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Gigabot Engineering Updates – July 2020

re:3D’s Research and Development team never stands still, and while we’re developing the next generation of your Gigabot^® and Gigabot^® X 3D Printers, we’re continually looking for ways to refine the current iteration’s user experience, precision, and quality. As of July 1, 2020, all new Gigabot^® 3+, Terabot and Gigabot^® X 3D printers ship with the below enhancements. Current Gigabot^® owners can order these as replacement parts that are fully compatible with previous versions.

New 3D Printed Parts (Polycarbonate unless otherwise indicated)

Gigabot^® X

[11925] GBX Hopper Hose Clip: To make changing out feedstock less messy.
[11948] GBX Motor Coupler Insert (Taulman Nylon 910): more durable than the previous iteration.

Terabot

[11914], [11915] Terabot Light Rail End Cap: angled cap for positioning the LED light correctly.
Viki Enclosure: Terabot specific VIKI enclosure which takes its size into account.

New Metal Parts

Gigabot^® X

[11955] GBX Radial Bearing (updated): more durable than previous version

Gigabot^® 3+

[11953], [11954] GB3+ Hot End 0.25mm nozzle (Optional Part): for those who want finer details while printing big.

Fit and Strength Part Adjustments:

The below parts have had geometry changes or other additions to make them stronger or fit more precisely.

Gigabot^® X

[11339] GBX Y Slide Bracket
[11344], [11342] GBX Belt Mounts
[11338] GBX Motor Spacer
[11952] GBX Enclosure Bottom Panel

Gigabot^® 3+

[10880] Viki Mount
[Various] Z-axis Threaded Rods now coated for improved corrosion resistance
[10257] X Motor Mount
[11081], [11136] Left and Right GB3+ Extruder Tensioner
[11518] GB3+ Unibody Extruder
[10113] GB3+ Dual Extruder Cover

Terabot

[11662] Terabot Y Axis Belt Mount
[11658] Terabot Y Slide Bracket
[11697], [11690] X and Y Motor Mounts
[11664] Y Limit Switch Mount
[11736] 40×40 Rail End Cap
Bed Leveling Knobs Removed and Replaced With Bolts
[11504] Full Enclosure

Electrical Updates

Improved Viki grounding for all units
Electrical Box layout redesigned for Gigabot^® 3+

An Update: 3D Print Blobbing and How to Fix It

Maybe you’ve read our blog from several years back about improving a 3D print’s surface quality by reducing the triangle count of your STL file, or maybe you’ve just experienced some surface blobbing on a print and are looking for an explanation and a fix.

Well, you’ve come to the right place! This update blog will serve as both a complement to our original post, as well as a jumping off point for anyone experiencing issues described here.

Have you ever had the problem of little filament blobs dotting the surface – like in the picture below – ruin an otherwise great print?

Those blobs are due to a buffering issue. There is a speed at which the board feeds the printer information and a number of commands it holds in the queue. It’s like a restaurant putting out orders for people to pick up. There’s speed at which they make the orders, and only so many spots for orders waiting on pickup.

If the printer comes to a bunch of really quick moves, it clears out all the stored commands and has to pause a second to wait for more. That pause lets some plastic ooze out and create one of these blobs. Having fewer triangles equals fewer commands to make the same shape, so the average move is longer. This is one solution to the blobbing problem.

Another fix is to increase the buffer size (room for more pickup orders) or speed. We have been playing with buffer size since it is a setting in the firmware. The buffer speed depends on the capability of the board, so that would require a hardware upgrade to be faster.Lowering the mesh count on a model helps ensure that the printer can achieve its best performance for that print. You are modifying the part to match the capability of the printer. STL files are just a list of triangles that occupy a 3D space – curves are stored as a series of tangent triangular planes. Smaller triangles give a more accurate interpretation of the curve. So long as the facets are smaller than the printer can actually print, the result is a smooth curve. Technically you are degrading the mesh curvature. It’s the same as the transition from analog to digital. Analog is more information, but it overloads the system which makes digital better.

When we wrote the first article on this topic, we changed our firmware to have a large buffer for prints via SD card. Gigabot’s board can only support a certain buffer size, so that buffer space was taken from the USB. We recommend Gigabot users to print via SD because it has a larger buffer size and it also avoids other complications involved with keeping a computer connected to the printer. Recently we have been working on a touchscreen interface for Gigabot, which communicates over USB. We started to see print quality differences in SD card prints versus touchscreen prints in the form of globs on curved surfaces. Changing the buffer size for the USB is one of the changes that will roll out with the new touch screen.

Join the conversation on our forum if you want to continue this discussion with us!

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

Innovating in The Time of Corona(virus)

The exponential spread of the novel coronavirus across the globe led to overwhelming demand on supply chains and disruptions to traditional manufacturing and distribution systems. Because of societal lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, a dire need quickly arose for locally fabricated, specifically focused and creatively sourced solutions to equipment shortages and emergency supplies. At home and across the globe, designers and engineers quickly mobilized into online, open-source prototyping groups to solve the challenge of a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators and medical device accessories. 3D printing and additive manufacturing was an obvious go-to, with the ability to rapidly prototype and iterate on the fly, teams could utilize 3D printers to supply healthcare providers with equipment now, as soon as there were designs to print. The intention and needs were obvious and clear – to aid humanity and fill the gaps in supply chains – however, organizing volunteers and streamlining the process to avoid duplicate efforts was a daunting task.

As a company with a wealth of R&D project experience and long used to working as a distributed team, re:3D put out the call that we would prototype – for free – any life-saving devices or PPE in order to expedite review by medical professionals. We are conscientious contributors to the open source design community for COVID-19 response. We take a First, Do No Harm approach to any design work we do for this effort, meaning that it needs to be designed with input from, and in partnership with, the individuals who will utilize any equipment we prototype. We will not create anything that gives a false sense of security, but is ineffective or harmful. Our medical providers on the front lines are in need, and we are honored to take on the challenge.

Face Shields

In two overlapping efforts, we prototyped a design for a 3D printed face shield with full visor coverage and an adjustable zip tie style latching mechanism. The inquiry started in Puerto Rico. Vicente Gascó, our friend and colleague from Tredé and Engine-4 shared he had a supply of 4000 clear plastic lenses for face shields, but no visor to which they would attach to the head. Armed with only the measurements of the lenses and aided by an idea from assembly guru and NASA technician Andrew Jica in Houston, Brian Duhaime, our mechanical engineer in Austin, and Alessandra Montano, our graphics designer in Puerto Rico, pumped out five different iterations of a face shield in only 48 hours.

Vicente and Luis Torres, co-founder of Engine-4, pulled our Puerto Rico Gigabot out of Parallel-18 and added it to the existing Gigabot at Engine-4. Gigabots in Austin and in Puerto Rico printed out iterations of the designs for testing.

In Houston at the same time, CTO Matthew Fiedler, mechanical engineer Helen Little and community liaison Charlotte Craff were meeting with doctors from a local hospital to discuss their needs for a face shield. Knowing that vetted, open source face shield designs were already available, the group reviewed designs by Prusa, Lazarus3D, Budmen and Professional Plastics. The Houston team 3D printed existing options for the doctors to test, but the designs didn’t meet all of the doctors’ needs:

Lightweight, fully closed top
Reducing the air gap between lens and chin
180 degree lens coverage
Limit number of parts to reduce need to source materials in short supply

Knowing that supply chains were disrupted and very little raw materials were available in a timely manner, re:3D conferred with Professional Plastics and determined that plastic sheeting supplies were well behind schedule, but that there were excess pre-cut face shield lenses available. Again, re:3D opted to prototype to existing, local supplies, keeping stress off of traditional supply chains and getting creative with what was available.

Over the next week, Helen built on the work done for the Puerto Rico design, integrated the needs of the doctors and iterated ten different versions of the face shield while working from home and rarely getting to hold a print in her hands. The result is a single print, face shield with an adjustable latching mechanism. It’s designed for 180 degrees of protection and comfort without the addition of foam padding. It has the approval of the hospital’s Infection Control and is currently available at the National Institutes of Health 3D Print exchange for COVID-19 Respons: https://3dprint.nih.gov/discover/3dpx-013504

Hands-Free Door Pulls

Eliminating unnecessary shared contact surfaces is imperative, especially in buildings where essential workers are operating to continue necessary services. Our team includes multiple military service members. One of our reservists was activated when she sent out a call back to our team to make some hands-free door pulls to use on the base. Aided by Matthew Fiedler, Mike Battaglia, our designer in Austin, and Brian Duhaime went to work prototyping hands-free door pulls for lever-style and bar-style door handles.

These designs were drafted before we had dimensions for either of the door styles, so had to be modeled in such a way to enable incremental dimensional adjustments while preserving the models’ shapes. During her free time, the service member sent feedback on the first versions via pictures and notes, and Brian and Mike iterated the changes remotely, melding organic shaped and attachment options into single print solutions.

The hands-free door pulls are now successfully in use on base, protecting our military personnel as they work to respond and aid COVID-19 efforts. These models are available for download here https://3d.nih.gov/entries/3DPX-013825 and here: https://3d.nih.gov/entries/3DPX-013822

From Intubation Box to Drape Stands

As a 3D printer manufacturer, we are understandably advocates of 3D printing use in manufacturing. However, we recognize that not all innovations require, or are best served by, an exclusively 3D printed solution. As we do much of our manufacturing in-house, including machining parts on our CNCs, we can apply rapid prototyping principals to traditional manufacturing methods. Take the example of an aerosol or intubation box:

We were contacted by an anesthesiologist based in Austin about modifying such a box, used to protect doctors and nurses from aerosols released when intubating a patient. The doctor’s main concerns were ability to clean and the need for a “helper” hole. This equipment needed a curved, clear surface rather than sharp corners where germs could hide. We offered to prototype using polycarbonate sheeting and an aluminum framework available in our machine shop. In this case, the request for aid evolved before we produced a prototype. The anesthesiologist reported that the existing boxes were unwieldy and took up too much space, so instead requested a solution for supporting clear plastic drapes to achieve the same purpose and be easy to store. Matthew Fiedler proposed a combined 3d printed base and a bent aluminum frame for the project. Design work is ongoing and we will update this post as the prototype develops.

Are you a healthcare professional needing a COVID-19 related equipment solution? Please reach out to us at info@re3d.org to begin coordination. Should you wish to purchase any of our COVID-19 designs. They’re available in our online store: https://shop.re3d.org/collections/covid-19

Interested in supporting existing efforts to fight COVID-19? See below for how to help in Austin, Houston and Puerto Rico.

Austin

There is a huge maker community that has sprung to action to support the 3D printing of PPE here in Austin and the surrounding areas. One of the largest efforts is being run by Masks for Docs (masksfordocs.com), who are actively soliciting donated face shield prints, assembling the shield, and distributing them to hospitals, health clinics, nursing homes, etc – all around the Austin area. To help with this effort, re:3D will be collecting donated 3D printed face shields in drop-boxes at two locations, Brew & Brew and the Draught House Pub.

If you have a 3D printer at home or work & want to help out in the Austin area, you can access the Face Shield Design here.

Recommended Print Settings:

PETG is preferred, but PLA is completely acceptable if you don’t have PETG or are not able to print with it.
3-4 solid top/bottom layers
.3mm layer height
5 Perimeters (AKA Shells or walls)
0% Infill

More Info: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Cp4UixV3F0hVC99WrSXGiN4wDg0cF17enzbBSWp3gSE/edit?pli=1

Drop off boxes can be found at:

Brew & Brew

500 San Marcos St #105, Austin, TX 78702

The Draught House

4112 Medical Pkwy, Austin, TX 78756

Houston

TXRX and the amazing maker-community continue to organize face shield collection around Houston. We are donating 3D printed face shields as well as hosting a community donation box for makers in the Clear Lake area who are printing the face shields at home. At our factory, the batches are consolidated and sent to TXRX for assembly and distribution to hospitals and first responders in the Houston area. To date, over 1600 face shields have been donated from the Clear Lake area – keep it up!

More information and the design file is available here.

The Clear Lake drop off box can be found at:

re:3D, Inc.

1100 Hercules

STE 220

Houston, TX 77058

Puerto Rico

The maker community, including a few Gigabots have done a fantastic job collaborating in San Juan & beyond. We are currently collecting requests for those in need of PPE and sharing opportunities to connect with Engine-4 and Trede’s efforts in Bayamon and additional efforts. If you live in Mayaguez and would like create face shields to be assembled with sheets that have been donated to Engine-4, a drop off box has been established. A UPRM student has also initiated a Slack channel to share other needs. Email info@re3d.org for access.

The Mayaguez drop off box can be found at:

Maker Chris’ house at:

76 Calle Santiago R Palmer E, Mayaguez PR 00680

https://goo.gl/maps/aBp2M2AcA9T9AnqF7

If you live outside of these areas and/or are seeking ways to contribute, A Form to Volunteer is Available Here. We will be responding to inquiries this weekend and doing our best to facilitate introductions:)

Charlotte craff

Blog Post Author

3d printer 3d printing Austin Community coronavirus covid-19 covid19 gigabot healthcare houston medical devices medical equipment Open Source prototype prototyping Puerto Rico

Gigabot Engineering Updates – February 2020

Over the last few months, our engineering team has made some iterative design changes to both our Gigabot 3+ and Gigabot X 3D Printers.

Parts modified are:

Gigabot 3+

10063 GB3+ Bed Side Plate
Z-Axis Stepper Motors
11907 GB3+ Acme Flange Nut Cup
11093 GB3+ X/Y Upright

Gigabot X

11377 GBX Stepper Driver

View the video below to find out how they’ve changed!

3d printer engineer engineering gigabot Gigabot X

Optimizing the Properties of Recycled 3D Printing Materials

Below is a repost produced by 3DPrint.com last year, which highlighted our first peer reviewed paper on Gigabot X. You can view download the research, along with other papers under the Gigabot X section at https://re3d.org/gigabot.

In an attempt to mitigate the environmental impact of 3D printing, several organizations have taken to creating recycled filament, made not only from failed prints but from water bottles and other garbage. Inexpensive filament extruders are also available to allow makers to make their own filament from recyclable materials. Not only does recycled filament help the environment, but it also helps 3D printer users to save money and be more self-sufficient, making the technology more viable in remote communities.

3D printer manufacturer re:3D has been working on making their Gigabot 3D printer capable of printing with recycled materials, for the purpose of helping those in remote communities to become more self-sufficient. In a college paper entitled “Fused Particle Fabrication 3-D Printing: Recycled Materials’ Optimization and Mechanical Properties,” a team of researchers used an open source prototype Gigabot X 3D printer to test and optimize recycled 3D printing materials.

In the study, virgin PLA pellets and prints were analyzed and compared to four recycled polymers: PLA, ABS, PET and PP.

“The size characteristics of the various materials were quantiﬁed using digital image processing,” the researchers explain. “Then, power and nozzle velocity matrices were used to optimize the print speed, and a print test was used to maximize the output for a two-temperature stage extruder for a given polymer feedstock. ASTMtype 4 tensile tests were used to determine the mechanical properties of each plastic when they were printed with a particle drive extruder system and were compared with ﬁlament printing.”

The Gigabot X showed itself to be able to print materials 6.5 to 13 times faster than conventional 3D printers depending on the material, with no significant reduction in mechanical properties. This is significant because each time a polymer is heated and extruded, whether during the filament creation process or the 3D printing process, its mechanical properties are degraded. One option to reduce degradation, the researchers explain, is to 3D print directly from scraps, or particles, of recycled plastic.

The Gigabot X was also capable of 3D printing with a wide range of particle sizes and distributions, which opens up more possibilities for the use of materials other than pellets and filament. The processing of the materials was minimal – they only needed to be cleaned and ground or shredded. Mechanical testing using tensile strength was performed and showed that the polymer properties were not degraded; however, the researchers suggest that further mechanical testing should be performed to test properties such as compression, impact resistance, fracture toughness, creep testing, fatigue testing, and flexural strength.

There are a few limitations with the prototype Gigabot X, including lower than normal resolution in the XY plane. Due to the high heat transfer rates from the large contact area of the printer’s hotend, parts that are less than 20 mm x 20 mm cannot be 3D printed reliably. The Gigabot X also currently lacks a part cooling system, so it is limited in the geometries of parts that it can print. However, it is still a prototype, and so can be considered a work in progress.

Authors of the paper include Aubrey L. Woern, Dennis J. Byard, Robert B. Oakley, Matthew J. Fiedler, Samantha L. Snabes and Joshua M. Pearce.

Gigabot 3+ Updates for Fall 2019

re:3D’s Research and Development team never stands still, and while we’re developing the next generation of your Gigabot^® and Gigabot^® X 3D Printers, we’re continually looking for ways to refine the current iteration’s user experience, precision, and quality. As of October 1, 2019, all new Gigabot^®3+ 3D printers ship with the below enhancements. Current Gigabot^® owners can order these as replacement parts that are fully compatible with previous versions.

Major Changes

LED Light Cover

To enhance user comfort and safety, we’ve created a full length 3D printed cover that fits over the top of the front-mounted LED light strip.

Printed Extruder indicators and part numbers

Our Unibody Extruder design, which was released this past spring, as well as our Filament Detection units now features numerical hot end indicator labels for a visual aid for filament loading. Additionally, these and many other 3D printed parts now include part and revision numbers. Not sure what a part is called? Search our store using the part number or share the part number with customer support to help streamline troubleshooting communication.

FIRMWARE RELEASE VERSION 4.2.3

Our newest iteration of Gigabot^®3+ firmware has been posted at re3d.zendesk.com along with instructions for how to flash your firmware. This firmware update includes the following changes:

Increased electrical current to X and Y motors to prevent layer shifts.
Decreased filament feed rate during the Filament Change routine for easier purging.
Minor Bug Fixes

Fit and Strength Adjustments for Polycarbonate 3D Printed Parts

The following parts have had material added for improved strength and durability:

10870 Extruder Tensioner Left
10871 Extruder Tensioner Right

The below parts have had their designs modified for better fit or print quality:

11157 Gigabox Magnet Bracket 1
11245 Gigabox Magnet Bracket 3
11158 Gigabox Magnet Bracket 4
11159 Gigabox Y Support Magnet Bracket
11238 Gigabox Enclosure Corner Cap
10511 XY Upright Cover
11251 Filament Detection Cover Right
11252 Filament Detection Cover Left
10599 Filament Tube Connector

We’ve upped the durability and longevity of our head cable and added 3D printed wire separators inside the cable carrier to protect the electrical wiring as it rolls and unrolls during normal Gigabot® operation.

Under the category of non-3D printed parts, we’ve thickened our bed plates to improve strength and rigidity. The square, left and right leveling blocks attached to the bed frame have had fit adjustments. We’ve also adjusted hole spacing for Gigabox Enclosure panels and split the top panel on the Gigabox Enclosure into two pieces. This improves manufacturing quality as well as increases modularity, as one piece can now be removed for venting or other customizations.

Do you have an improvement or a design change you’d like to see for this or future versions of Gigabot®? Fill out our New Feature Request form and share your ideas with us!

Charlotte craff

Blog Post Author

3d printer 3d printing engineering firmware gigabot Gigabot X

Grinding Away at GBX: Investigating Printing Materials

This month we have tested a variety of printing materials with the GBX, including recycled PET pellets, grocery store bags, plastic Starbucks cups, and polycarbonate manufacturing waste. And our in-house failed prints and supports? Instead of going into the trash, we’re granulating them into PETG, PLA, and polycarbonate regrind for GBX printing.

A big hurdle for printing with regrind is identifying particle characteristics– size, sphericity, etc– for optimal printing. Using the open source software ImageJ, we’ve determined the ideal particle size to be around 3mm in length, but further testing still needs to be done. For more information on the particle analysis and feed tests, check out our forum posts: ImageJ Particle Analysis and ImageJ Circularity Analysis and Feed Tests

Helen Little

Blog Post Author

The Power of Printing With PETG

We’re excited to now sell PETG at re:3D! Why do you ask? I sat down with Co-Founder and Head of Technology, Matthew Fiedler, for some Q&A on the power of 3D printing with PETG. Read below, check out some video footage of how we are using PETG at re:3D and tune into our inaugural Meet with a 3D Printing Engineer live session next week no matter where in the world you are to chat with our 3D printing engineers live and bring any questions you may have.

Why is re:3D releasing and deciding to sell PETG now?

“Polyethylene terephthalate Glycol is an interesting material for FFF AM because of the enhanced material properties compared to the most common filament, PLA. PETG exhibits high layer to layer bonding strength, slightly elevated Tg of 80C over PLA which has a Tg of around 55C. PETG also allows better light transmission which can be a great benefit for parts that require visible light to pass through them.”

What do people use it for?

“PETG is most commonly known as the plastic used in water bottle and soft drinks containers. In 3D printing, it makes an excellent breakaway support material for parts printed in PLA. The opposite is also true where you can use PLA as breakaway support material for parts made in PETG.”

What are some unique advantages of PETG?

“Parts printed in PETG are also slightly more flexible than those made from PLA.“

What have engineers done with it at re:3D to date?

“We show several videos on our YouTube channel how well it works as support and raft material (like this video). In pellet form, we use PETG with Gigabot X to produce skateboards, decorative interior design pieces and a basket for coffee pickers in Puerto Rico. (You can watch Gigabot X 3D printing a vase with PETG here.)”

What are some of your favorite prints or examples of 3D printing with PETG?

“My two favorite are Gigabot X produced interior design vase because of the stunning visual and light qualities of PETG and the coffee harvest basket for the coffee farm in Puerto Rico.”

Any additional context or pre-emptive answers to questions people may ask about materials?

“You can purchase 5lb and 15lb spools of PETG in our online store. You can print PETG on your Gigabot with a nozzle temp of 235C and bed temp of 60C. A thin coating of Elmer’s X-treme glue stick on the PRINTinZ surface will provide excellent adhesion. You can use the same print speed and layer heights as PLA. We have created a special Simplify3D profile for using PETG and PLA together. You can download it from Zendesk here.”

Have more questions for Matthew on 3D printing wit PETG? Tune into Meet with a 3D Printing Engineer next week via Facebook for a live session with him. Also, if you’re as excited as we are about 3D printing with PETG – watch videos on our YouTube and buy PETG online at shop.re3D.org!

Buy PETG online at shop.re3D.org!

Cat George

Blog Post Author

3d printing engineering filament Gigabot X PETG

Skating on Water Bottles

This post is a follow-up to this one on the Gigabot X pellet printer. If you haven’t checked it out or watched the video, start there!

We know you’ve been dying to know what on Earth our Gigabot X pellet printer prototype was printing in the last update video, so we’re here to deliver!

Without further ado, the reveal.

The slick design was dreamt and drawn up by one of the students working on Gigabot X material validation at Michigan Tech University. Our team was really excited about the idea of printing the board using one of our favorite new materials we’ve been testing: recycled PET.

Giving water bottles a second lease on life as a fun, functional object? As Robert put it, “You know, we had to do it.”

We went through a few trials of the board, snapping a couple of the earlier prints due to the design being a little too thin or not printing it with enough infill. We thickened up the design and increased the infill percentage to make the board a little sturdier, leaving us with a roughly six and a half hour, five pound print.

After popping on some trucks and wheels, re:3D Engineer & Resident Skater Jeric Bautista took the board for a spin behind the Houston office.

Jeric gave the board his stamp of approval. “The skateboard was really fun to use,” he said. “It was smooth to ride and the PET made it nice and springy, which is similar to normal skateboards. Seeing firsthand the functionality of recycled plastic was definitely very cool.”

Keeping plastic bottles out of landfills by giving them a new life as functional objects? That’s something we can roll with.

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

3d printer 3d printing Design engineering enginering gigabot R&D

Gigabot X Update

Hot off the 3D printing press, it's a Gigabot X update!

It’s been about four months since we closed out a successful Kickstarter campaign for our pellet printer, Gigabot X, on April 23rd. Since we last touched base with you, our engineers have been hard at work making improvements to the design for our Kickstarter backer beta testers.

The main focus of the redesign has been the extruder, which has been completely overhauled over the last several months. There’s a new metal extruder body, improved wiring of heaters and the external motor driver, and a redesigned screw for more consistent extrusion.

Some previously 3D printed components within the extruder body were switched to metal for the purpose of durability. Originally printed for ease of testing modifications, our engineers found that some components weren’t lasting as long as they’d like to see due to the tremendous forces being generated within the hopper as the screw extrudes pellets. Now that the design of certain pieces is more final, we started machining certain components in metal to better deal with wear and tear.

The modular, 3D printed hopper has also seen significant changes. With the previous design, our R&D team found that the amount of pellets being pushed through by the screw was much higher than they expected – and wanted. They increased the size of the hopper to slow down the rate, which also provides the dual benefit of not having to replenish the pellets as often.

The first Gigabot X prototype took a trip up to Michigan and is currently residing at Michigan Tech University, where a group of students are performing material testing research as a collaboration supported by our NSF SBIR Phase I. Some of the materials they’ve been validating include PLA, PET, polypropylene, and ABS, in both recycled and virgin forms. One of our favorites we’ve been printing with is recycled PET, better known as the common disposable water bottle.

Michigan Tech has also done us the incredible service of creating improved Slic3r profiles for these materials. The profiles are working fantastically on the new Gigabot X in the Houston office, and we’re seeing improved quality of prints thanks to them. Backers will benefit from these profiles, which have improved the overall printing experience greatly.

Another thing our team is particularly excited about is that the MTU students were also able to 3D print with multiple sized pellets and have also been experimenting with printing directly with ground-up plastics with success. These results were then submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, and we would love to invite the community to check out the research in Materials. You can also share questions and comments with us on the Gigabot X forum by creating an account and logging in.

Testing of Gigabot X is still ongoing and small tweaks continue to be made, but things are moving along well. Over the next three to four months our team will be rounding out testing, cleaning up and finalizing the design and documentation of the machine, and getting the first bots ready for backers. Our team is really excited for the moment that we get to put this technology into the hands of our early adopters.

As re:3D R&D Intern Robert Oakley put it, “I’m really looking forward to seeing what people make with it… It’s really cool to see when people start figuring out how to use our printers to make cool objects that we haven’t thought of before.”

Stay tuned for an upcoming post about what Gigabot X was printing in the video above!

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

New 3D Printed Parts (Polycarbonate unless otherwise indicated)

Gigabot® X

Terabot

New Metal Parts

Gigabot® X

Gigabot® 3+

Fit and Strength Part Adjustments:

Gigabot® X

Gigabot® 3+

Terabot

Electrical Updates

Face Shields

Hands-Free Door Pulls

From Intubation Box to Drape Stands

Major Changes

LED Light Cover

Printed Extruder indicators and part numbers

Why is re:3D releasing and deciding to sell PETG now?

What do people use it for?

What are some unique advantages of PETG?

What have engineers done with it at re:3D to date?

What are some of your favorite prints or examples of 3D printing with PETG?

Any additional context or pre-emptive answers to questions people may ask about materials?

Hot off the 3D printing press, it's a Gigabot X update!

Gigabot^® X

Gigabot^® X

Gigabot^® 3+

Gigabot^® X

Gigabot^® 3+