Hangprinter Build Videos

We figure with the rise in 3D printing, it is time for a new Finagle’s law: Any part you want to print won’t fit on your print bed. There was a time when a 100 mm x 100 mm bed was common for entry-level printers. These days, more printers have beds around (200 mm)2. A hangprinter’s work area can be larger. Much larger. [Thomas Sanladerer] is building one, and has a series of videos about the build. You can see the first one below, but there are several posted, including about 11 hours of recordings of live sessions of the build.

If you haven’t heard of a hangprinter, it is essentially a 3D print head that — well — hangs from cables and can turn an entire room into a 3D printer. When we looked at the original, it was printing a five-foot tall model of the tower of Babel.

The hangprinter is true to its RepRap roots, with a lot of self-printed parts, and an open source design. Even if you don’t want to build one, watching the videos can show you a lot about how one works.

If you want something more conventional, several of us have been hacking on Anet A8s. Sometimes you don’t care about  having a lot of build volume for one part, but you do care about having a lot of volume to make multiple parts, but that’s a different problem.

22 thoughts on “Hangprinter Build Videos

    1. Sorry, but you are pretty far off the mark on how often he looks at his laptop, it has the questions he intends to ask, so he glimpses at it occasionally.. and likely a bit more at the beginning until they are more into comfortable conversation.

    2. hmmm.. did not notice that, but I did notice the horrible sound of the room… echos all the way. Which is a shame as the whole setup looked very clean and professional. But the sound sounded like it was recorder in the shower.

      Regarding the project, making a printer hanging on strings is a very interesting concept. Sure it takes some time to setup, sure it takes lot’s of time to print large objects, but who cares. This is a tool that can deliver, so who cares the setup is/ can be difficult, who cares it takes time. Very cool stuff and very fun to see it in action.

    3. Does seem like the interview is poorly setup. If Tom wanted the computer available (which is understandable) it shouldn’t have been on the opposite side of table from who he’s talking to. And why is the camera so far away from them to begin with?

      The closeup view is nice, but most of the time they were off to the side of the frame and ~ 20 feet away.

  1. “Building such a large heated build plate would be really expensive”. To build a 400x400mm heated build plate you need 400x400mm PCB. You can get 10pcs 100x100mm PCB from China at about 10USD. Next time I see any of the people working with the project (they hang out at the same hackerspace as I do), I’m gonna offer myself to design a heated build plate.

    1. You could use a heated build plate but i dont se any great use for a large format printer like this.
      PLA is simple enogh on a unheated bed. and if you go with ABS you wont be able to print anything that large with only a heated build plate. Now if you had a large sauna so you get at heated build chamber then it would make sense

    2. I’ve seen large-format printers that use multiple 6×6 PCB heaters; an added benefit is that you can only heat up as much as the bed as you’re actually using at the time.

      Though in general I agree with Anders, I don’t think a heated build surface is a realistic concern at this scale.

  2. This is awesome actually. I can see used for building structures with cement and maybe using other materials. You would need a larger set of scaffolds if not more structure without the boom crane version I’m thinking. Cables and piles I’d guess if really large scale.

    I’ve not 3D printed yet, however… I am thinking of solar sintering systems that could make structures, larger adhesive based designs with or without later treatment protocols and even other methods that I am not sure about the hot plate or heated base as shown. I can’t visualize yet variables that would be issues.

    Maybe this is the future for printing larger scale bio-systems even. I wonder the theoretical limits of the materials to maintain accuracy down to the minimal tolerance and range?

    1. Man, this reminds me of a vision of hydroponic multistory greenhouses with the minimal required structure using cables and having a media buffer so won’t go dry like aeroponics. I feel even controls for monitoring systems and something that can bridge the cables if need to switch cabling for different sections or something.

      Man, there is something here I am thinking that has business potential for lodging primarily… though maybe for other structures like water cisterns, bio-fermentation vessels for production or treatment of waste and maybe other systems in primitive/un or underdeveloped environments without so much implements to bring in.

      As is, this is way neat for larger scale printing. Maybe I’m envisioning civil engineering applications narrow minded now.

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