I’m looking for a way to build a 3D printer with fiberglass printing capability such as Markforged Mark One. I haven’t seen any alternatives to that one, so I was wondering if there are any extruders out there that support fiberglass printing at all? Ideally I would order a kit and then modify it in a way to add additional extruder for fiberglass, but I’m not sure what option would be the most viable. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Hey,
just like you I’ve only heard of the Mark One being able to embed continuous fibre into printed parts. If you’re really looking to mod an existing design to do this, brace yourself for some experimenting. The Mark One uses essentially a dual extruder design, one for dispensing just nylon, the second one for nylon + fibre. Then there is the fibre feeding and cutting mechanism, accompanying firmware changes to control them, the custom slicer to embed the fibres… If this printer does what you need it do I’d advise against trying to put something like this together by yourself.
Sincerely,
Jonas
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I own 3 Mark Forged prints, two mark 1 and a new Mark 2. I also own over 2 dozen FDM or SLA printers personally, so I feel I have a very firm grasp on various ranges of capabilities of 3D printers. The Mark Forged Mark 1 v2 (with the newer extruder ) are really in a class of their own. Looking at my Rostock v3 or makerbot z18 next to the Mark Forged printers, you could easily physically identify the quality difference in build and construction. I’ve built many 3D printers and those I didn’t build, I modified heavily, from code to hardware. The Mark 1 and 2 have an extremely intricate dual extruder as well as fiberglass auto cutting system. I literally mean that every component within the extruder AND every single surrounding component is machined and precise. It’s like comparing a Porsche to a Mustang…one is quality German engineering, the other is redneck tooled, mostly plastic, garbage. The fiberglass, Kevlar, or carbon fiber filament, is exclusive to mark forged as well…and no, proto pasta CFs not even close to the same concept. I’ve raved about how consistently reliable and precise the Mark 1 and Mark 2 can print. I’ve prototyped and printed parts that are currently in space, under the sea and used in combat, and while I may have used the other 3D printers to print the drafts, the alpha stage prototype part is always printed on one of my Mark Forged printers. Sure I sound like a Mark Forged salesman, I’m not, I just wanted to chime in and say " if I believed that a comparable printer could be built for a relatively cheaper or even similar price, I’d have done it". However the Mark forged finds itself in the same place as a Glowforged, its vastly better in hardware and software than anything else in its price range.
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Just keep in mind, the Markforged printer does not melt the fiber…it softens the material as it passes thru the print head, adhering to the nylon and dragging it in the desired pattern until the fiber strand is out. Every piece of fiber is done this way.
