14 DAY TRIAL // Delta 3D printers are 3D printers with three arms connected to universal joints built into the frame. 3D printers are the most popular kind of delta robots, and it so happens that the largest of them ever made has made an appearance.
Delta robots were invented in the 1980s in order to make manufacturing processes easier all around. They have three arms connected to the base and can perform the same action again and again very quickly.
Delta printers are a sort of evolution of that concept, as they have three robotic arms attached to the frame, which they use to move an extruder (which does the actual printing).
Still lacking a name, the 3D printer, which was invented by Japanese company Genkei, is over 13 feet tall (4 meters), putting it at more than twice the height of most people.
And we thought that the metal 3D printer from Sciaky was large, and that the new invention from Qingdao, China, was impressive for its ability to print full-size wax sculptures of people.
Clearly, the 3D printing industry is a place of overachievement, where every company is hard at work outdoing all others in some fashion or other.
Genkei worked together with people from the Tokyo University of Arts and Design to develop this huge 3D printer, and will put the product on display at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music Museum.
The exhibit will be opened on Saturday, July 19, and will stay open until August 8. Enough to see it perform its first 3D printing act perhaps.
You see, the inventors still have to assemble the thing within the museum's premises, and they can't just press a button and have it start working right away. Instead, they will have it dry running for three to five days, and only then begin actual 3D printing.
In a way, it was about time that someone from Japan did something major in the field of additive manufacturing. Even though Japan has been at the forefront of many technological developments, it has, oddly enough, been rather inactive in the 3D printing field until now, at least when it comes to inventing them.
The real innovation isn't the size, however, but the extruder system. Instead of plastic filament spools, the Genkei machine will use pellet extrusion via an extruder wider than those used for normal PLA filament. It remains to be seen if the unnamed printer is commercialized after the exhibit closes.
