

The fact that a conveyor belt 3D printer can be used for continuous printing offers two main benefits – the ability to mass-produce small models and the ability to print extremely large models. Conveyor Belt 3D Printers Uses & Applications If you have this, which could be anything from a beam at the printer’s height or a set of rollers in front of the bed, then you can print objects with no length restrictions. Of course, prints would eventually fall off the belt, but this can be avoided simply by having a support structure in place. The hot end is suspended in the CoreXY gantry and travels within a titled XY plane, whereas the belt travels along the Z-axis, meaning it can in theory print objects of infinite length. The Z-axis build plate itself is placed with a conveyor belt, meaning there is infinite build potential along the Z-axis.ĭuring printing, the belt pulls prints away from the nozzle. In a 3D belt printer, the machine the X and Y axes are rotated at an angle rather than being parallel to the build plate. If you’re unsure what these mean, read: the main types of FDM 3D printer The angle is typically 45 degrees, although it can be smaller.

Whereas a standard Cartesian frame has its top tilted sideways, 3D belt printers have a CoreXY gantry in which one side is tilted down. However, they are different from other FDM printers, such as Cartesian, polar, Scara, and delta models, as they use tilted nozzles. This is where materials are fused together by melting them just past their glass transition temperatures and then layering them on top of each other to create an object. How Does 3D Printer Belt Technology Work?Ĭonveyor belt 3D printers use fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology. So, how exactly do they work and in what kind of situations would a 3D printer belt suit you? Let’s find out. Several other companies have since followed suit in exploring conveyor belt 3D printing, although these types of printers are still currently restricted to just a few manufacturers.Īlthough these printers are more expensive than regular ones, they have intrigued many 3D printing enthusiasts, both hobbyists and professionals. Conveyor belt 3D printing is still a relatively new technology that came about in 2017 when the Dutch company Blackbelt 3D released its first model.
