Most 3D printers have a fairly small build envelope. The Makerbot, which is one of the biggest for home use, offers 29.5 L X 19.5 W X 16.5 H CM and others hover around that range. The $499 OverLord ProPlus[1], on the other hand, has a cylindrical build volume of 17 by 26 cm which means you can print surprisingly long and surprisingly tall objects with this wacky delta arm printer.
A delta arm printer uses three belts that drive the print head on all axes. A central filament spool hangs out on top of the machine and you print onto a round heated bed. It prints gcode files which means you have to use a program like Cura – an open source modeller – to spit out the right code. Ordinarily this would be a deal breaker for me as I like to have a dedicated piece of software for each printer but, thanks to the work of the 3D printing community, tools like Cura have become increasingly easier to use.
The printer will cost $1,059 after Early Bird pricing.
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To print you simply download a model, set up Cura with the OverLord’s specific site and height, and then run the slicer. Simple shapes take about an hour to print and a massive Tower of Pi I downloaded took about 27 hours.
Crowdfunded printers like this one have often gotten a bad rap which is why I asked to see it before the end of the campaign....