Wanted: Crazy Ideas! I'm building another RepRap!

Mag_Lev on the whole machine too, stop those pesky vibrations transferring in to the bench/table/floor etc

Maybe there wouldn't be any if the rest where mag-lev, how to shield my room temp super conductors is proving tricky.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2016 05:31PM by MechaBits.

Mag_Lev == Linear Motor It's not black magic and used in many industrial projects.

The real problem is to find someone who sells you motors for a hobby project as a reasonable price. Especially just a few motors and not 1000 and not for 10000€ per motor,...

Build a printer with z axis inverted. As in the nozzle points up and the bed/z axis moves up. This is the geometry use by sla printers like the form 1.

I think this would fix drooling and string issues. These problems are worse when hot end is further above the filament melt temperature. Higher temps help layer fusion.

mass of the print + gravity would probably pull the print from build platform...

The print usually sticks so tightly to the platform that I have to knock or pry it off.

How about a frame that is based on tension instead of purely on compression? Something like tensegrity with a lot of 2mm dyneema lines?

You have to have something rigid to anchor those lines to. If you're going to have a rigid frame for the lines, why not skip the stretchiness of the lines and just build the printer in the rigid frame?

Others have built printers that are suspended by tensioned lines in the center of a room, with the lines anchored at the corners.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Yep, combining rigid members with tensioned ones is quite in the line of tensegrity. Properly preloaded dyneema should be reasonably unstretchy. They even considered using this stuff for the mooring line of a space elevator.
So such a printer with clever setup could in theory be extremely lightweight.

Imagine being able to turn a spare room into a giant 3D printer by attaching a few devices in the corners of the room
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though a solution to remove the need for the lower cables would be better, even better to not need a room to put it in(as DD says), a more ingenious frame/crane,maybe a better option for a concrete printers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2016 12:44PM by MechaBits.

Build a frame out of reinforced concrete. Cheap, strong, rigid, and dampening, but you might need a crane to move it out of your workshop.

If they were available in my previously selected stepper motor / leadscrew combo size I would add disc / hole magnets to my lead screw nuts facing North out without loss of generality and add at the stepper motor face a similar or identical magnet facing North out to form repulsive pairs. To home my machine I would simply overtravel my leadscrews and jam the steppers...but they wouldn't jam. The repulsion would create a condition of stop motion in which the first reversed pulse would unjam the stop. Or so I think. I have to try it in my Unimat One based Rep Strap "Bateson", but I have to wait or search for in stock magnets that fit.

You might try this CRAZY IDEA!

Is the name "Bateson" taken?

Doug