhood has seen something such as this before. First, the neighborhood produces an ingenious gadget that makes printers better, then a patent is issued. regardless of the success of the business holding the patent, open advancement on this kind of gadget just stops, as well as we’re left waiting decades up until the patent expires. This has occurred before, as well as it’ll occur again.
Prior Art to Prior Art
[Bill Steele] very first demonstrated his unnamed unlimited develop volume printer at fast 2016 as well as at the Midwest RepRap celebration in March of 2017. However, unbeknownst to everyone, [Andreas Bastian] of Autodesk has been working on a similar gadget for years. The Lum Printer is efficiently the exact same device as demonstrated by [Steele]; a conveyor belt bed over a tilted XY extrusion airplane enables for prints of unbounded length. There are videos of this printer working, as well as while the Lum printer was never utilized in its full capability — many presentations are extremely long single layer panels — it’s efficiently the exact same printer.
The Blackbelt Patent
The Blackbelt 3D is still patent pending, as well as we don’t have any type of concept of what is declared by these patents. However, Blackbelt was kind sufficient to share that they are only claiming, “the belt material, an adjustable angle for the extrusion plane, as well as G-Code manipulation.” For an open source implementer of the unlimited develop volume printer, whatever else is fair game.
An open difficulty To The RepRap Community
Although the Blackbelt patent will cover a variably tilted bed, the belt material, as well as a technique to transform G-Code so any type of slicer can utilize this printer, that doesn’t imply the concept of an open Source, infinite volume printer is out of the question. The only thing anybody needs to do is just develop one with a permissive license.
The product of a G-code shifter. From wjsteele.
This is a difficulty to the entire 3D printing community. Come up with a printer style that utilizes a bed tilted 45 degrees to the print plane, as well as discover a appropriate belt material. The benefits will be enormous. To get you started, [Bill Steele]’s MRRF develop utilized Kapton as well as paper. I’ve done a bit of research study on this, as well as I suspect there may be a extremely unusual source of belt material: the pancake robots at every holiday Inn reveal utilize a Teflon-coated silicone belt that’s just the best size for a 3D printer. The producer of these pancake robots offers the belts as replacement parts.
Apart from the belt material, the only other bit of tech needed to produce a tilted bed 3D printer is a G-code manipulator. For this type of printer, a different technique of slicing is not needed; the Blackbelt patent will explain a ‘warp engine’ that manipulates raw G-code. fortunately for us, [Steele] has uploaded his own G-Code Shifter. The G-Code issue for a tilted bed printer is solved, as well as it’s open Source.
Really, the only thing needed for an open source 3D printer is a bed material as well as a design. Of course, purchasing much more than 5kg of filament on a single roll will likewise be a problem, however if that’s the most significant issue we’re all in a fantastic place.