Jan Roetz's Minuteman, an Unusual 3D Printer Tuned for Speed, Delivers Its First Sub-60s 3D Benchy

Maker Jan Roetz has achieved a goal set more than a year ago: to break a milestone in fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printing by printing a recognizable if somewhat stringy 3D Benchy benchmark boat in under 60 seconds.

"One and a half years ago, I proposed the question: if it would be possible to 3D-print a 3D Benchy in less than a minute," Roetz explains of the project. "[There are] three main issues that keep 3D-printing in general from becoming more fast. So, the very first is that you [have] got to have a sustained [filament] flow somewhere north of 200 to 250 cubic millimeters. The second thing is cooling. What our current bottleneck is is the motion system."

In the 18 months since proposing the question, Roetz has been working on a high-speed FFF printer dubbed the Minuteman — aiming to address all three of those issues. "We built the Minuteman hot-end," Roetz explains of the heart of the printer, "which is a complete one-off and is capable of around 400 cubic millimeters a second with the right filament. With the help of [a custom air] duct, I'm able to push around 400 liters per minute of pressurized air [for cooling]. If we ever want to go faster, we can change out the gas again to helium."

Those approaches delivered a print tantalizingly close to the sub-60-second target, with Roetz' most recent attempting hitting 74 seconds. In the project's final episode, though, the barrier is finally broken with a sub-one-minute 3D Benchy boat thanks to further improvements to the motion system — the high speed of which is offset by the printer's installation on a solid granite slab to act as a counterweight.

"I'm really proud of the result," Roetz says of the Minuteman's first sub-60s prints, "even though we're still far away from perfect. Remember pretty much a year ago when we broke the sub-two-minute barrier? Have a look at the progress we've made. And then have a look at print number 19 of the machine. Trust the process."

The full walkthough of the project is available in the video embedded above and on Roetz' YouTube channel, with additional information available in the previous 19 episodes of the Minuteman series; Roetz has also submitted a 3D scan of the print to Printables for closer inspection.