There are a few types of continuous 3D printing with FDM printers, with a conveyer belt and automatic build plate swapping the most common types. The advantage of build plate swapping is that it automates the bit where normally a human would have to come in to remove finished parts from the build plate. A recent entry here is the Chitu PlateCycler C1M which the [Aurora Tech] YouTube channel had over for a review. This kit bolts onto the Bambu Lab A1 Mini FDM printer and comes with four extra PEI build plates for a not unreasonable $79 (€69).
As also noted in the review video, this is effectively a clone of the original swapmod A1m kit, but a big difference is that the Chitu kit comes with all of the parts and doesn’t require you to print anything yourself.
The different plates are prepared using a special tool that inserts G-code between the plate changes. Moving the bed in a specific way triggers the switch that lifts the finished plate off the magnetic bed by the plastic grip on the plate and loads a fresh plate from the stack. Here it was found that a small tolerance issue prevented the last plate from being used, but some sandpaper fixed this. Other than that it was a fairly painless experience, and for e.g. multi-color prints with separated colors – as demonstrated – it would seem to be a great way to churn out the entire model without manual intervention or a lot of wasted filament.
Perhaps the main issue that is central to all of these build plate swap mods is where the plates go after they’re pulled off the magnetic bed: the padded box is a great idea for the first one or two plates, but after that you get your PEI build plates with parts on them crashing on top of each other.
This is where perhaps something like a passive roller conveyer system could provide a nice gentle off-ramp, though this too would increase the footprint of the system. Regardless, the overall system seems to work well enough, allowing one to stack fresh plates in the chute and if you turn on build plate detection in the A1 you can even prevent the printer from trying to print on the magnetic bed.
My issue with these continuious printing “farm” mods is that they always harp and whine and cry about how mean Bamu is for locking down 3mfs and how it stifles innovation etc — which to be honest, fair — but then they all pretty much proceed to release their farm mods under the most restrictive licenses known to humanity.
It’s absurd listening to someone complain for several minutes about how horrible bambu is for locking stuff down — which again i agree, it /does/ suck — but then do the exact same thing or sometimes even worse and they don’t see a problem with it.
I feel there is a big delta between somebody not open-sourcing something they designed and developed, and Bambu forcing everybody to up load their designs to China and crippling features for those that won’t give Bambu their designs.
Chinese open-source capitalism at its best.
But don’t worry, I’m sure those GD32 chips with built-in drone controllers won’t suffer similar fate 😂
no.
if you are going to scream and cry that someone else’s stuff is closed then you don’t get to do the same to others. full stop.
I think the issue people have with that is bamboo used open source systems to get this far and didn’t follow the licence.
These other products are developed independently (AFAIK)
Interesting system. Am not sure I’d trust the strength of that rear snap mounted tray holder over time though.
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