WASP (World’s Advanced Saving Project) is not just your average 3D printing manufacturer. With its roots in the world of Open-source, WASP manufactures professional 3D printers with the aim to encourage sustainable development and in-house production.
DeltaWASP 3MT
WASP’s continuous research on extrudable materials led to ceramic, porcelain and even cement printing. Their latest project, ‘The WASP Maker Economy Starter Kit‘, shows this company’s future vision. A future where all the machinery you need to build a house (and furniture) fits in one container.
One of the components of the Maker Economy Starter Kit is a DeltaWASP 3MT – a huge delta 3D printer.
We are honoured that we get to test this large scale 3D printer. We’ve been printing with it for almost a week now and here are our first impressions.
The Arrival
The 3MT was delivered in a large wooden box. Un-assembled of course because with its 3 meters tall it wouldn’t be very economical to ship it as a whole.
The total package weighs around 300Kg so make sure you have a forklift to unload it. In our case a forklift wasn’t available, so we had to open the box and take out the pieces one by one.
The Setup
Massimo Moretti, founder of WASP, helped us with the setup. In total it took about 2.5 hours and you’ll need at least two but preferably three or four people to install the 3MT.
The hardest part was the leveling of the bed. A bed as big as this is pretty difficult to calibrate. But don’t worry, you only have to do it once.
Tips & Tricks
The 3MT we are testing has a granule extruder for plastic pellets. It prefers pellets with a diameter of 2mm by 4mm. We’ve been getting really good results with PLA pellets from Formfutura.
The combination of the large 3mm nozzle and the use of pellets make the 3MT function best in spiralize / vase mode.
It’s no problem to make a ‘normal’ print as long as your model is a simple geometric shape. When it has to leap between multiple elements (like the legs of a chair) you’ll get strings, see picture below.
To be Continued
Next week we’ll have some projects to work on. We’ll be printing ornaments for a French monastery and various chairs and vases.
