Quad-Head 3D Printer Pumps Out Four Parts at Ounce

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who likes 3D printing more than I do. I wrote Idiot’s Guides: 3D Printing, I’ve reviewed lots of printers for Hackster, I’ve owned several, and I’ve used them both professionally and for my own projects. So when I say that I’m impressed with a new 3D printer design from the community, I mean. And I’m very impressed with this quad-head 3D printer built by YouTuber Tinkerer in a Bureaucratic Land.

This printer design was based loosely on the HyperCube, but it features so many changes that it is unrecognizable. The most obvious difference is that this 3D printer has four extruders. That means that it can print four times as fast — at least if you’re printing four of the same model. Unlike IDEX (independent dual extruder) 3D printers, this printer’s extruders all mount to a single shared carriage. That means that their X, Y, and Z moves are all identical. It is possible to print different models with each extruder, but doing so won’t save much time and the additional Z-hop moves could negatively affect the print quality.

But this printer is interesting even aside from the four extruders. For example, the ½” thick hand-scraped aluminum tooling plate bed rests on innovative mounts that allow for free movement to compensate for thermal expansion without warping. As the bed heats up, the metal expands. If it had rigid mounts, something would have to give during expansion. To avoid that, this bed rides on ball bearings on top of little rails and so it can slide as it expands. Furthermore, the lead screw nut mounts also have ball bearing interfaces. That eliminates the Z-banding that can occur when lateral movement in the leadscrews translates to the bed.

Like the HyperCube, this printer design uses a CoreXY kinematic system to move the extruder carriage. The extruder mounts have slots, which makes it easier to set all four nozzles to the same height—just loosen the mounting bolts, move the bed up to touch the nozzles, then tighten the bolts again. The X and Y axes ride on hardened steel cylindrical rods instead of the linear rails that have become popular lately. Some may question that choice, but real-world evidence hasn’t shown that linear rails are any better than rods.

There is a lot more to this build that I don’t have the space to discuss here, so be sure to watch Ep.1 of the build series on the Tinkerer in a Bureaucratic Land YouTube channel. Other interesting features include custom boards and extruders. The goal here was quality at speed, times four. It seems that was achieved, as this printer has acceleration on-par with the best CoreXY printers and the output quality looks very good.