A Cable Robot 3D-Printer

The video presents a cable driven 3D-Printer, based on the parallel kinematic delta plattform. The machine uses dyneema fishing line as cables and a custom kinematic model running on the 'smoothieboard' printer board.

Carbon fiber preloading rods are used to keep the cables under tension, providing the necessary stiffness and allowing for rapid accelartion.
The parallel kinematic design has potential benefits for large workspaces.

[DiffractionLimited]

The project (software, firmware and 3D models) will be put on github, as soon as I find some time - so if you are interested stay around.

[jamespray]

This is very cool and novel! I had the thought just before you said so that "This might be decent for scaling!" There are so many offsets and radii involved in the cable drives that I'm impressed you got calibration down to 0.2mm inaccuracies ... those could easily be due to component tolerances or frame being slightly out of true, although printing the second build with the first build when the first wasn't proven accurate could also have something to do with it :P All in all, super-impressive. Thanks for sharing!

[adamklosterman]

If you look around on the internet there was a cable delta years ago that used a single rod for even more weight savings. Wanting to say it was around 2013-2014.

[christopherd.winnan]

Scaling up is definitely the way to go.

The end effector on the cables at the FAST Radio Telescope in Pingtang, China weighs 30 tons, so you still have a fair way to go yet.

[BRUXXUS]

Wow, this is wild! Love this concept and your execution and ground up work on everything is incredibly impressive!

[jeremylutes]

Excellent work, and very inspirational. Thank you for sharing it ! It has got me thinking of ways to adapt this to a table-top CNC router (for woodwoorking). I live in a very warm and humid area which is not kind to linear bearings of any sort. Your design eliminates them entirely.

[JaroslavGerman]

Very nice engineering! Would be nice to have a comparsion to a regular delta. Probably the cable-version is much more cost efficient at huge scale...

[julianbinder]

if you haven't heard of it you'll probably love the hangprinter

[A-scketchy-otter-lol]

if you need insparation the positron v3 uses cables

[tsanov]

Now that is something you don't see everyday !

[KeksZero]

Use Dyneema cord and an Gyn tackle or Threefold purchase to limit your drawbacks

[bschwand]

You can simplify the kinematics and maybe get rid of those last inaccuracies by modifying the winch in the following way:

Instead of winding the cable on a cylinder, use a screw. Like a trapezoidal thread screw. The cable rests and winds in the thread. The screw rests in bearings and is guided by a nut ( or, use ballscrews to get both ). Therefore, the winch axis slides axially on each turn by screwing into the nut, keeping the cable exit stationary, instead of moving about slightly ( like is shown in your kinematic model )

[vincei]

I'm so early this is still 360p. I'll come back a little later. Just FYI, the speed of the audio on this seems to vary a lot. It's very strange.

[tapirath]

what's the advantage compared to a rotary delta robot? like in pick-n-place machines?

[neverwipe]

Awesome. Im not highly experienced with cable driven motion. Why choose a polymer cable over a stainless steel one here? I guess creep isn't a big deal since they're preloaded with a separate spring that can account for creep right? Cheers

[phonix]

Wow I cant eaven get the calibration of my normal delta printer corect. The delta radius is always of casuing not all parts of the print to stick to the bed and it sometimes just speeds up for no reasen and generaly does wierd stuff. And you wrote a custom calibration software and kinematics wow

[FifthBroadcast]

Looks great! Will you publish the design anywhere?

[jameshouse]

Thank you for sharing! Question, what program did you use to model the kinematics?

[aaronmarkstaller]

Woah nice. Can you share the kinematic visualization code? That looks sick. And calibration does it send to the printer from that window widget?

[Brocknoviatch]

That is awesome! Would love to see a speed benchy printed on it.
If you were to build one today, how much would it cost?