MakerGear Forum

Interesting article.

http://phys.org/news/2015-11-revomaker- ... .html#nRlv

Huh! Turn the object for printing....cool idea. (Reminds me of rotisserie chicken!)

Dang, they got to my idea before I could work on it.

I was thinking about something I could use to print on a curved surface like a glass, so replace the X axis with a spindle, like a lathe, and then just adjust the Y and Z axes to match the surface. I figured it was probably unworkable without an optical Z-probe.

On the other hand, I was thinking about going further than what the RevoMaker is doing, and trying to print an entire object from the center outward in cylindrical coordinates. Probably it would require an axle down the middle which may or may not be removable. I doubt it would be easy to print the central axis in mid-air, even if rotating it to keep it from sagging.

The RevoMaker seems rather too special-purpose to be worth the price of an entire printer, no matter how cheaply they can make it (and their prototype looks pretty expensive).

Seems like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

In that example you could just print the cover for that mouse that goes over the box.

I had an idea along similar lines to yours, Tim, but as a hybrid of cartesian and polar. If you imagine a conventional 3-axis machine with a second extruder mounted horizontally on a second (for example) Y-Z axis, such that it had access from the center of the build plate to the edge in Y and have access to the complete build volume in Z. Add a turntable to the build platform, and you'd have a machine which could print using a regular 3-axis build plan, print up a spindle and then add material radially to that spindle, or build up material arbitrarily on and side of a given part. At least in theory, no need to touch off the part to add material with the second extruder so long as you have good dimensional accuracy in the print.

Complicated for what it would do, though.