The Good And Bad Of Large 3d Printers

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With the recent releases of a few large form factor i3 printers, I wanted to run through some things to consider. 3d printers have come a long way over the years but there are some things you should know before picking up one of these large machines. My goal is not to scare you out of getting one but to at least make sure you know what you are getting into.

Video links:

RCLifeOn Cr-10 Review Video:

Elegoo Neptune Pro Max (AFF):

Creality CR - M4 Printer (AFF):

Sovol SV04 IDEX Printer (AFF):

Teaching Tech Closed Loop Stepper Video:

Tom's 0.6 Nozzle & Arachne Engine Video:

Modix Printers:

Storm Trooper Armor:

Marlin Z Fade:

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Lets Get Social!

[atlredninja]

Cannot stress enough, having enough space as a prerequisite! My CR10 Max sat for 6 months in the middle of the garage because of how much space it commands. Love the printer but it takes up quite some space.

[deltatango]

I'm surprised that you didn't mention two things:
First, I have an Ender 5 which solved some of the issues you mentioned by having the print head move on the X and Z axis, and the bed only moving on the Y axis. No matter how big or heavy the print gets, there's fewer of issues you mentioned, and much less shaking of the printer due to the increased weight. Plus, it has a smaller footprint.

Second, I haven't tried this yet, but you could use a UPS which would eliminate brownouts, and keep the printer running during a blackout. As long as the blackout isn't several hours long, it should eliminate the associated issues.

[AndrewAHayes]

The original CR-10 is the largest bed slinger I have bought and I knew that was the largest I was going to go with a bed slinger, I needed a larger build area so I built a Pro 3D V-King 400 from self sourced best quality parts and then I bought two Ender 5 Plus machines, I read far too many problems that people were experiencing with large format bed slingers for me to change my mind regarding getting a larger bed slinger and I am glad I did.

[donham]

I'm just glad you're not an idiot cuz a lot of people will talk about the product but never give you the name now I know the name and you gave me good information on the dimensions especially when the bed moved back and forth I approve of this message

[tactikool]

Dude I feel like you were in my browser history and saw I was debating on getting and Elego large printer. I have seriously been going back and forth for two weeks on rather I want one or not. The one thing stopping me is they are out of stock. The other thing stopping me is I already have a Frankenstein CR10. So I have a large FDM but not with the fancy stuff. Thanks for your take on this topic.

[soggynode]

I use a CR-10S4 to build large functional parts and it works well for that purpose. I added a Microswiss direct-drive hot end, a TH3D ABL sensor, a silent mainboard and replaced the glass build surface with a thin sheet of G10. With the upgrades, it's a solid, reliable printer that fulfills a need. I doubt I would want to use as a daily driver though. It looks pretty silly printing a CHEP cube.

[lv_woodturner]

I have a CR-10S purchased in Feb 2018. I thought I would need the build volume, but so far all the items I have printed could have been done on a 200x200x200 build volume. My bed was not flat when purchased and is still not flat. Not a surprise. I do not think the warping has changed over time.
Hence I do not have a use case for these large bed slinger printers. If I replace my CR-10S, I would look at a CoreXY machine just to get a smaller overall footprint.

[stinson]

instead of relying on power loss recovery, get a UPS! I run dual 1500VA battery backups on my large printer, one for the controller and one for the dedicated bed heater circuit. I run a Modix Big-60 V4 IDEX, so adding on $500 of battery backups to a $7000 printer is well worth it. but my building also has redundant generator backup so the printer really only has to make it through the 30-60 second generator spin-up time.

[petercasper]

Fantastic video as always modbot! I have a couple of large ones aswell as the small ones. They all get used equally, but for the mostly, the big ones are the work horses. I don't double up the prints. One item per printer, I know some will say that is inefficient, but in the long run it just works.

[ScytheNoire]

Large scale printers should have a bed that only moves on Z axis, or not at all. Whipping parts back and forth is a horrible design.

[tedh]

I am pretty happy with my LK5 Pro as I have only once ran into not being able to print what I wanted to print. I also have a E2 Pro and I really like this printer. It pumps out some really nice prints. I only print as a hobby, but nevertheless it is super nice having two printers.

[automatinger]

i used to have a cr-10-5, which was a nightmare. it arrived damaged, but creality did not recover the damage. in the end just gave a low percentage of the money back for the pile of thrash they sold to me. I will not by anything form Creality anymore.

[brettvitaz]

I have a CR-6 Max (400x400) that has been mostly decent. Most of the print failures were due to poor planning, not due to the printer itself. I use 0.6-1.0mm nozzles for everything on that printer.

[WhereNerdyisCool]

I don’t trust filament runout sensors and I also don’t like having that cold joint between paused layers. Definitely suggest larger spools, like Colorfabb Economy or others.
Bed slingers haven’t innovated as much as I had hoped. Maybe machining the bed mount holes to compensate for thermal expansion. That’s what we did at work with our big Modix 120’s

[hassosigbjoernson]

Many people say that most of the time they print smaller things that would fit onto a 200x200 or even 160x160 build plate! That's why I think, two printers are really a good way to be flexible in that manner: a small size Ender 2 Pro/ Prusa Mini or similar which would be "big enough" for 85%+ of all prints and maybe a Sovol SV04 (that you showed with not only the bigger build plate but also some other aspect like IDEX for 2 color/ material prints. With that you also gain "more speed" by printing 2 parts simultaneously. *The fact that would also be interesting would be energy costs or savings with a second smaller printer!"

If you always heat up that large bed for printing small things the size of a benchy or android figure than a mini printer on sale for like 120 bucks (Ender 2 Pro) should easily be more efficient over like 3 - 5 years and 2 prints per week, shouldn't they?!
The downside (as you explained very good in your video) is space. And although a mini printer is like very compact it still needs the space especially when using a dry box for filament.
But if someone regularly prints parts and also tinkers with the printer and is installing mods, the option to always use the second printer - if needed - could become very handy.

So my take on this would be a small machine like the Ender 2 and a bigger one with IDEX and maybe an closed build volume for ABS/ ASA. *I wonder if Creality or Sovol would be launching a Core XZ machine (for easy enclosing) with at least a 300 x 300 plate and IDEX next soon?!* ;o)
With that newer tool heads from the Ender S1 Pro and a Raspi4 with Klipper (or Sonic Pad) that could be very competitive against a fast but otherwise "standard" and expensive Bambu Lab.

[doro]

This reminded me of the whole tevo tarantula experience when I got one years ago. Thinking of getting an enclosed 3d printer that can do ABS now.

[jfulton-ak]

I have a Kickstarter Creality CR-6 Max which sports a 400x400x400 build volume. It is a beast and does require a huge footprint. Creality utilized a 42-60 through-shaft stepper with a belt gear on each side of the stepper with 2 belts driving the bed to try to overcome the issues involved with slinging so much weight. This caused several issues as you cannot get the belts 100% in sync with each other so they constantly fought against each other trying to causing one another to ride up the ribs on the belt gears. At slow speeds it was not bad, but at quicker travel speeds above 150mm/s, the printer would horribly vibrate. The full buildplate is heated and at 24vdc, it heats fast for such a large bed. The strain gauge probing has issues and I have made many, many modifications to the printer, enough that I could have built a voron for the price I paid for the Max plus the price of the parts I bought to upgrade it. I'd recommend anyone to go coreXY when going large format, the bed-slingers just are not worth the trouble. Not only is is difficult to sling that bed around, tall support material vibrates as that bed slings back and forth causing issues including falling supports.

[akfreed]

Thanks for the pros and cons of big printers . I was thinking of getting the elegoo max

[flamy]

Thank you for explaining what fade height means. I saw the option in Marlin, but never found this particular description in the documentation.

[iamdmc]

Ender 5 Plus is a cube style non Core-XY that provides a huge build volume. If you add on an S1 extruder and klipper you can actually take advantage of big build volume and making parts in a reasonable amount of time.
Bed slinger i3's just can't get that fast