Draft:Belt 3D Printing

Belt 3D Printing or Conveyor Belt 3D Printing is a type of 3D printing that replaces a typical heated build plate with a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt moves continuously during a print, allowing the printer to create parts that are longer than a stationary print bed, or to create a nearly continuous batch of parts. This is achieved through the mounting design of the extruding head on the printer. Typical 3D printers have the extruding head mounted at a 90° angle from the build plate, allowing parts to be created from bottom to top through a vertical movement of the extruding head. This means that only a single layer of the part height is accessible at one moment in time during the print. Belt 3D Printing changes this by mounting the extrusion head at an angle, which allows for the entire height of the part to be accessible while the conveyor belt is moving.

2010s
The first 3D printer to feature a conveyor belt was the Thing-O-Matic developed by MakerBot in September of 2010. The conveyor belt was used as an automatic object removal, which allowed the printer to ready the build platform for the next print through an automated process. The printer was also capable of printing multiple objects in a row without human intervention due to the advanced software that was used with the printer.

In 2017, the BlackBelt conveyor belt 3D printer was released to the public by the company BlackBelt. The BlackBelt printer featured a first of its kind 45° angled extrusion head, which was paired with a carbon fiber conveyor belt that allowed a continuous object to be created as the belt was moving. The printer was designed to be coupled with a rolling table system developed by BlackBelt, and prints of up to 2 meters were supported.