extra axes and the continuously rotating Z-axis!
The small examples shown in this article took
around 5–15 minutes to slice.
Users can also decide on the printing speed,
nozzle temperature, and extrusion rate. Since the
long brass nozzle takes quite a while to heat up,
we recommend waiting about 2 minutes after the
temperature is reached before starting the print.
In Rhino the user can simulate the printing
process by moving the simulation slider. This is
very important because in 5-axis printing, the
nozzle may collide with the rotary bed, so you
need to visually assess that there is no collision in
the simulation. You can also adjust the retraction
height to ensure that there is no collision.
To minimize the contact angle between the
nozzle and the substrate we employed an extra
long brass nozzle made by Nonplanar.xyz.
3D PRINTING WITH A TWIST
The primary aim of the Open5x project was
lowering the entry barrier of 5-axis 3D printing.
For this, we developed a 5-axis conversion kit
that can fit onto the Prusa i3 but can also adapt
to many other printers such as the Ender-3.
Most multi-axis 3D printers are out of reach for
individual makers because they’re too expensive
or need too much space and structure to operate;
we wanted to create hardware that could invite
more makers into 5-axis 3D printing research.
Freddie Hong/Open5x
In addition to hardware, we understand that
for many users the absence of a 5-axis slicer is
the bigger barrier. Therefore, we also focused
on creating a 5-axis slicer that looks similar
to the existing planar 3D printing slicers with
Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). The Open5x
project is still at an early stage of development
and is not completely automated, but already we
can showcase that it’s possible to do 5-axis 3D
printing on the desktop.
Going forward, we’re working on improving
the current slicer and implementing some new
hardware. We are very happy to invite interested
makers to contribute to the Github repository. We
hope this project invites you into 5-axis to produce
some unprecedented 3D printed objects.
OPEN5X TEAM: Freddie Hong, Steve Hodges,
Connor Myant, and David E. Boyle. 2022. Open5x:
Accessible 5-axis 3D printing and conformal slicing.
2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems, Association for Computing
Machinery, doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519782
Check out our YouTube playlist at
makezine.com/go/open5x-playlist for
more details on the whole project.
5-axis 3D printing a vase with conformal pattern.
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