Does the Fractal 5 Pro Finally Make Five-Axis 3D Printing a Viable Hobbyist Option?

To print in three dimensions, the minimum number of motion axes required is — and you’re never going to believe this three. But that’s just the minimum and the addition of more axes can unlock more functionality. CNC machinists have known about that for a long time and four, five, six, and even more axes are common in that industry. Each additional axis provides more flexibility, but there are still very few 3D printers out there with more than three axes. That’s why it is exciting that the Fractal Robotics Fractal 5 Pro might finally make five-axis 3D printing viable.

To be clear, this isn’t the first five-axis 3D printer design we’ve seen. But it might just be the most polished and accessible hobbyist option. The Fractal 5 Pro is an open source project that borrows heavily from the Voron Trident, so it should be approachable to many in the community. And Fractal Robotics developed a five-axis slicer, called Fractal Cortex, that makes the hardware usable in more than just an experimental sense.

This is important because while 3D printing is very versatile, it struggles with bridges and overhangs. The Fractal 5 Pro is a planar five-axis 3D printer that can reorient the part when necessary to extruder from a new angle — eliminating overhangs and bridges entirely. It may not be quite as flexible as non-planar five-axis 3D printing, but it is far more accessible.

Mechanically, the Fractal 5 Pro is similar to a Voron Trident, but with two additional axes: the A axis rotating bed and the B axis pivoting gimbal base for that bed. The bed rotates on a slip ring, so it can spin infinitely in either direction. The electronics should be familiar to 3D printing hobbyists. They include the typical steppers and thermistors, managed by a Raspberry Pi running Klipper and an Octopus Pro control board. The specially designed printhead has a BondTech LGX Lite V2 direct drive extruder and an E3D Volcano hot end.

Even more impressive than the printer itself is the Fractal Cortex slicer, which Dan Brogan of Fractal Robotics developed from scratch. That’s something we don’t see much anymore, as most new slicers are derivatives of existing slicers (usually Slic3r). Brogan created Fractal Cortex for five-axis printing, but it does support 3-axis printing if want to try it with a printer you already own.

Slicing for five-axis printing gets very complicated, but Fractal Cortex does seem to be as intuitive as it can possibly be. The user adds a new “slicing direction” at any point they want to reorient the part, and the slicer will take care of the rest — though the transition seams aren’t quite perfect.

The printing demonstrations are very impressive and the best part is that you don’t have to wait to build a Fractal Pro 5. All of the files you need are on GitHub right now. Fractal Robotics also needs help pushing the project forward, so consider contributing if you have the ability.