I just ran my big delta at 1000mm/s (using a smoothie board) doing a marvin in PLA in under 10 min, quality was rough but it was a really good speed test, I’m now going to up the acceleration further, here’s a link to the vid
As you try to print faster, a high static speed isn’t really the major factor on how fast a machine can print, it’s acceleration. Your actual speed is quite likely never being reached (especially on smaller parts) due to acceleration limits. Just want to clarify that.
Fast moving delta machines are wonderful, but the limiting factor is often how fast you can extrude the plastic, not how fast the machine can move. A commonly recognized print volume upper limit for most extruders is around 8 to10mm3/s. To figure out how fast you’re trying to extrude your plastic you simply multiply your nozzle diameter with the layer height and speed. So for example, if you’re printing with 0.2mm layers at 60mm/s you would do: 0.4*0.2*60 = 4.8mm 3/s. You might be able to exceed an 8-10mm3/s volume of you really crank up the heat on the extruder. If you don’t, you will encounter rapidly increasing extruder feeding pressure which will cause extruder skipping or filament stripping. However, the problem with higher extruder temperatures is that you risk decomposing the filament and jamming the nozzle tight as a drum when the extruder stops feeding filament.
When you see someone claim they can print at some outlandish speed - do the math. The current extruder technology has limits that can’t be violated.
I havent myself but im seeing a lot of praise for it on the g+ communities. Only reason I havent got one though is because the majority of what I print needs high resolution and with the volcano you are sacrificing resolution for speed and strength.
The volcano is an exception - sort of. By that I mean that if you have a print nozzle the size of a hot glue gun, you are obviously going to be able to extrude much more volume per second. But I think that most of us would like to have more resolution - not dramatically less.
One point worth noting is that PLA can be pushed farther than ABS, Nylon, and most other filaments. PLA has a significantly lower viscosity at printing temperatures. But, there are still limits. PLA seems to strip easier than ABS at high feed pressures.
My biggest speed gains came from increasing nozzle size to .5 , increasing layer height to .48 and changing extrusion widths in various points of the slice. I make 3D printed boxes all day long…thousands.
The Volcano is great… however, the basic thermodynamic laws become the limiting factor. With a 1.2mm nozzle and T-Glase material (2.8mm), the heater struggled to maintain 280c at more than a 30mm print speed. We were able to print 5lb models in 20hrs.
