Summary

BALUB MAB = BAMBU LAB upside-down : A little something we came up with to solve ongoing problems we were having. 

In  the past we have used Bambu printers to fulfill high volume 3D print orders for clients. However, the relatively small bed size of the printer meant that someone had to always be on hand to switch out the plates and start the next print run. Plus, these printers tend to create a lot of plastic waste, which falls out the back of the printer. This requires setting aside space behind the printer to collect this waste, and then having to clean it up occasionally.

Many people online have come up with clever and sophisticated ways to “automate” these printers, but none of these solutions were able to fit within the tight space constraints we had to work with. Our solution was weird but simple: flip the printers upside down. 

Testing showed that the Bambu printers were able to print upside down without any noticeable loss of precision, and that plastic waste which used to go out the back of the machine was now falling straight down out of the inverted open top of the printer, which made the waste easier to collect within our space constraints.

By raising the printer off the shelf, we can allow for large parts to be printed upside down using the entire listed print volume, and then have them detach and fall out of the print volume in order to start the next print job without ever having to open the printer door. Finished parts detach either through a loss of adhesion when the plate cools, or through modified G-code that has the printer head bumping into the finished part to knock it loose.