World’s First INDUCTIVE Hotend - How Crazy IS IT?

[@justanothercomment416]

My brother has wanted this for more than a decade now. About time someone finally does it.

[@PrintingPerspective]

Yeah, it is cool to see companies that try new things. :)

[@lynxxlynxx]

It just has to get a bit cheaper than 400$/€ now :|

[@justanothercomment416]

@@lynxxlynxx ouch

[@thorgraum1462]

Same!

[@hanswurstusbrachialus5213]

@@lynxxlynxx We just need the support.. cheaper hardware will float the market later. But by all means.. an induction heater is easier built than a cartridge heater :)

[@Theprofessor1212]

Zero gap supports are a dream come true. I hope we get this in future built into 3d printers and slicers.

[@wesleyfraser3058]

Have had it for a long time with PVA and a second nozzle. At $400++ USD for the INO hotend, a second extruder is way way cheaper, even with having to buy a second board and all the other bits.

[@mzb8134]

@@wesleyfraser3058 I prefer the sharpie method, no changing material

[@JohanDegraeveAanscharius]

@@mzb8134 oh? Tell me more? What is that method?

[@pvc988]

Such fast cooling would fix that annoying oozing too. It takes couple of seconds for oozing to start. If hotend cools down before that, oozing wont happen. Quite useful for prints that need to be interrupted. For example when embedding parts or adding reusable support to get those perfect bridges and flat overhangs, no matter how big they are.

[@EmmeryCheung]

That's a great point. Would be awesome if @PrintingPerspective could showcase some stringing tests too.

[@brettzolstick989]

Lowering temps when printing bottom layers on supports is a really cool idea. I guess there's no reason it can't be done on regular hot ends too, it would just need to wait for a bit while the hot end cools down.

[@MrGarkin]

move head to the side and blow it with either part cooling fans 100% speed, or a standalone cooler for the purpose

[@earthwormjim]

@@MrGarkin No need, extruding filament is the best cooling method for the hotend. Just lowering the temperature target on the fly while extruding filament should drop the temperature almost immediately. The first few lines of support might be at the normal print temperature, but after that the temperature should drop to the new target. This temperature purging could even be done into the infill.

[@nocare]

It honestly annoying that you can't already do this because Orca slicer allows cooling fan settings for support interface. So you can already run cooling on the support layer to reduce its adhesion but you can't change temp.

[@qwer.ty.]

​@@earthwormjimthat's really a good idea !!

[@MrGarkin]

​@@earthwormjim Still like my solution more. Infill would affect layer adhesion and would be painfully spaghetti to code in the slicer. Even several hot strands in the support layer could work, but also could still be too sticky. Would be good to test. In good fast modern printer jerking to the side and back would take a fraction of a second and is needed only for a contact layer.

[@SlinkySlonkyWaffle]

this is something ive been thinking about for YEARS, and everytime i brought it up i was met with "who cares about heating speed? the bad takes longer anyways" or "its not necessary, shut up!!" ;-;

[@PrintingPerspective]

The heating and cooling rate is insane on this hotend, it broke my hotend cooldown scripts that I had before, haha!

[@SlinkySlonkyWaffle]

@PrintingPerspective xDDDD nice. Ive always wanted to DIY something like this coz i love designing my own printers

[@marguskevinsunter]

I've had similar thing with lots of improvements in 3D printing I think it's overall 3D printing community thing. Where suggesting improvements is unwelcome for whatever reason

[@xilw3r]

The primary reason is that control options open up, to aim not for uniform print temerature in the nozzle, but the part itself. So you will get best layer adhesion, while not getting a goopy mess

[@xenontesla122]

@@marguskevinsunterYeah, I think it’s best to ignore them.

[@kitcarlson6033]

An inductive coil in toolhead, would enable drop-in nozzle/heatbreak with filament for multi- filament printer. Having drop-in extruder like on yt Engineers Grow, would result in great MM system.

[@PrintingPerspective]

That is a great point

[@crashingsux]

Would be super nice (if the price was brought way down) for multi-toolhead printers to not have any ooze on the waiting toolheads and not have to wait for them to heatup. Now it's a balance between ooze and heatup time.

[@kitcarlson6033]

​@PrintingPerspective I hope you can take ideas further. I am old, I just want to see 3D tech progress in simple but robust way. I like your idea of temperature adjust. Low thermal inertia by eliminating heat block is good. I have thoughts on inductive controller, reducing it's footprint may be nice.

[@See-essEll]

@PrintingPerspective There are a few things that immediately come to mind with a rapid changing temperature. First: Use this with ColorFabb (foaming) LW-PLA to rapidly change the density of the material printed. Second, an older technique was using temperature changes to "paint" a second finish on the surface for embossing. This was a thing years ago, but I'm having trouble finding the references to it now. Third, is when using a single-nozzle multi-material print, it would allow for using materials with very different temperature ranges together.

[@KilianGosewisch]

the length of the meltzone will act as a lowpass filter on the foaming filament. just because you cool down the hotend the filament won't "defoam" so you have keep that in mind. heating up shouldnt be a problem in the same way

[@paradiselost9946]

"having trouble finding references now"... yet people also tell us "once online, always online"... they obviously dont look into enough subjects!

[@raphofthehills4405]

Last month MIT released the results from research into filaments that change color, shade or texture depending on temperature. Creating astonishing parts as if they had changed filament between areas. Using 2 heads: one that lays down filament, the second does "speed-modulated ironing". Wondering now if could just use 1 inductive fast heat / cool to a similar effect ? Title is "New 3D printing technique creates unique objects quickly and with less waste"

[@PrintingPerspective]

@See-essEll Those are great use-case scenarios, thanks for the input. It is always nice to read great ideas :)

[@See-essEll]

​@@KilianGosewisch With some slicer tweaks, I would use LW-PLA as two different filaments. Print at "solid" temperature, lift from the print, heat up for foamy temperature, and do the standard priming tower. Now, at the second temperature, printing the foamy infill. You'd want to remove any code that actually retracts or changes the filament, as you're only after the temperature change and priming. Once you're done with foamy infill, lift, reduce temp, and hit the prime tower again before continuing.

[@barnowl6807]

A few years ago at work we were trying to make some very precision silver solder joints on thin SS. We needed a FAST solution. After some thought I built a very crude device that consisted of a thin wall copper tube with a coil driven by a large audio power amplifier (400 W RMS). The (round) solder was fed into the tube and would melt immediately. This apparatus was placed in a crude holder mounted over the SS piece that was heated on a hot plate. Pushing the solder would extrude very hot silver solder onto the workpiece in a well controlled manner that produced a very acceptable joint. The work was done on a milling machine table for precision X-Y location. Crude but effective. This was before 3D printers were someone's dream. Amazing what kind of potential in 3D printing we have today.

[@paradiselost9946]

surprising an audio amp can get the frequency required... most roll off around 40khz, if that... most commercial heating units ive used ran in the 100khz region. one was 900khz. specifically for doing thin wall stuff. gets into eddy currents and how they circulate, or are even induced. not denying it, i wasnt there? but i suspect you may have simply been using resistive heating. 400W into a low resistance is going to get hella hot, regardless of frequency! (ignoring skin effects...)

[@Egzoset]

@@paradiselost9946 There's Class-D Hi-Fi audio rated for 96 KHz, floating capacitors simplify filtration even further. In addition the man does mention using a « thin wall copper tube »...

[@Hayaweh]

I've got one of those a while ago and honestly, I really like it. My only "complaint" is that the trident shape of the tips protecting the coils can grab on a print if it fails. I had my little scare with that but beside that... It's fantastic

[@pauljs75]

A clever feat from the industrial sector applications of this tech is taking advantage of the Curie point of the alloy used for inductive heating, so it never exceeds the designed maximum temperature. Once the alloy heats to a certain temperature, it loses the magnetic properties needed to continue heating via induction - thus it caps out. So it has an inherent fail-safe that doesn't need any electronic controls past that of a basic induction driver. If the company behind this is smart, they will have used that property as part of the design.

[@peterkiss1204]

The problem is, it doesn't rely on ferromagnetism, but purely on eddy currents. People use induction heating to melt or weld non-ferromagnetic metal parts which way exceeds the thermal range of printing thermoplastics. Unless you use a magnetic switch and an alloy with a certain Curie point to shut down the heating at that certain temperature, only the thermal equilibrium will define the temperature the nozzle will heat up to.

[@ABaumstumpf]

" it loses the magnetic properties needed to continue heating via induction " But that is not how induction works. Neither copper nor aluminium are ferromagnetic - both still get heated up by induction.

[@pauljs75]

@@ABaumstumpf References are a bit tricky to find on KZbin, but "Metcal - The original SmartHeat Soldering inventor" has an overview of some aspects of it. Another video also said the inductor driving it has to be pulsed at a high frequency between 30KHz and 50Khz for that particular effect to work. So it's likely some combined properties in the process to create the self-limiting effect. You may be able to find other references relating to mold-injection and other industrial heaters for manufacturing. Mainly it seems the goal of all that is to hit a fairly specific temperature in under 1 second and not overshoot. And that has its uses.

[@Egzoset]

Japan Analytical Industry patented their 'Curie Point Pyrolyzer' in 1969, their 'PyroFoil' Curie alloys cover 21 temperatures going from 160 °C to 1040 °C, providing a 764 °C rise with reliable +/- 0.1 °C accuracy in less than 0.2 second... Though it's designed for Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography applications run with a 48 Watts driver @ 600 KHz. In comparison my old Demeyere ControlInduct fry pan fitted a Salton 1400 Watts IH Cooker and stabilized around 250 °C, but much slower because of the huge additional mass. In any case i'm dreaming of the day we're finally done with the 2008-2009 Mazzilli over-simplified asian "modules" and start having framed-signal generators that "kick" the resonator complex then "listen" for a fundamental frequency to lock on it and drive at full power.

[@slacksthegreat]

Clearance not tolerance. i want people who want to learn to learn the correct terms. Tolerance is the amount thats acceptable. Clearance is how much space there is between two parts. example a part with a clearance of 0.01 can't be printed on most printers. A part with a tolerance of 0.01 means it can be bigger or smaller and still fit for the project.

[@PrintingPerspective]

Yeah, you are right, thanks for a reminder :)

[@crashingsux]

Very interesting results. I firmly believe that one of the biggest areas 3d printing will improve in the future is with our thermal modeling of the process and this was nice to see just a tiny hint of what could come. I think some people may have missed the important of the fact that what you demonstrated was not just better supports, but better supports without impacting the layer adhesion of the rest of the printed part on that layer as would happen with pausing the print, or printing extremely slowly with lots of fan for the support interface. I found it truly impressive. The flow rate though was simply not enough for my printing use.

[@PrintingPerspective]

Yup, new technologies like this in the 3D printing space make me feel optimistic for the future, there are so many possibilities. :)

[@songhan1586]

there already industrial high temp printers that do that, they 3d model the heatmap of the entire print and slow or accelerate the print for perfect temps on each layer and section.

[@sb53-systemssc28]

@@songhan1586 More about?

[@crashingsux]

@@songhan1586 Absolutely, I want to see that in the hobbyist space.

[@Wilier1]

Love this. Maybe our chinese fellas can make a high flow version :D

[@PrintingPerspective]

It will be interesting to see how this technology evolves. :)

[@crashingsux]

The flow was really disappointing to me as well.

[@Kevinjimtheone]

Exceptional content. Bravo. I loved the variables' breakdown, how different options affected the print, and that the Plasmics team response superfast with a beta firmware that fixed OP's issue.

[@BeefIngot]

This is really cool and I hope they license out the tech widely rather than having it trapped in crappy "enterprise" machines. The print quality changes are great (especially if integrated well by manufacturers like Bambulabs, QIDI, Prusa etc). What really excites me however is the possibility of pressing print and having the print start in less than a minute especially with the new Cryogrip, Super Tack and other new extra sticky plate technologies.

[@PrintingPerspective]

For now, I only see induction hotends like this being used to print PEEK with high-temp chamber printers, but if technology advances and becomes way cheaper and more high-flow, rapid heating would be a very nice thing to have.

[@TeoHarlan]

Very cool tech. Appreciate your thorough breakdown and testing of its capabilities!

[@AkilJacob]

This on a dual head printer like the upcoming H2D from bambu would be part of my dream printer. 350Zx350Yx400X build area, 2 of these hotend that go up to 500c, 80c heated chamber, 120c build plate, stronger belts with lower belt pitch for around 2k-3k is as close to an endgame fdm printer for a prosumer IMO.

[@mmouse648]

Yes, it would be great except that with the current nonsense from Bambu requiring ALL data go through their servers and reserving the ability to cutoff your printer at any point (following HP's ink subscription model). Very few companies will be comfortable with such a machine, especially if printing proprietary "top secret" design work like in rocket engines and the like. Most hobbyists will not be able to afford such a beast, it will be marketed to industry, and they wouldn't put up with such a data grab license. Heck I'M not happy with this turn of events and Bambu's attempt to close the system entirely!

[@ygk3d]

Great video! I really appreciated the detailed testing and exploration of potential applications for this technology.

[@boygofastboys]

let’s give printers a thermal camera and A.I. to monitor heat buildup/dissipation in the part and change temps automatically to things consistent.

[@sb53-systemssc28]

👽

[@john1182]

still need accurate heating and cooling, with current printers it will increase pint quality but print tme too and the price of the printer. A more accurate thermal probe would be more accurate and way cheaper then $300+ worth pf thermal sensor

[@camcodex]

Very good implementation! Congratulations...

[@stratos2]

The fast temperature variation is amazing, that enables so many cool things. I'm reminded of that one Gcode post processing script that allows for variable temperature based on feature size

[@WillPower311]

It definitely think it's a game changer and something that is needed. I believe induction is very useful and probably more effective.

[@briannewman6216]

Inductive heating of nozzles is a significant improvement over the resistance heating of hotends. 3D printing is continuing to improve.

[@mouserr]

this looks promising and could really change how some prints are done lets hope slicers adapt to the quirks of this kind of hot end

[@PAPO1990]

when firmware and slicers can take advantage of this without me having to go in and change a bunch of stuff every print, I will be VERY excited to get one, in the meantime, I just don't want to fiddle quite that much with each print to get the best out of it. Though it does still seem like a nice, small upgrade in more basic ways as well, faster heating times are nice to have all around

[@andrewcureton8216]

This is how the hobby has worked from day 1. Guys like this trying things out and having to do funky things with gcode and slicers to get it to work for the first time, and then some time later its a standard slicer feature and hardware is easy to find.

[@PAPO1990]

@ oh, I know that, that’s exactly WHY I made the comment I did, it’s bound to happen eventually, I just hope it doesn’t take too long 😛

[@andrewcureton8216]

@@PAPO1990 yep

[@raphofthehills4405]

Last month MIT released the results from research into filaments that change color, shade or texture depending on temperature. Creating astonishing parts as if they had changed filament between areas. Title is "New 3D printing technique creates unique objects quickly and with less waste". Uses 2 heads: one that lays down filament, the second does "speed-modulated ironing". But am now wondering if just 1 inductive fast heat / cool nozzle could be used to a similar effect ?

[@PrintingPerspective]

That is pretty cool. If it would work depends on what temperatures ironing is done, but I feel like it is way easier to use another clean close close-ended nozzle for ironing.

[@tahustvedt]

Sweet! About time someone did this.

[@wktodd]

One interesting use case for induction heating might be to have a auto-changer that just swapped the hot-end assembly leaving the induction heater in place on the extruder thus requiring no electrical contacts or flying wires.

[@gaming_laboratory]

Awsome, lets see if we can do the same with the bed in the future

[@TommyHoughton]

Awesome, I'm always happy to see some fresh hotends, this one looks especially cool too.

[@1stRanger]

Most of this went over my head since I know very little about 3D printing. However being an engineer I get the idea and I think it looks promising. Hopefully one day we'll see this as a part of a complete printer kit.

[@Mobikas]

Even with resistive heating the slicers could implement a feature where it waits and cools the nozzle before a supported layer achieving these same results. Cool vid

[@uhu4677]

Absolutely!

[@drt5665]

Maybe some version of this could even be DIYed? Its not like making a small copper spool is difficult. Encasing it in HT-Ceramics might be a tad tricky though

[@Vasim122]

@@drt5665 One could just take a normal hotend, cut away radiator panels and reduce thickness of the hotend's tube on a lathe

[@crashingsux]

Sort of, by doing that you are letting the whole layer cool down, which means you would not only reduce the layer bonding of the support interface, but also reduce the layer bonding of the rest of the print, which is never what anyone wants.

[@SaHaRaSquad]

​@@crashingsux Maybe still possible in some cases where you'd first print the supported regions, then increase the temperature and print the rest of the layer. Though that would mean waiting for temperature twice per supported layer.

[@technicallyreal]

Hoping this becomes standard tech on the next-gen Bambu and other printers!

[@darkracer1252]

i deffinatly do not want this on my bambu.

[@REDxFROG]

It's a complete joke.... BambuLab don't build slow printers

[@Foreign_Tropical]

At 425 dollars a pop, I really do!

[@foyjustice7212]

If this can be made as easy upgrade on pretty much any printer then truly a game changer.

[@yannismarle7797]

What a way we've came in hotends especially affordable for hobbyist .. not so long ago we were using Water pressure washer nozzles modified to print nylon brush cutter wire.

[@thedevo01]

Damn, I think the popularizing of induction hotends could be even bigger for the 3DP scene than leveling sensors! The benefit of fast cooling means that extrusion rates and printing speeds could be adapted to physical features (of the printed objects) even better.

[@dutchsailor6620]

I think it's great. The main advantage I see is in a dual feed, single hot end setup where you could use two different materials within their own temperature window.

[@ManjaroBlack]

One more idea with induction heating: add iron to the filament. This could potentially solve the bridging issue where an inductor is activated to melt the previous layer for better bonding. Could have other benefits too.

[@aaronhunter7026]

I was wondering the same thing myself. Add metal particles to the filament and heat it directly.

[@vondarycrentsil9180]

How come I never thought of this, this hotend is awesome

[@charlesstaton8104]

4:23 the hotend controller was never intended for such rapid temperature changes? Really? What was it designed for then? Just so they can say they have the only induction hotend? Rapid temperature changes is the *_ONLY_* reason for this to exist.

[@rikimaru6811]

you are replying to a shill. Of course he had to make excuses for everything that looks a bit negative.

[@charlesstaton8104]

@@rikimaru6811 idk I think he was just being too generous. If he wanted it to look awesome he could have just not mentioned any of those experiences.

[@rikimaru6811]

@@charlesstaton8104 having SOME form of negativity (that ultimately are non-issues) makes it appear more like an authentic opinion, while it's not.

[@PrintingPerspective]

It doesn't mean you are right if you can't find any other reasons why it would be an option for industrial 3D printers. Plasmics don't even advertise anything related to variable temperature printing. If they did and it didn't work properly it would be a completely different story. You want me to act like Linus Sebastian when he shit-talked the Billet Labs cooler... That is not happening. What it is - is a missed opportunity at the product launch.

[@charlesstaton8104]

@@PrintingPerspective myself and others have talked for a long time about variable temperature printing and wished someone would make an induction hotend for this purpose. Then someone made an induction hotend, but not for this purpose. And that alternate purpose remains unstated? What is the purpose?

[@maxdon2001]

Great video!

[@GhostlyGnome-iq9wl]

Its the Future! Expect induction hot ends on professional printers soon. Commercial printers will follow afterwards. Given how fast the technology has ramped up since Bambu labs stepped in companies are more competitive with there bells and whistle offerings. Like the Prusa Core One with variable chamber temperature so you can print pla with the doors closed. Its inevitable that variable print temperatures will be marketed by a competitive company looking to impress the professional demographic with the advantages demonstrated in this video. Maybe even Prusa?

[@infernoamv7198]

That’s the Solution for multimaterial printing with very different materials like Pa12 and Pla in one model

[@51m0_official]

This feature also could be really useful when printing filament like varioshore tpu that can change density based on the temperature, I hope this could become standard in 3d printer and slicer. For now would be useful a script that can add a change in temperature to a modifier parts..

[@thecamarokid4230]

This is super sick.

[@TheRossWilliams]

Great step forward, would be great when combined with the CHT nozzle so you are heating inside the melt zone.

[@Splarkszter]

The fast cooling is HUGE. Variable temperature prints will be awesome!!!

[@degreeless_engineering]

I have a coil top stove. The coils eventually warp. I wonder how these elements will hold up to the constant changes in heat. The fixed temp + 0mm gap is very interesting, thanks for sharing!

[@reyalPRON]

5:33 thats why we use different materials for support interface. like petg for pla and so on :) makes support removal a joy. pva is also a unicorn polymer that ppl forget about.

[@Ender_Wiggin]

very cool tech. love to see it better integrated

[@3dPrintingMillennial]

I've been working on a similar hotend but now someone beat me to the punch 😭 Looks amazing though!

[@802Garage]

Funny I was just thinking about using different temperatures for infill, inner walls, and outer walls a week or so ago. You could maximize layer adhesion for everything but outer walls with higher temps and improve surface quality and overhangs with lower temperatures. This style of heater could make that much easier to accomplish.

[@declanb6985]

This is dope! It's the future!

[@mhmatbig]

so cool!

[@3nginuur]

Awesome. Can finally do peek plastics reliably.

[@theaninova]

At almost 500€ it's definitely way out of my price range for a hot end, but I'm really excited to see these become more affordable. The rapid cooldown would be a godsent for toolchanger builds. At that price I also don't really see the appeal of zero gap supports, since you could get a toolchanger/idex and use pla/any any/pla for support interface.

[@craigrogers8182]

This could open up new possibilities for single hot-end multi-material printing. For example printing with PLA and using PETG for the support interface. Often this is hard due to lag in temp changes.

[@drkzilla]

The support interface looks amazing

[@PrintingPerspective]

Mhm, it looks insanely good :)

[@Ruhgtfo]

Very impressive design

[@Martineskuelpl]

In orca slicer I believe you can choose a different material for supports, so if you choose that option and lower temp and custom g code for filament change to eliminate actually filament change it might work

[@bokunochannel84207]

this'd really shine in industrial set up

[@PrintingPerspective]

yeaaah

[@xenontesla122]

I’ve been trying to see if I could print both soft and hard varioshore filament in one part, but the limiting factor has been how quickly the hotend can heat and cool. This could be very useful in that regard! I also wonder what it would do to metal infused filament…

[@PrintingPerspective]

Yeah, that is a good idea. I thought about metal-infused filaments in a way that the induction heating would also melt the metal shavings inside the filament. However, it would require high-temperature filament and magnetic metals with a low melting temperature. So it is not realistic.

[@1kreature]

"This was an effortless print even for..." He said showing us two failed prints. No amount of corrupted overhangs is acceptable in vaze mode. That is the whole point, getting a perfect surface all the way. Fun that someone finally commercialized a inductive heater though. I've had my DIY one for 5 years though :p

[@tetsumai2]

Well damn, I just upgraded my hotend, now i have to go buy another :O

[@leoneldossantos4071]

Super cool idea, i've been waiting for a long time for a review of this hotend and it looks great. I'm thinking about an easy way to get the interface layer temperature handled by the slicer. You could use a multimaterial approach with T0 and T1 in klipper that just does temperature changes and in orca slicer use the second fake material as the support material. I don't remember if the support material can be set only for the interface layer or if it can be specified separately for supports and interface layer. if not possible this approach wouldn't be as good as the entire support would use a lower temp, maybe not acceptable. Also modeling the interface layer as a separate object could be an option and use again the fake material only for these. Just some ideas, hope they make sense.

[@tristin5723]

You could quickly reduce the temperature on filament swapping. It would reduce plastic waist and make the swap more reliable.

[@colincampbell3679]

The trouble is, 1 > the hot end is very tall and fixed in the standard placement on the X gantry it will take away allot of the Z height when printing. 2 > also the setting up of the lost height for the Z height will make Z height adjustments harder when on a smaller printer! 3 > the elephant in the room bit, COST, all specialized and often new hot ends cost tons of money compared to standard hot ends. 4 > also the extra cost of the specialized control board and extra cooling. So it seems a nice new way for more controlled heating of the hot end, But at a bigger cost and more needed controlling systems. This is why many new types of hot ends etc. don't make it into the mainstream of the hobby. Not everyone has tons of spare cash to buy the newer stuff. Those who do, bang on about how great the new toy is, often shaming the rest of the hobby users by saying why don't you buy it? Forgetting that not everyone is well off and can just buy the best stuff. It looks good, But it be again a elitist thing due to the amount of cost to upgrade the printer and I am sure the extra cost and trouble to change the printer to work well with it. So if your the type of person whom love to try it and has the money then great! The rest of us who don't have the money or skills to take it on, we will just keep as we were thanks.

[@Alan_Hans__]

I actually suggested to a youtuber who is trying for a sub 1 minute benchy that he used an inductively heated top end many weeks ago. At the time I had no idea that the thing existed.

[@kentswan3230]

Very interesting. The ability to print with rapidly changing hot end temperature has all kinds of possibilities. I'm thinking of multi-material printing with a single hot end like the Bambu lab's printers. Hot-end changer printers can benefit by printing specific layers of material at temperatures optimized to where they are in the print cycle or geometry. Will require some interesting enhancements to the slicers.

[@ZenMuff1n]

I've actually been wondering about this recently. Wanted to upgrade my nozzle and hotend and thought ceramic stuff + some longer nozzles was pretty interesting when a silly idea of inductive hotend came to my head. But since I'm not a rocket doctor(and already ordered parts for the upgrade) I'll wait for this tech and scripts for it get better.

[@the3dprintern]

That heat up time is nuts!! Can't wait for the price on this come down and reach normies like me.

[@indyguy04]

Seems like the same effect could be achieved by limiting print speed to whatever would provide optimal layer adhesion at any given temperature or if layer separation is desired optimize for that. So the feedback comes from the temperature in real time and there's no complicated g-code.

[@moodberry]

I think induction makes sense i the 3D printing world. But you rightly pointed out that slicers need to catch up with that tech. Maybe the hotend makers themselves can work with slicer companies to produce this. I was disappointed though that you didn't show us with this hotend working with a Bambu printer.

[@hjaltesrensen8214]

Its definately an interesting idea. One can also Imagine that its way better at heating the entire hot end and giving opportunities for extremely high flow. I wonder how well it would do with filament with metal inside 🤔

[@riba2233]

Very interesting tech, thanks for showing :)

[@PrintingPerspective]

Glad you liked it! :)

[@mrMara5a]

You can control nozzle temperature by Extrusion role command if your slicer has "Extrusion role change" custom G-Code section. Orca and SuperSlicer have that. It's just a question of several IF statements (eg. IF extrusion role = bridge then temperature = print temperature-20) ELSE temperature = print temperature

[@RobertD_83]

Seems like you might be able to clone a filament profile with lower temperature for support interface layers and change the filament change routine to make it think it actually changed filament but really just lowered the temperature. Idk how well it could be tailored to still be able to use single nozzle multi material on the same machine the rest of the time though. Maybe something to look into

[@mikecrane2782]

Very interesting development - I'm pretty sure you can post process the slicer script to reduce temperature on bridging, but it be nice to see this as an option in Orca, or for support mode interface layer settings etc

[@PrintingPerspective]

Yup, there are so many cool and useful things that slicers could add.

[@RNMSC]

Induction hot ends have been one of my visions of where we're going to need to go for improving print start up times. That's a small added cost, but it is a cost, and if we are able to easily tune temps to improve flow, that sounds like it would also help with print times. The zero gap transition layer is also something I like the idea of, but I'm wondering if we can improve on that by using alternate materials for the transition layers as well, Not sure what that turns into on the more engineering filaments, but we're already seeing some of that with pla/petg transitions for support, so it's likely to end up being a bit of experimenting. One of the main benefits would hopefully be not having to get higher priced support filaments if you can print support with something already in stock.

[@paradiselost9946]

i almost exclusively run ABS. i generally have to preheat the bed 10 minutes in advance. the hotends ready to go virtually immediately... 30 seconds or so. no big deal. waiting for the BED to heat is where i find the most frustration, especially when the print fails in a few layers, and stopping lets the bed cool down just a few degrees... the last few degrees taking the longest to reach. its a nice thing to do PLA and eliminate the wait, but it rarely serves my purposes...

[@RNMSC]

@@paradiselost9946 Id on't know what printer you're using, but I do know that there have been a number of printers that use s SCR to activate a 120 or 240 volt bed that may help with getting up to temperature faster. I'm not saying it's the best solution, just something to consider if you're using something that's running purely on 24 volts for all heat, including the bed. Best of luck.

[@paradiselost9946]

@@RNMSC the current one (tronxy something) is nowhere near as bad as the first reprap i had years ago? meh, i rarely use the full 400x400... ive contemplated just using four 200's, just use one for most prints... but i dont do enough printing to justify it... hell, i havent even opened the box up or fiddled with the firmware yet...

[@TheMustafaC]

genious idea

[@florianmaslofski]

wouldnt this also allow us to the heat the tiny inside bit on splitting nozzles better?

[@SlinkySlonkyWaffle]

@@florianmaslofski yes! But itll also be the hottest part of the nozzle and could be far hotter than desired. Since the thermistor wont be near that lil centre we wont know.

[@PrintingPerspective]

Yes, if the bit inside would be ferromagnetic. That is a good idea. :)

[@cakilas8966]

Not very well, induction heating has limited penetration depending on the frequency. Look up skin effect. It's also not very important anyway, as you can see from some of CNC Kitchen's videos on high-flow nozzles. The thermoplastic is far less thermally conductive than just about any metal and is therefore the limiting factor, hence the splitting for more surface area. I believe the only advantage of induction heating is the low thermal mass of the heated area giving more control over temperature.

[@dmitribovski1292]

As soon as it get's slicer support from one slicer they will all need to follow. How much less power did it use?

[@spokehedz]

Being able to change the temp for multi-material prints (MMP) accurately and quickly might make single-nozzle MMP because you won't have to 'wait' for the hotend to get to temp. Probably less oozing as well, as you can just put the hotend into 'warm' mode and not actually hot. I dunno. Still neat, kind of like the soldering iron tech.

[@tablatronix]

Making induction coils lightweight is a feat

[@TheRossWilliams]

At the moment with a normal hotend you could model areas that need support or bridging as a different material, then make another filament profile with a lower temperature. In only takes a few seconds to cool down or heat up 30 degrees. Much faster than an actual filament change on say a Bambu Labs AMS

[@kurtnelle]

Any method for rapidly controlling the melting temperature and minimizing the size of the melt zone is a boon. I just wish it didn't cost 400 euros. Perhaps some hybrid design is needed. A resistive heater brings the filament to a controlled temperature (e.g. 80% of target) and then induction to heat it to the precise final temp.

[@syluxdev]

I hope bambu lab implements it in their upcoming flagship printer

[@bedrock2]

Now we need this for the base plate...

[@dtibor5903]

Nah, Bambu already did it, the heat bed is 1500W. It is matter of seconds. In europe on 230V. The same heatbed is used for the US market, that will output about 350W on 115V.

[@alfredanil]

@@dtibor5903 It's not induction heating but instead it is just a conventional heating coil enclosed in a tube/pipe that is wraped inside the die cast aluminum bed.

[@paradiselost9946]

@@dtibor5903 ahhhh, maths... double the voltage, quadruple the power :)

[@dtibor5903]

@@alfredanil oops, i forgot to mention that it is resistive 😅 it does a fine job at 1500W

[@alfredanil]

@@dtibor5903 just imagine if it consumes just 150W and heats up 10 times faster, that's the potential of induction heating of the bed.

[@1Darkmouse]

Even more bespoke nozzles, heat blocks and radiators you can't reuse elsewhere is exactly what the industry needs for more adoption... I miss the times we only had V6 vs MK8 to worry about. The idea although interesting, but for $500 they charge I'm not sure if it's worth the money outside of very niche and industrial materials use cases, they need to drive the prices down 10x before it can reach consumer grade printers.

[@reichlichanonym1308]

Cool Infos. Thank you!

[@FedericoAlbano83]

Despite this being quite interesting there is a major downside: the current ceramic heaters that are used have a natural maximum temperature that you can't get above, even though you keep supplying current. If something goes wrong with the motherboard this hotend will get to 1000 degrees giving fire to anything it finds. The opportunities it gives are certainly interesting but it looks to me that the market is going elsewhere with printer manufacturers who provide their own hotends and this kind of control helps for supports, ok, but i can't see so many other aspects where it will make a real difference. So my personal opinion is that it can be a nice to have, but nothing really disruptive. I'd be happy to be prove wrong of course, because it would mean that research and ideas still have a lot of ground in the field, even though everyhing is starting to leveling up at the moment

[@peterpizzurro]

Where did you hear that?

[@dtibor5903]

​@@peterpizzurroinductive heater can melt the hotend if something goes wrong

[@FedericoAlbano83]

@@peterpizzurro ceramic heaters' resistance increases with temperature, so there s a point that the resistance gets high enough to limit current and from there on it just stays there no matter if you keep pushing for more. Inductive heating has no limits

[@peterpizzurro]

@FedericoAlbano83 So you're saying thermal runaway isn't a thing?

[@paradiselost9946]

@@FedericoAlbano83 yep. ceramic heaters have... NTC? PTC? one or the other! inductive heating.... there is a point that induced current and heating is also countered by the rate of heat radiated, and thats "fuzzy"... then the material of the hotend itself, iron heats really well as its ferromagnetic, hysteresis heating dominates exceeds inductive heating. but once it hits the curie point it behaves like any other metal... purely inductive heating. and that require higher frequencies, etc... there IS a limit to induction heating... the size, volume, surface area of the object, its resistance, the frequency its being driven with... impedance matching, etc etc etc... and once it melts, and escapes... nothing to heat anymore? a decent induction controller can determine what temperature the work is at, if its "tuned" in to the specific workpiece. the resistance and reflected impedances change quite predictably. assuming a nozzle of given dimensions, of a given material, a given coil... it can be pretty precise.

[@JesterOTL]

Now, if you can do it for the build plate, I'll get more excited.

[@Protomodder]

My brain goes to " can that controller handle making a inductive bed "

[@koenvanduffel2084]

Wow you went all the way down to 171 °C for the support surfaces. I will try to do this on my IDEX where I now use different filaments to achieve something similar but never quite as nice as what you are showing. Maybe using the same filament at very low temperature for the support extruder works even better. Or printing the different support filament at extremely low temperature might yield even better results. The speed of heating has little impact on the print times as the bed heating takes most time anyway (I tried heating the hotend slightly before reaching the target bed temperature, that worked for small prints but the bed is not yet even enough for large prints). However for this type of improvement, at least when it goes along with slicer support as you mention, this would be a big next step.

[@PrintingPerspective]

If I remember correctly the layer printed on the supports was at 200C, the 171C was a typo. You could also introduce hotend cooling with fans, that was my idea until someone mentioned this hotend.

[@paradiselost9946]

yeah, i tried this a decade ago, when the reprap was still a big thing... just a ZVS and impedance matching transformer (this is actually a major requirement, you cant use the heating coil as the tank inductance and have long leads as they are also part of the coil) i gave up after wasting too much time dealing with EMI... obviously its possible to work around it, but yeah... also the ZVS didnt appreciate being turned on and off so rapidly... a lot of FETs met their demise...

[@O-RoD]

Awesome! Now I can start printing 10 seconds sooner 🤣

[@RogerThingsChannel]

Getting to the toilet 10 seconds earlier can make all the difference when you're shitting yourself. Seriously now, the price is crazy, this idea will be cloned and cheapened if it comes to fruition.

[@GregAtlas]

How much did you lower the temperature for the 0 gap? I bet this could be sped up even more if we added a fan to the hot end that could be turned on when cooling mode is turned on. I bet some people might even be able to engineer a water cooling solution if they really wanted to. Considering how many temperature and flow settings we have in modern slicers, I bet this would be a pretty simple update for Cura or Prusa Slicer.

[@lilpanini1351]

I feel like this would be better as the hot end heats more evenly and quicker and probably reduces stringing alot due to thermal cyclic and efficiency loss over time.

[@jackcoats4146]

Would be interesting to see using say PETG as support, and PLA as the part material, or vice versa.

[@zagabog]

Is this perhaps one of the next generation improvements being hinted at by the Bambu Lab CEO at Formnext?