Tag Archives: Prusa Research

Misc: Formnext 2024

by Rene K. Mueller · published November 26, 2024 Technology 3D Printing Nerd, Anycubic, ApexMaker, Bigtree Tech, Dual-Color Photoinitiator, Elegoo, Fooke, Formlabs, Formnext, Formnext 2024, Genera, Joel Telling, Jon Schone, Kokoni Sota, MELD, Meltio, Micro Factory, Modix, Mosaic, Moxin, NTUST, Proper Printing, Prusa Research, Quantica, Stratasys, Tony Lock, TUM, Twotrees, UniFormation, WASP, Xolo, Xolography

Updates:

2024/11/26: published
2024/11/23: finishing up, ready for publication
2024/11/21: starting write-up

Introduction

Formnext 2024 in Frankfurt/Main (Germany)

Once again in fall (November 19-22, 2024) Formnext expo opened its doors, and I attended for 2 1/2 days – here my brief write-up and reflection of my experience.

Formlabs

Formlabs made an interesting move: it abandoned the SLA (laser-based) to MSLA (UV light & LCD masking) resin printing with their Form 4 series (Form 4 & Form 4L), so I briefly visited their booth:

I highly recommend the taking apart of the Form 4 by Shane Wighton / Stuff Made Here to get to know all the engineering work which went into the new series.

See more at Formlabs.com

Shenzen Jiexinhua Technology Co. Ltd (SOVOL)

The company behind the commercialization of the VORON series with their SOVOL printers, SOVOL 08 or SV08, a Core XY 350x350x450mm build volume, priced at 550 EUR.

See more at Sovol3d.com

Micro Factory

A small german startup Micro Factory automated the resin printing (incl. washing & curing) within a single case:

Here a brief video of the process (with german commentary in the background):

printing with resin vat
moving plate into isopropyl alcohol (IPA) vat
moving plate to curing position & drying with fans
detaching magnetic plate via electromagnetic release

See more at Micro-Factory.de

So far only Genera‘s G3 does something similar where washing & curing is done in the same case/apparatus.

Prusa Research

Prusa Research announced at the Formnext their new Prusa Core One, a Core XY with 250x220x270mm build volume, nozzle temp. max 300°C, chamber temp. max 55°C, priced at EUR 1,350, with the ability to uprade from MK4S, available later in 2025.

And the official announcement of Prusa Core One:

While I attended the Formnext, Hackaday published a sobering analysis on Prusa’s Open Source stand: With Core ONE, Prusa’s Open Source Hardware Dream Quietly Dies (2024/11/20).

One may argue, Prusa reached a state of commercial success, that it can’t afford to support low-cost chinese replicas of their invention, exactly as it happened to Makerbot and Ultimaker – and both stopped innovate, and recently merged – let’s see if Prusa will thrive in hardware innovation the coming years or lay back as well.

Open Source Software seems more tolerable to commercial pressure: Prusa Slicer still actively developed and forked many times, and so the Cura Slicer by UltiMaker; both slicers enable countless university labs and commercial engineering offices to develop new hardware and having an Open Source implementation of reliable slicers with a ton of detail knowledge embedded when one studies the source code.

See more at Prusa-Research.com

UniFormation

Rather unknown brand to me caught my attention the past year due to high praise from various YouTube reviewers: the older GKTwo (228x128x245mm @30um) ~670 EUR and the new GK3 Ultra (300x160x300mm @20x26um) ~1,200 EUR.

integrated heating system at 35°C
resin feeding system & resin weight measuring
built-in air filter

Industrial-level features while maintaining consumer pricing.

See more at UniFormation3d.com

ApexMaker

The booth featured Pengji (LCD maker) and Apex Maker (MSLA printers) together, so I assumed they are the same business with different brands with LCD making as core business – a representative at the booth confirmed my guess – so aside making UV LCDs they started to produce their own series of MSLA 3D printers:

ApexMaker X1: 353x198x400mm @46um pixel resolution
ApexMaker X1 Mini: 223x126x210mm @17um
ApexMaker X2: 285x214x400mm @25um
ApexMaker X2 Mini: 152x87x210mm @17um

Plus their own branded resins, curing and washing stations, see more at Apex-Maker.com

Elegoo

This year Elegoo released Mars 5 Ultra and the Saturn 4 Ultra which have tilting vat alike the Prusa SL1S which decreases layer print time (curing + detaching from film) down to apprx. 5 secs; so I was eyeing to get a Saturn 4 Ultra.

Thursday morning I revisited the booth and asked about whether Saturn 4 Ultra would permit to put a magnet flex plate on it – which would change the Z offset for homing, and two representatives explained to me it would be a bad idea as the home aka zero Z-position would fail, and one would require the change the “G-code” in the firmware (which is closed-source) . . . in other words, the Z offset or home position is somehow hard coded and doesn’t use pressure sensor to calibrate home (this Reddit thread shows Chitubox Slicer allows to alter the homing G-code, LycheeSlicer doesn’t have this option) – the usual rabbit hole.

See more at Elegoo.com

Anycubic

My resin printing farm is composed by Anycubic printers (Mono 4K, X2 and 6Ks), mainly due the diverse third party market for replacement and add-ons, so I was checking out their new Photon Mono M7 Max (298x164x300mm @46um) priced at EUR 900 (2024/11).

I was hoping Anycubic would also implementing tilting vat to decrease the print time and allow more delicate prints due more gentle / gradual detaching from the film with the tilting motion – so far not yet.

See more at Anycubic.com

Fooke & MELD

This basic looking booth I consider a gem among a few others at Formnext 2024, a sample of massive piece which was extruded with aluminium below the melting point using Additive Friction Stir Deposition (AFSD) procedure and yet creating a fully solid piece where layers fully bond – their main photo (1st photo below) or illustration at the booth was deceptive small at first sight, but after looking twice, I realized the entire machine “Fooke AM50” is over ~6m long with a huge build volume of 6 x 3.5 x 1.5m, and aluminium, magnesium, copper, steel and titanium as possible materials, with build rates up to 15kg/h – and all extruded in normal room atmosphere and temperature.

Following video gives an impression of AFSD & FSW based extrusion by MELD (unfortunately the audio is quite silent in most parts):

See more at Fooke Machines.com and MELDManufacturing.com

Spherene

A few weeks I wrote about them already, so I briefly visited their booth as well:

By chance I saw a small table printed with Spherene structure at the 3D Systems booth:

Spherene Side Table
Technology: Stereolithography (SLA)
Material: Accura® AMX Tough FR V0
Software: 3D Sprint®

Long-term environmental stability (tested to 8 years indoor and 1.5 years outdoor mechanical performance per ASTM)

Designed by Peter Donders for:

– Material optimization
– Increased structural strength
– Customization and unique aesthetics

Thermoplastic-like mechanical performance including ductility and elongation at yield

Surface finish comparable to injection molded plastics

And here a brief feature from Formnext 2024 by AM:

See more at Spherene.ch, and also featured in the Joel Telling (3D Printing Nerd) Formnext 2024 stream.

Stratasys

The grumpy grandfather of 3D Printing:

grumpy, because of the patent collection which caused the 20 year delay for others to be able to adapt major extrusion technologies, once they expired the “3D printing era” actually started with affordable 3d printers (MakerBot, Ultimaker, Prusa, and all the chinese replicates) and many prosumer derivates
grandfather, because it’s truly the beginning of extrusion-based 3D printing / additive manufacturing

See more at Stratasys.com

Chinese Maker Source

A couple of chinese manufacturers providing DIY 3D printer parts:

See more at

WASP

WASP has been around for quite a while with their expertise to extrude clay with their Delta printers but also industrial robots:

See more at 3D Wasp.com

Modix

Modix extended their offers from previous years with primary focus on cost-effective large build volume FDM/FFF printers, e.g up to 2m in Z:

See more at Modix3d.com

Moxin (Huzhou) Tech. Co. Ltd.

The cylindrical shape of a 3D printer caught my attention, and on the 2nd sight I saw it was a Positron-like setup of printing upside down, the Kokoni Sota printer:

I briefly spoke with Tianrun Chen and he explained when printing upside down, less support material required, and therefore developed their own support generation method which reduces material by 20-50%.

210x200x230mm build volume
up to 300°C nozzle temperature
optional multi material systems (also in cyndrical case)

See more at Kokoni3d.com

National Taiwan University of Science & Technology (NTUST)

The little booth, and the walls where full of large scale posters with a lot of information, so I stopped and began to absorb the information – in particular the mention of TPMS caught my attention.

So, one of their invention is a resin which when it is baked at 120°C it increases in size XYZ 2x – therefore in volume 8x – which they named “Foaming Resin Printing“, the sample prints like the bike helmet or even the small TPMS Schwarz P cube was incredible light compared to its size.

Another invention is printing TPMS like Schwarz P and then fill the partial closed P cells with a foaming agent, they call this process “Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing using Hybrid 3D Printing and Filling Process” (see non-free paper) – in case of the Schwarz P TPMS the cells are interconnected and spherical, so the agent flows into all captivities quickly as “Liquid Filled Closed Cell Lattice Structures” – and reduces print time while increase stiffness / strength – kind of combining Additive Manufacturing with Mold Injection method.

3D printing closed cells with injection of secondary material

Another achievement is their 32″ (697x392x500mm build volume) and 50″ (1,150x600x500mm build volume) large LCD/MSLA resin printers, with new film coating of better release of the cured layers, although we couldn’t get into the deep details of it. See this non-free paper and this paper for details about the 32″ resin printer.

I could easily spent an hour to explore their different projects and the benefits of those 3 distinct inventions alone. See more at NTUST.edu.tw and its High Speed Printing research center, in particular follow Mayur Prajapati.

TUM (Technical University of Munich)

The TUM had a very prominent and large booth with many departments and many samples shown:

What caught my attention was the “Infinity Node” made from ~1mm gravel, it was printed using SLS-like printing: Particle-Bed 3D Printing by Selective Cement Paste Intrusion (SPI), using concrete as a binder to connect the small gravel together. The “Force-flow Optimized Node” (brown triangular truss shape) was done using Particle-Bed 3D printing by Selective Cement Activation (SCA).

The other samples were “Molten Metal Jetting” (Copper), “Functional Graded Material” using Plasma Directed Energy Deposition with Powder Feedstock, and “Laser Cladded TUM Logo” using Laser Metal Deposition (316L + Construction Steel).

See more at TUM Additive

Quantica

Quantica caught my attention 2-3 years ago, also at the Formnext, as I saw the modular fully voxel-exact jetting of material. Their core business was their printhead “NovoJet^TM” able to print high viscous materials, something other jetting printheads would not able to do.

This year I talked to Sven, and he explained to me that they broaden their application areas like exact glue jetting and other high viscous materials, as some industries saw their printheads as high precision material deposition, outside of the “3D printing / Additive Manufacturing” use cases – quite interesting how their core expertise found other applications.

Quantica Print Engine: circular motion of material kept under pressure

Again I asked for some 3D printed samples, and again I was denied any like the past 2 years (!!) – they said they don’t have any (or very few) but just for internal use; my main interest is to observe the actual blend or non-blend and then 3D dithering of materials and colors on drop level in order to explore new applications.

See more at Quantica.io

Xolo with Xube² & Xell Printer

An interesting approach, new to me, is Xolography, spatial printing in a resin – first a light sheet is established in the Z plane of 50um thickness, and then XY image is projected into the volume, different color/wavelength for each, and where the Z plane and the XY image light meet, there the photopolymerization takes place; it only works with highly transparent resins, more precisely dual-color photoinitiator (DCPIs), as otherwise the Z plane won’t reach all XY 2D image.

Xolography: UV light Z plane intersecting with XY plane with visible light

first wavelength (375 or 405 nm, UV light) activates the dormant initiator by triggering a spiropyran photoswitch (Z plane)
second visible wavelength (450-700 nm, visible light) excites the benzophenone component to initiate polymerization (XY plane)

So far they reached 50x89mm XY size, yet any size in Z including continuous Z printing.

They claim “no layer lines”, and told me they project a “video”, yet, a video has also n-amount of images e.g. a certain frame rate. What they rather mean is a continuous Z motion while they project their Z sliced XY images, and because the Z motion is continuous, the “layers” rather blend together and get smoothed out. They also don’t need any support structures, as the cured/solidified structure stays in-place and doesn’t sink.

Their requirement of highly transparent resin they derive one of their main use cases: 3D printed optics, and isotropic properties (angle independent strength, no deliminations), other resins they developed are bio-compatible and even soft and gel-like – quite an impressive achievement.

Currently they have two machines available:

Xube²: 10x18mm (@5um feature resolution) up to 50x89mm (@25um feature resolution) x80mm, apprx. 6mm/min in Z, feature size 5-25um as mentioned, although 50um lightsheet width/thickness, so the “feature size” more applies to XY than Z
Xell: 10x17x10mm build volume, @10um feature size

This process has been new to me as mentioned, but while researching I realized it has been around since 2020 or so, when this paper was published.

See more at Xolo3d.com; see also a section of Joel Telling (3D Printing Nerd) Formnext 2024 stream.

Asahi Kasei

They showed a bio-attributed Cellulose Nano Fiber (CNF) made from cotton fibres, and then reinforced polyamide PA66 into a filament named CNF/ECONYL® Polymer with extended heat resistance, strength (performing better than carbon fiber), smoothness and formability – actual details of measurements are missing to backup those claims – according their announcement the material becomes available in Q3 2025.

While their booth has been very small and unassuming, the company has nearly 50,000 employees world-wide.

See more at Asahi KASEI and especially this announcement.

Genera

As far I saw they are one of few which makes resin printers which print, wash and cure in the same machine (Genera G3), where as their G1+F1 and G2+F2 they call “glove free process with shuttle technology and automated post-processing”, where the build plate is carried over in an encasing “glove free” to wash and cure station (F1 respectively F2).

Genera G1 + F1: 134 x 76 x 140mm build volume @70um pixel resolution
Genera G2 + F2: same as G1 plus automatic platform change for queued printing
- 153-384 x 87-216 x 320mm build volume (@40, 70 or 100um pixel resolution)
Genera G3: same as G2 but has F2 integrated, print, wash & cure in one machine
- 268-384 x 153-216 x 320mm build volume (@70, 100um pixel resolution)

Genera G3 (3D Model): (left-to-right) resin vat, washing vat, and curing vat

See more at Genera3d.com

Meltio

Printing metal poses the biggest challenge in my eyes as you have to put immense amount of energy to deform metal, while maintain or desire high degree of precision. So Meltio focuses on Directed Energy Deposition (DED) and Wire-Laser Metal Deposition (W-LMD): stainless steel, carbon steel, titanium alloys, nickel alloys, copper and aluminium:

Their sample prints are massive, and quite rough compared (0.8-1.2mm wire diameter) to Selective Laser Melting (SLM, powder-based) models where we get 50um feature size.

Their “Engine Blue Integration Kit” integrates into existing CNC machines making it hybrid operation and achieve traditional CNC tolerances and feature size – one of the many examples where Additive & Subtractive Manufacturing are put together with their respective strengths.

See more at Meltio3d.com

Fraunhofer

Fraunhofer is a prominent research institute in Germany, with multiple booths displaying cutting edge AM methods – I didn’t have the time to dig deeper into their samples, somehow nothing stood out prominently, or it was vaguely explained at first sight unlike at other booths.

See more at Fraunhofer.de

Markforged

That booth was crowded most of the times, so I did only pass by – so far the FX10 caught briefly my attention:

375x300x300mm build volume
FDM/FFF operating with
- Metal: Metal Fused Filament (MFFF) with sintering post-processing, or
- Composites: other composites incl. Continuous Carbon Fiber (CCF)

See more at Markforged.com

DMG Mori

Whenever I pass by their booth, the only thing I think is “car-sized 3D printers costing millions of EUR/USD”, it’s a different use-case from where I operate – as simple as that, and yet, still impressive what they achieved.

Lasertec 65 DED Hybrid: DED with CNC capability, with just 735x650x560mm build volume

Btw, its name comes from multiple mergers: DMG (Deckel, Maho, Gildemeister) and Japan’s Mori Seiki – a blend of german and japanese workmanship.

See more at DMG MORI

Mosaic

A few years back in 2017 they released their Mosaic Palette, splicing (cutting and melding together) filaments ahead for a single filament yet achieving multi-color with a single nozzle without material waste. Meanwhile they massively scaled up their expertise and developed their own printers called Mosaic Element and print farm called Mosaic Array – and I admired the overall case design in simplicity how the filament cartridges are attached.

Element HT2 specs:

nozzle up to 500°C
build plate up to 120°C
build chamber up to 80°C
350x350x350mm build volume
up to 8 materials via filament cartridges
price starting at EUR 9,500

Their print farm is built on stacked printers, and a robot arm removing the built-plate with the printed piece and stack it below and refill the printers with empty build plates again.

See more at MosaicMFG.com

Miscellaneous

3D Printing Nerd

While roaming in the halls, I recognized a few YouTubers like Ross Graham (FauxHammer), Jon Schone (Proper Printing) and also Joel Telling (3D Printing Nerd):

Here his marathon live-stream at Formnext 2024:

Among others were also Xolo with the Xolography light printers, Spherene with Daniel Bachmann, Josef Prusa showing the Prusa Core One, and Stratasys representative featuring SAF H350 able to process used powder with High-Energy Absorption Fluid (HAF) with Selective Absorption Fusion (SAF).

Tony Lock (Duet) & Jon Schone (Proper Printing)

As I was visiting the booth of OST (Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences) & Spherene I met Jon Schone (Proper Printing) and Tony Lock (Duet3D) and we had a brief talk on multi-axis firmware & slicing and parallel printing as Jon showed in his video with a multi-gantry setup – I’m currently composing/writing on a blog-post about parallel/concurrent printing with multiple nozzles so I was keen to briefly exchange thoughts on this topic.

Tony Lock (Duet3D) & Jon Schone (Proper Printing) – Formnext 2024

Reflection

Formnext is an overwhelming expo on all things on Additive Manufacturing, and this year less people and less exhibitors than last year. Also a few startups with big booths last year either had a small one (nTop, Inkbit, etc) or were no longer present. A couple of newcomers and startups, and some companies I have been following pushing their innovation further and exploring new applications, like Quantica.

I only stayed for 2 1/2 days (Tue-Thu) instead the full 4 days, as from last year I knew I wouldn’t be able to absorb more things with more time, there was only so much to take in. For me it was worth it, to reconnect with companies and individuals I know only online and via video calls.

The “3D Printing Hype” has peaked, the stock prices (state 2024/11/22) of Stratasys (8% or -92% of max), 3D Systems (8% or -92% of max), Desktop Metal (1.6% or -98.4% of max) or Nano Dimension (15% or -75% of max) have shown how much air and speculation was there, and now the sobering realism and use case are established. The same time MakerBot & Ultimaker merged, two exhausted 3D printer manufacturer without hardware innovation in the past years – yet Prusa, Creality, Elegoo, Anycubic still thrive on the pro- and consumer level with both FDM/FFF and MSLA resin printers, and BambuLab so successful that it caught Stratasys’s attention to sue them about patent infringements.

It’s clear to me, that Additive Manufacturing (AM) has its unique use-cases, whereas injection molds still dominate mass production due the high volume capacities and cost effective production. Additive Manufacturing may be a bland term (I like “3d printing” better), but there are still many possibilities to be explored, as Xolo or diverse university booths have shown – any kind of granular or liquid material is melted, extruded, jetted, cured or bound with an agent.

Hammer Man in Frankfurt/Main (Germany) – Symbol of a Maker

References

That’s it – see you perhaps in 2025 there.

Misc: Formnext 2021 Review

by Rene K. Mueller · published November 22, 2021 Uncategorized Aon3D, APS tech solutions, Arburg, BASF Materials, BCN3D, Bigrep, Craftbot, Creality, DMG Mori, Duplex3D, eMotion Tech, Essentium, Formnext, Formnext 2021, iFactory3D, Markforged, miniFactory, Modix, Polymaker, Prusa Research, Raise3D, Sintratec, WASP

My first Formnext in 2019 I realized there was no way to explore the expo in 1 day only, so I reserved for Formnext 2021 (Frankfurt, Germany) 4 days fully (November 16-19). Although the expo was smaller than in 2019, it was still massive to explore. I’m not even sure I saw all of the 600+ exhibitors despite roaming the two halls (12.0 ground floor, 12.1 first floor and 11.0 ground floor only) multiple times.

Inhouse Developments: ZPlusSlicer & 5DMaker

I presented my inhouse developments of ZPlusSlicer and 5DMaker for the first time in public (otherwise just illustrated in About: Big Picture), as of November 2021, it’s not yet published or otherwise documented.

“Overhang stairs” printed without support with ZPlusSlicer & 5DMaker

About 40+ samples I handed out and alike amount some brief documentation (on paper) on ZPlusSlicer and 5DMaker (5MF processor) – both in early stage of development, and the “overhang stairs” a proof-of-concept of the benefit of both new conceptual layers on top of traditional slicing. By spring 2022 I will publish more publicly on both products once they matured to Beta stage.

Notables

Ultimaker: they didn’t have any booth, yet their machines were placed at many booths, resellers kind of represented them – combination of dominance and absence
Makerbot wasn’t there
Markforged considers itself as startup but outsiders consider them as big player already – impressive integration of machine, material and slicer, yet, all closed down; hard(er) to integrate with 3rd party software
nScrypt micro-dispensing on cylindrical or spherical surfaces, PCB 3d printing and pick-place SMD components:

Krause DiMaTec showed its EDDY 3D printer, slow Z axis, but quite affordable at ~8K EUR for the machine with 600 x 600 x 600mm build-volume, and the 3D metal printed hotend was quite an eye-catcher:

Duplex3D printer: two nozzles starting to print on upper & lower side of the build plate, once reached some distance, the plate is removed (!!) and 3D prints continues in both Z directions (the front glass is very glaring so not many details, also the representatives didn’t want to me to take too close photos):

Duplex 3d printer: prints in both Z directions with 2 nozzles (middle to up, and middle to bottom)

Prusa Research released its Prusa XL – a Core XY based printer, I took a few photos with a lot of small innovations:
- 360 x 360 x 360 mm build volume
- mechanical pressure-based Z calibration built into the printhead (nozzle probes mechanical on the build plate)
- segmented heating of build plate, heat there where the part is located
- new printhead with geared filament drive motor
- optional tool changer
- optional foldable air-draft prevention
- pricing from 2.5K EUR to 3.5K EUR
- pre-order, delivery Q2/Q3 2022 (!!)

Modix as sold by 3Dmensional:
- 600 x 600 x 600mm build-volume
- fully enclosed
- DIY kit or fully assembled
- pricing 3.5K EUR (kit) to 6K EUR (assembled)

TreeDFilaments: 55 different materials
Kimya: materials too, great (paper) catalogue with detailed information on how to print their filaments and use-cases

Formnext 2021 Impressions

People vs Companies

Although all the companies appear quite anonymous, if you spend more than just a few minutes, and are able to talk to some technical skilled people – aside of the sales representative – you will notice “normal” people with the same passion like you and me: 3D printing enthusiasts, who turned their hobby into a professional passion, either as a startup or joining a bigger company to explore 3D printing further.

The most worthwhile and interesting interactions were the ones I had with little business aim but technical exchange on new slicing methods and algorithms, new G-code extensions or pre-/post-processing, and new hardware designs in particular 4-axis approaches by different individuals and companies based on my slicing software and hardware designs they found via my YouTube videos – which was quite a revelation for me.

Covid & Expo

As of November 2021, Covid-19 isn’t over but I was glad to explore Formnext 2021 in person, a “2G event”, means, either one had to be vaccinated or recovered from Covid. The first days most people worn masks, by each day less and less – me included, as it was hard to talk with the mask on and hear each other properly even standing close to each other due the overall noise level in the halls.

Mood

Certainly the overall mood was great among the exhibitors and visitors as well – professional interest, respectful cordial interactions – less noisy than in 2019 which was more hectic due more visitors overall. Tuesday (1st day) and Friday (last day) had less visitors, whereas Wednesday and Thursday was quite overwhelming and significant more visitors.

At last, some impressions of Frankfurt (Germany) itself . . .

“Hammering Man” (animated) with small sign for Formnext 2021

That’s it.

References

Formnext

3D Printer History (1980-2024)

by Rene K. Mueller · published December 6, 2020 Technology Adrian Bowyer, Bill Steele, Carl Deckard, Creality, E3D, Ender 3, Hideo Kodama, History, Josef Prusa, Karl Brown, Kickstarter, MakerBot, Printrbot, Prusa Research, RepRap.me, Scott Crump, Slice Engineering, Stratasys, Thingiverse

Back in 1980’s the concepts of 3D printing were invented and implemented with

Stereolithography Apparatus (SLA) by Hideo Kodama (1980),
Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) by Scott Crump (1988), who later founded Stratasys, and
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) by Carl Deckard (1988).

Kodama developed the first 3D printer using UV light and curing resin, and filed a JPS56144478A patent (1980).

Kodama’s sample 3D print: ~50mm tall, 27 layers at 2mm thickness cured resin
(source Meidai Watch: 3D Printing & Nagoya University)

And so most approaches were secured with patents by companies like Stratasys, like the famous US #5,121,329: Apparatus and Method for Creating Three-Dimensional Objects (applied 1989, granted 1992) and others were thereby inaccessible for innovation outside of the patent holders and due the high pricing also inaccessible for users – a period of stagnation happened.

Once the patents expired (~2009), and that’s truly a lesson against patents, a surge of innovation occured and the prices for 3D printers fell from 100K+ USD range below 3K USD for the same functionality and print quality.

Adrian Bowyer, a british academic, coined the term of RepRap (2005), the replicating rapid prototyping and designing 3D printers which can print parts for itself: self-replication. Hobbyists started to adapt the design and push it further, since all plans were Open Source aka Open Source Hardware, it was easy to improve and iterate the designs. Eventually the Prusa Mendel as developed by Josef Prusa and reduced overall complexity and his next iteration was most significant: Prusa i3 (2012). This third iteration became quasi standard for low cost 3D printers for the next years and his Prusa Research company surged. See also RepRap Principle and RepRap.org Blog Archive.

RepRap Darwin: XY head and Z bed, threaded rods based
RepRap Mendel & Huxley: XZ head and Y bed, threaded rods based
Prusa Mendel: XZ head and Y bed, threaded rods based
Prusa i3: XZ head and Y bed, laser cut XZ frame

Josef Prusa summarizing his history 2010-2019, representing part of the spirit of the RepRap movement:

2009-2013: MakerBot & Thingiverse

US-based MakerBot was at the beginning (2009) a major driving force to the Open Source 3D printing community as partially funded also by Adrian Bowyer and his wife. MakerBot also runs Thingiverse, the major repository of free 3D models and designs for 3D printing. As MakerBot struggled with sales, after receiving Venture Capital and later bought by Stratasys (2013) it left the Open Source principle at the same time Thingiverse struggled since to stay functional (2019). In 2020 Thingiverse was given some attention, it seems now taken care of better.

CupCake CNC: Z head, XY bed, laser cut wood frame
Thing-o-Matic: Z head, XY bed, laser cut wood frame
Replicator 2: XY head, Z bed, metal frame

2011-2016: Kickstarter Hype

With the expiration of patents held by Stratasys and other companies (2009-), the surge for Kickstarter-based 3D printers began, sub 1000 USD printers became widely available, but also many failures and plain scams happened. Printrbot started as Kickstarter and thrived for a few years as US-based 3D printer company, also Snapmaker and FORM 1 by Formlabs made a successful debut, while sub 100 USD 3D printer like MakiBox, metal Eventorbot or slick Buccaneer failed at different stages.

2018: Year of Chinese 3D Printers

In 2016-2018 chinese manufacturers (Geeetech, Creality, Anycubic, FLSUN, TEVO, CTC etc.) started to develop Prusa i3-like machines and the companies started to copy each others parts and improvements at a rapid pace. As a result, many small US companies, like Printrbot, which contributed significantly to the Open Source movement, closed doors for good (2018).

A big game changer was Ender 3 as manufactured by Creality, priced at USD 150-200 incl. shipment, providing excellent printing quality, at a price which was hard to compete by anyone else. Notable was, Creality open sourced Ender 3 entirely, as the Open Source community built up pressure to chinese manufacturers which spit out each month a new Prusa i3 derivative (e.g. different build volumes, slight improvements of extruders etc) back in 2018/2019.

As a side note, the chinese manufactured 3D printer broke the RepRap principle and used other means to produce their parts, while Prusa Research has a 3D printer farm to manufacture their parts.

Western Innovation & Chinese Manufacturing

Mosquito hotend by Slice Engineering (2018) Closed Source, Patent Pending

It became obvious the past years (2010-2019), that true innovation still remained in the west, Czech-based Prusa Research, Denmark-based RepRap.me with Diamond Hotend (3-in-1 and 5-in-1), or UK-based E3D or US-based Slice Engineering with their hotends and extruder technology, and the chinese manufacturer which cloned or copied the Closed- and Open-Source designs within weeks and sold at fraction of the price as by the original inventors. Often chinese manufactures tried to simplify hotend designs and compromised significant features – to copy a design didn’t mean the design was understood.

E3D Hotend Timeline: E3D V4, V5, Kraken, Chimera, Cyclops, V6, Lite6, Titan Aero, Titan Aqua, Hemera (2013-2020)

As pointed out, Creality, one of the big chinese 3D printer manufacturer, started to adapt and join the Open Source Hardware movement, with the release of the Ender 3 source files and get properly certified – time will tell – as of end of 2019 – if they stay true to their commitment, and whether other chinese 3D printer manufacturer follow and become also actual innovators.

In late 2020 Creality announced a belt-based printer named CR-30 aka 3DPrintMill as a result of collaboration with Naomi Wu and acknowledging all the previous research of developers like Bill Steele and Karl Brown (White Knight Belt) the printer is based on – and renewed their commitment to Open Source the CR-30 – a nice development.

Makerbot Automated Build Plate (ABP) (2010)

2021: Voron, Prusa XL, E3D Revo

A loosely organized Maker group developed various 3D printers under the brand Voron Design which gained momentum in the Maker community:

CoreXY (Voron 0.x, 2.x, Trident) or CoreXZ (Voron Switchwire)
sturdy well engineered frame design
tuned toward reliable and fast printing
properly documented (CAD models, bill of materials)
fully open source
no commercial frontend (no single store to buy assembled Vorons, only kits)

Voron printers became well-known in 2021 and widely adapted among people who wanted to build their own printers.

Various skillful Makers tuned the printer design toward very fast printing, high motion speeds and acceleration, to achieve 3D Benchy prints below 10mins at acceptable quality aka “Speed Benchy”.

At Formnext 2021 (November 2021) Prusa Research announced the Prusa XL, a CoreXY cubic frame 3D printer, with interesting features:

ability to sense blocked nozzle, indirectly by measuring bending of print head with a load cell
autoleveling done mechanically via same load cell
multiple heating zones in the build plate (only heat where part resides)
multi-material with optional tool changer
foldable curtain to maintain more regulated air temperature within the printer
build-volume 360x360x360mm

E3D Revo: different nozzle sizes (color coded) manually interchangable

Also in fall of 2021 E3D announced its new generation of print heads, Revo:

manual (un)mounting of print head without tools
nozzle and heatbreak combined
spring loaded tension of heat cartridge with nozzle
partially patented

2022: MakerBot & Ultimaker Merge, Bambu Lab’s X1

In May 2022 MakerBot, owner of Thingiverse and part of Stratasys, announced together with Ultimaker they would merge the coming months, and in September announced to become UltiMaker. MakerBot, who plays no significant role in regards of hardware development anymore, and software development being neglected as well, incl. Thingiverse lumping since many years.

Ultimaker became monetary successful the past years is also showing inertia in hardware innovation, resting on existing hardware designs, at the same time committed to push software development with Cura slicer with fine-tuning details of the slicer, and still doing most of it under Open Source, admirably.

Another significant announcement happened in May 2022: Bambu Lab, founded by former DJI (drones) employees, worked the past two years on a new printer called “X1“, which has features hardly even seen in industrial 3D printers:

printing fast at 400mm/s with 10,000 to 20,000m/s² accelleration
auto leveling (no manual calibration)
auto tuning pressure advance with LiDAR sensor
first layer analysis with LiDAR sensor, measure height and width of extrusions
video analysis of failed prints using built-in camera and AI
multiple materials (up to 16 spools/materials)
dedicated slicer (being open sourced later)
competitive price with USD 900-1500

The only downside is the rather moderate build-volume with 256x256x256mm, but they control that tightly unlike anyone before.

2023 & 2024: Incremental Upgrades

Formlabs resin printer series 4 switched from laser based SLA to UV-light & LCD based MSLA procedure (EUR 5,000-10,000), like the rest of prosumer and consumer resin printers. In June 2024 Micronics LLC launched a Kickstarter compaign for their SLS printer priced at USD 2,500, and after the finish of the compaign, the company was acquired by Formlabs.

Resin printing with more specialized resin types entering SLS and FDM domain (from Formlabs Keynote 2024):

Prusa Research introduced SL1S resin printer in 2021 with a tilting vat, and Elegoo followed then with Mars 5 Ultra & Saturn 4 Ultra in 2024, priced at EUR 300 & 400, also having a tilting vat / tilt release mechanism, which decreases layer printing time by ~50% from ~10s to ~5.5s, and therefore overall printing time as well, e.g. increase from 18mm/hr in Z height to 32mm/hr at 50μm or 64mm/hr at 100μm layer height.

Elegoo also introduced a massive FDM OrangeStorm Giga with a build volume of 800x800x1000mm, priced at EUR 2,500. Sovol SV08 (Voron 2.4 / CoreXY) becomes available at USD 750, with a build volume of 350x350x330mm.

Stratasys sued Bambu Lab in August 2024 about infringment of 10+ patents:

purge towers for multi-color printing
heated build platforms
force detection systems
networked printing capabilities
filament detection/identification

It seems Bambu Lab has reached of market share where they are relevant for Stratasys, e.g. also protect their UltiMaker branded prosumer FDM series which have shown no relevant innovation since 5+ years.

See also at RepRap Principle, RepRap.org Blog Archive and RepRap Magazine Archive to read about early RepRap movement (2000-2010).

That’s it.

Misc: Formnext 2019 Videos

by Rene K. Mueller · published December 1, 2019 Technology 3DCeram, 3DGence, 3DMN, 3DNatives, Anisoprint, Autodesk, BCN3D, BLB Industries, BuildTak, Craft Unique, Craftbot, DMG Mori, DP Polar, Dyze Design, Formnext, Formnext 2019, FusaLAB, igus, Lincsolution, Meltio, Phrozen3D, Prusa Research, Raise3D, Tiertime, Tractus3D, Trilab, Vector 3D, Videos, VMR-KG, Xact Metal

A few worthwhile videos done by 3DMN (3D Maker Noob), Vector 3D (Adam) and others at Formnext 2019. I will update this post as more interesting videos become available.

2019/12/11: added 3DMN Trilab DeltiQ 2 video
2019/12/02: added Joel’s (3D Printing Nerd) Formnext 2019 video

3DMN: BCN3D Epsilon

BCN3D Epsilon by BCN3D:

build volume: 420 x 300 x 400mm
dual independent extruders / printheads (IDEX)
price: 7000 EUR

3DMN: Craftbot’s Flow Generation

Craftbot Flow Generation:

dual independent extruders / printheads (IDEX)
build volume: 425 x 250 x 250-400mm
price: 3200-4000 EUR (plus VAT)

3DMN: Trilab DeltiQ 2 (Delta)

Trilab DeltiQ 2 (Delta) specifications:

build volume: 250mm diameter with 300m height
bowden style, optionally direct drive style setup (Trilab FlexPrint)
price: 2600 EUR (minimal configuration)

Vector 3D: Continuous Carbon Fibre by Anisoprint

Anisoprint mixes Nylon, PC, PLA, TPU and PETG with carbon fibres (CCF) in their continueous 3D printing procedure.

Vector 3D: Dyze Design & Craftbot

Dyze Design: High volume printing from pellets with 1-5mm large nozzles.
Craftbot: Briefly discusses “Craftbot Flow Generation” 3D printer series, not very informative (sales talk).

Vector 3D: More of Formnext 2019

Tiertime X5 by Tiertime: automatic bed switching
Prusa Mini by Prusa Research: low cost Prusa printer at 380 EUR
Phrozen by Phrozen3D: DLP printer
Raise E2 by Raise3D: dual independent printheads (IDEX)
BuildTak: build sheets / platforms
The Box by BLB Industries : really printing big > 1000mm with 1-14mm nozzles with pellets

Vector 3D: Best of Formnext 2019: FL 300 by FuseLAB

Adam from Vector 3D select the FL 300 by FuseLAB as “best of”:

revolving filament extruder (proprietary, patent pending)
dual printheads
price ~7000 EUR

It surely is an interesting design, but I wonder what this additional complexity adds in actual print quality.

3DNatives: Top 5 (Industrial) 3D Printers

AM Polar i2 by DP Polar: rotating platform
C3600 Ultimate by 3DCeram: ceramic printing
Meltio M450 by Meltio: metal powder & wire printing
T3500 by Tractus3D: huge delta, FDM
LASERTEC 125 BY DMG Mori: 5 axis milling combined with direct energy deposition

3DNatives: Top 5 3D Printing Applications

3D printed boat by Autodesk, endless fiber & resin
3D printed car by BAC & DSM, carbon fiber & graphine
3D printed robot by 3DGence: PEEK, Nylon and PLA
3D printed bike by VMR: SLM metal printing
3D printed dinosaur by Lincsolution: SLA printed

igus: 3D Printed Wear Parts

igus: more infomercial, yet informative: wear resistant filament / prints (e.g. gears) with their own polymer mixture called “iglidur”, optionally also food save.

3D Alliances: Xact Metal

XM200C by Xact Metal:

SLM (Selective Laser Melting), metal powder based
build volume: 127 x 127 x 127mm
price 90K EUR (considered low-cost 2019/12)

3D Printing Nerd: Formnext 2019

Craftbot Glow Generation: closer look at dual independent extruders (IDEX)
DyeMension: eye wear with powder bed printing (SLS) and other applications
Raise3D: Raise3D E2 also IDEX
Desktop Metal: Desktop Metal Fiber contineous carbon fiber mixed with polymer, priced at 35K USD / year; Desktop Metal Shop System, binder jetting at 1600dpi (SLS)
BCN3D: closer look to Epsilon (IDEX) also presenting their BCN3D Cura with cloud printing
Loctite: resins and bonding polymers

That’s it.

Misc: Formnext 2019 aka “just too much for one day”

by Rene K. Mueller · published November 21, 2019 Technology Creality, Exhibition, Formnext, MakerBot, Metal Printing, Prusa Research, Thingiverse, Ultimaker

I decided to visit Formnext 2019 in Frankfurt (Germany) November 20, 2019. And to give you the essence first, it was too much – 800 exhibitors in two larges halls each with 2 floors – one day is not enough, and others told me, not even two days is enough to have time to absorb what has been shown at this exhibition.

Metal Printing: one of the huge topics of Formnext 2019 was . . . metal printing aka “no more plastic”, it seemed like the motto for 2019, in the corporate sense of it.

Tritone
Ecoparts samples
Ecoparts sample
High precision custom cooling nozzles (sprays 50cm far on CNC machined piece)
Sharebots samples

The printers were huge, car or even tractor sized 3D printers.

Tritone
Ansys

The kind of faceless corporate world:

GE Additive
Markforged
DMG Mori
Protiq
Trumpf
Fraunhofer
Materialise
Stratasys
HP
Aconity3D
Zeiss
Renishaw

Ultimaker: So I spotted Ultimaker booth, and asked for “Daid”, nobody seemed to know, but “David” was known (as author and driving force of Cura) but not there, as he left the company 2 months ago I was told – either way, I spoke with Roger Bergs and expressed my gratitude for Cura being Open Source and he replied: “you know, we come from there, it’s part of our company culture” . . . nice to see such a commitment to the Open Source, especially compared to the next:

MakerBot: . . . and to my surprise, there was a mid-sized booth of MakerBot, the owner of the struggling Thingiverse, on the brink of collapse. After some brief delay, I was able to talk to Jason Chan, responsible for Thingiverse who was on site, and we had a brief talk:

I acknowledged the role MakerBot played in early days of 3D printer development in contrast to the later abandonment of the Open Source principle with the acquisation by Stratasys . . .
I pointed out how important Thingiverse was and still is for existing projects, which still reference the STL files on Thingiverse and if it were to disappear it would be devastating and break many projects out there (not all migrated to github or other 3D model repos)
further I expressed my experience about other the 3D model repositories being functionally inferior compared to Thingiverse
Thingiverse was unbearable slow and unreliable – Jason acknowledged and confirmed my concerns of the current functionality of the site
Jason responded as following:
- only 2 web developers are assigned to Thingiverse maintenance as of 2019/11
- there is a backlog or debt of problems unaddressed for the years and MakerBot is aware of it (to the public it seemed nobody cares at MakerBot)
- Thingiverse is costly running it, and provides no (significant) income
- there are commitments within MakerBot to reboot Thingiverse and fix all the backend issues and resolve the “slowness” of the site (that has been said before, nothing happened – just check @makerbot Twitter account)
- development of a financially sustainable foundation for Thingiverse, means, to create income – how this is planned he didn’t wanted to reveal in more details
- MakerBot kind of was surprised of the immense success of Thingiverse of the past years

Josef Prusa: While visiting Hall 11, I came across Josef Prusa walking alone, and I just briefly shared my admiration for his success by combining Open Source and business to a self-sustaining model. I later visited the Prusa Research booth, and it was packed with visitors and and catched this short video showing Prusa Mini in action:

BuildTak: Just a brief talk with Igor Gomes, about their new products and shared a bit of my stuff as laid out on this web-site.

BuildTak booth
Few samples

Creality: . . . and there it was, a tiny small booth of Creality – 4 or 5 shy representatives sitting there, and I walked toward them and greeted them in english, and a smile rushed unto their faces (to my surprise), and I expressed my thankfulness of their move to Open Source the Ender 3 entirely, that this move or gesture really was acknowledged in the Open Hardware and 3D printing community in the “West”. In a way it was bizarre, there was this small booth, while in reality, this company had more impact than perhaps the rest of the exhibitors of the entire hall – nobody else ships as many 3D printers as this company as of 2019.

Misc Small Chinese Exhibitors:

Dobot
Weistek
eSun

Too little time to explore their products in more depth.

E3D Online: Just briefly glanced at their booth, as I watched already videos online of their tool changer, and I was already significantly exhausted.

E3D Online: Tool changing with metalbrush to clean the changing toolhead

NinjaTek: just passing by . . .

FelixPrinters: . . . also too little time and openness left from my side cut this visit short, but their printers looked very well thought out.

Belts

Blackbelt at Ninjatek
Blackbelt at colorfabb
Blackbelt at Robofactory

Printing Big

Autodesk boat
Builder
BLB: Big Nozzels
Bigrep car
J3D
Tractus3D: Huge Delta
Siemens

Misc Perls

They scanned the stones and computed the junction pieces
Timeless beauty
Computational beauty
CellCore: organic internal structures for pieces used in F1 racing cars
Proper colors (Pantone)
1m diameter printed drone hanging on the wall

Anyway, after 7 hours I was exhausted from all the impressions – it was too much of visual stimulis and constant noise – and I left the exhibition and headed back to Switzerland by train again, and arrive at midnight finally – it was worth my time.

That’s it.

Introduction

Formlabs

Shenzen Jiexinhua Technology Co. Ltd (SOVOL)

Micro Factory

Prusa Research

UniFormation

ApexMaker

Elegoo

Anycubic

Fooke & MELD

Spherene

Stratasys

Chinese Maker Source

WASP

Modix

Moxin (Huzhou) Tech. Co. Ltd.

National Taiwan University of Science & Technology (NTUST)

TUM (Technical University of Munich)

Quantica

Xolo with Xube2 & Xell Printer

Asahi Kasei

Genera

Meltio

Fraunhofer

Markforged

DMG Mori

Mosaic

Miscellaneous

3D Printing Nerd

Tony Lock (Duet) & Jon Schone (Proper Printing)

Reflection

References

Inhouse Developments: ZPlusSlicer & 5DMaker

Notables

Formnext 2021 Impressions

People vs Companies

Covid & Expo

Mood

References

2009-2013: MakerBot & Thingiverse

2011-2016: Kickstarter Hype

2018: Year of Chinese 3D Printers

Western Innovation & Chinese Manufacturing

2021: Voron, Prusa XL, E3D Revo

2022: MakerBot & Ultimaker Merge, Bambu Lab’s X1

2023 & 2024: Incremental Upgrades

3DMN: BCN3D Epsilon

3DMN: Craftbot’s Flow Generation

3DMN: Trilab DeltiQ 2 (Delta)

Vector 3D: Continuous Carbon Fibre by Anisoprint

Vector 3D: Dyze Design & Craftbot

Vector 3D: More of Formnext 2019

Vector 3D: Best of Formnext 2019: FL 300 by FuseLAB

3DNatives: Top 5 (Industrial) 3D Printers

3DNatives: Top 5 3D Printing Applications

igus: 3D Printed Wear Parts

3D Alliances: Xact Metal

3D Printing Nerd: Formnext 2019

Xolo with Xube² & Xell Printer