Can you guess why the above 3D printer is slanted? At first, it does not seem to have any practical justification. It’s not even a good aesthetic idea!
The 3D printer is slanted because it’s equipped with the Quinly Automated 3D Printing Kit from 3D printing automation company 3DQue. The kit can be equipped to many conventional Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) printers in order to automate part production.
How Does Quinly Work?
The Quinly kit uses the 3D printer’s x-axis arm as a sweeper to break printed parts free from the printing surface. The parts will then slide from the slanted printing surface into a collector bin.
The special printing surface of the Quinly kit is called the Variable Adhesion & Automated Part Release, or VAAPR. The VAAPR printing surface is the key of the entire Quinly kit. The VAAPR is attached to the 3D printer’s heated bed. It grips 3D printed parts firmly when heated, and loses its grip dramatically when the temperature is low (room temperature). These characteristics make the VAAPR an ideal printing surface for great printing quality and easy part removal.
The exact material of the VAPPR bed is 3DQue’s trade secret. 3DQue teases that “Whatever you think it is, it isn’t that! The VAAPR Print Bed is not glass, PEI, textured or coated.”
Benefits and Drawbacks of the Quinly Kit
For users who already own a Cartesian FFF printer, the Quinly kit reduces human involvement between prints, which is a significant time saving for large 3D printing farms. Quinly significantly improves the efficiency of each printer, with Quinly-equipped printers capable of producing the same amount of parts as two or more printers in the same time.
On the other hand, 3DQue’s Quinly system has some drawbacks. The printer will need to wait for the VAAPR and the parts to cool off before ejecting, whereas scrapers can be used on conventional print beds right after the printing is done. 3DQue may include an automated cooling fan in their future kits to address this issue.
In addition, since Quinly uses a 3D printer’s frame and extruder module as a sweeper/pusher, this introduces excessive stress to the printer. This may reduce the printer’s accuracy and reliability over time. Furthermore, this method may fail with parts that are too thin or small, since the x-axis has a minimum height limited by the extruder.
The purpose of Quinly is to mass-produce parts with the same CAD design, meaning that the printer will repeat the exact path over and over again. This could introduce uneven wear to printer parts (eg. belts, rollers), resulting in premature reliability issues or part failure.
Quinly’s VAAPR bed requires special attention when cleaning. Anything besides soap and water will damage it, resulting in a loss of grip. In addition, scrapers are strictly prohibited for part removal, since any scratch can potentially ruin the entire VAAPR surface.
The Quinly Hardware
The 3DQue Quinly kit costs $129 for the Ender 3 printer, but different 3D printers will have slightly different pricing. The DIY Quinly for Ender 3 kit comes with:
- One 235 x 235mm VAAPR bed for Ender 3 series
- One 1GB USB flash drive consisting of all user printable STL files
- One 16GB microSD card for Quinly software, licensing and instructions
- Numerous nuts and bolts for tilting the printer
In addition, there are a few parts that require the user to produce with their own 3D printer. Users can also purchase all these parts directly from 3DQue for an additional $100. But where’s the fun in that?