White Knight 3D Printer

Carl from NAK3DDesigns

Have you ever needed to print an object but you were limited to the size of your 3d printer print area? If only…. you could print with an unlimited range….. an unlimited Z……..

Out of all of the awesome 3d printers at Midwest Reprap Festival…. I have to say that the White Knight belt 3d printer was the most impressive build. A well thought out design by Carl from NAK3DDesigns has changed the game for belt printers. If your not up to par with the concept of belt 3d printers here’s the details.

• Belt
• Unlimited Z-Axis
• Large Build Area
• Continuous 3D Printing

Belt 3d printers first showed up to the 3d printing scene when the Black Belt 3d printer was launched. The Black Belt printer is a closed source belt printer that sales for $13,600. The benefits  and possibilities of a belt 3d printer are long prints and printing horizontal overhangs without support. In addition the belt printer has the mechanical advantage for production 3d printing. As long as there is filament feed to the printer the machine can print for as long as you want. The ideal production printer that isn’t restricted to part removal. 

Carl developed the White Knight 3d printer out of necessity. He needed to print long parts but at the Black Belt price range of $13,600 this was out of reach. In addition to the high price tag of the Black Belt printer the next problem is the under developed closed source platform and small x and y-axis travel distance That’s when Carl developed the White Knight 3d printer. The White Knight 3d printer has a 400mm x 430mm print area compared to the Black Belts’s 340mm x 340mm. With the complete Build of Materials the White Knight can be built for under $2000.

 You can find the published design open source on Thingiverse and Github. Check out Carl’s Thingiverse post where he states “This is my design for a 400mm x 430mm x Infinity belt printer. The main design works around a CoreXY D-bot design. I’ve integrated the use of Linear rails and have designed the mount for the E3D V6 or Mosquito hotends(but mosquito fits without any modifications to the hotend.” In addition the large belt printer is using:

• Duet Wifi 3d printer electronics
• E3D 5 to 1 geared down stepper motor
• Mosquito Hotend by Slice Engineering
• Bondtech Extruder
• Buildtak printing surface (belt)

“Currently the only slicer that I am aware that works with belt printers and can handle the 45degree angle is Cura Blackbelt.”

All files are available on Carl’s GitHub..
https://github.com/NAK3DDesigns/White-Knight (make sure to follow him on twitter)

Carl states “I uploaded the files to GitHub for future ease of collaboration and in hopes as a community we can make this printer perfect.”

​Although the White Knight uses aluminum extrusions and other hardware, Carl plans to redesign the printer to be completely 3d printed to bring down the price for the average user.

Carl plans to release a smaller version with a 230mm x230mm x infinite called the Squire at #ERRF2019 and later add on the E3D Tool Changer once released. In addition Carl plans to implement a Palette by Mosaic Manufacturing to run multi material extrusion.