The Upside-down 3D Printer Experiment - 2015

I've been told that FDM printers work in any orientation... Let's find out!

I printed 3 spheres in regular, side and upside down orientation to see if it had any effect, good or bad, on the print quality.

Yes, I know regular SLA and DLP printers work upside down, but that's different! :P

Enjoy!

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[HattoriHanzo]

Mount your printer on the wall to save desk space :)

[maammoos]

hehehe an Australian puts his stuff upside down hehehe

[pdadey]

Angus - this video was featured on Kralyn3d's channel. He is actually building a DYI open source upside down printer. Must say the features are impressive and well worth checking out.

[fieldauditservices]

LMAO! Brilliant! Now, have you tried printing in a moving car with the printer in the back seat? LOL

[CraigMarauder]

A blast from the past, so sorry for opening up an old discussion. Here's an interesting thought. One very clear difference when you flip the entire printer is buoyancy. Hot air rises, and I find myself wondering if this could be an alternative solution to part warping. Instead of having a full enclosure, put the printer under a hood that traps the warm air from the bed and extruder. The part would then be in a bath of warner air, slowing down the cooling. Electronics can me located outside the hood to keep them cooler. I'm going to run an experiment myself, but would be really keen to see you tackle this too...

[zakrob]

Yay! You really are uploading more videos now! Love the idea :)

[KartondonCoder]

I think it would be better to print something that requires alot of bridging. Such as a hollow cube.

[It-b-Blair]

Sooo... you’re also saying I could make 3D prints on an oceanic crossing? 😅🤪 great video!

[akr]

I was wondering if printing upside down does anything for you and not having to use supports, I e gotten mixed feedbsck about it, so I mounted my cr-10 max on the ceiling, can't tell you how it prints because it won't home, the gantry just wants to go with gravity and keeps creeping away from the bed, even the BL touch keeps trying to prove thin air, actually I cang even manually move the z axis to the bed? Is there some sort of mercury switch or something on these printers telling it if it's upright or not? Great videos btw!!

[learnmakeforget]

the practical use is to print medium to large abs part with small Hight in vertical position so it auto eject when bed cool down, + saving space on 3d printing farm

[MrWobling]

Crazy but kind of cool 👍

Exactly the kind of question my son would ask too...

[mystlegend]

What are those colored things in the build plate?

[kistuszek]

I see a potential benefit.
This would make things like the morgan and even large corexy printers possible, (without sag) if the head could be supported on a roller or slide on a planar surface underneath the head.

[franktkalcevic]

I started thinking about this today, with respect to high speed printing. Most high speed DIY printers are core-xy with all the movement at the top, requiring a very rigid case. Flipping it upside down would solve these problems, if it printed correctly.

[wingunder]

After all, this was not at all such a silly video, as "kralyn 3d" just released a video, showing off his own designed and built "Positron V3" upside down, core XY printer. This, in my opinion is a major step forward in 3d printing, as one major issue gets solved by this: The gantry is fixed at the bottom of the printer, reducing the need for massive stable frames, like the SK Tank and Voron V2, for instance have. It was under our noses and we didn't see this single, major advantage of printing upside down. I guess that there's going to be a race to get the first d.i.y., upside down 3d printer out onto the market. @Angus, could you try some upside down prints on a core xy printer and check out what the effect of the gantry, having a very low center of gravity, has? Try using a core xy printer with the least stiff frame, so that we can see if the vibration on the gantry is less with a lower CG. Thanks 👍

[fletcherluders]

Awesome, I was hoping I would would find a video about this after hearing about NASA printing in zero G.

[PanDiaxik]

I think it would help more with bridges

[redgiredgi]

how about the nozzle leaking .. is it better ? i think to multe color printing :D i have an issue due to nozzle leaking i think ... when i change the filament and start printing again it didn't print for some X mm (multi color single extruder) im working to fix it but the idea of printing upside down came to me :P

[AsherSolomon_en]

What if someone built a 3D printer that can orient itself, instead of printing a bridge, the printer would rotate 90° then just have a vertical line. It would definitely need to know how much would droop so it could compensate but I think it could be manageable.

[CJPrinting]

you could do the same with a pritrbot play. its all packed together with sheet metal.