5-Axis 3D Printing - Simplified?

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-09

[00:00:05]Hey, it's Joel. We're at the 2026 Rocky Mountain RepRap Festival and I am here with my friend Alex. What's up, man?

[00:00:11]>> Nice to meet you, Joel.

[00:00:13]>> This is what's known as multiaxis 3D printing. Yep.

[00:00:16]>> And you are with Unlayered.

[00:00:18]>> Yes.

[00:00:18]>> But before we get into kind of what this is going on because you guys are trying to solve a problem. Let's first What is multiaxis 3D printing?

[00:00:25]>> Normal 3D printing stacks layers vertically like this. And this is good, but it leads to support structures and poor surface finishes. So on a part like this where you would normally print it like this, you'd have massive amounts of support requirements on all of these sides.

[00:00:39]>> That's right.

[00:00:40]>> But with multiaxis, you can reorient the head of the printer and the bed. In our case, we have a split setup such that you can print at any orientation. And so we are able to print things like this, this ocarina with no supports, but we can also print random things just like Rick Ashley over here.

[00:00:55]>> He's never going to give you up. lift you up.

[00:00:59]>> That is that is a really interesting thing because normally when we talk about 3D printing we've got Z and it just goes up and up and up and like you said with this sort of part there are support structures or scaffolding like when we build a building outside we have to have scaffolding in order to hold things up in air but what you're saying is something like this you build up on one axis and then you reoriented another axis >> and you can build out like this.

[00:01:22]>> Yep.

[00:01:23]>> Eliminating the need for supports.

[00:01:25]>> Yeah.

[00:01:26]>> Game changer. How do you do that?

[00:01:29]>> So, this is that's kind of the question that's been holding up multiaxis printing from like going mainstream for like the ever since like it's existed is like how are you going to have a software that can handle these these machines?

[00:01:41]>> I've seen multiaxis 3D printing before and they used I believe it was called Grasshopper.

[00:01:46]>> Yeah.

[00:01:47]>> And it seemed really convoluted and complex.

[00:01:50]>> Yeah.

[00:01:50]>> Is that being kind?

[00:01:52]>> Yeah.

[00:01:52]>> But you're not doing that, right?

[00:01:53]>> No, we're not.

[00:01:54]>> Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Good. Because which route are you taking?

[00:01:57]>> So we're going a multiplaner route. And so to distinguish from non-pler, non-planer has variable layers where you can continuously change. A multiplaner route has different planes defined that have different normal vectors. So it can print on the sides. So this is a really good example in that it can print straight up and then go straight out on all these sides.

[00:02:16]>> Okay? So then this main column would print all the way to the top and then the printer would reorient and on this side this face it would build out >> and then it could twist and then build out.

[00:02:26]>> Yeah, >> that's so cool.

[00:02:28]>> That seems really complex to do uh from a slicing perspective. Like you you said this at the top and you were like we did this with no supports.

[00:02:36]>> You said it like it was nothing. This is amazing to me because I knew the complexity that went into a Grasshopper script and being able to manipulate the hardware with that software, but you're talking about it like it's just Yeah, we just do it.

[00:02:49]>> Yeah.

[00:02:50]>> Can you say how?

[00:02:51]>> Yes, I can. So, the big thing that we realized is that people want a simple solution that just works in 3D printing.

[00:03:00]That's what makes Bamboo lever so popular. You press print, you get your part.

[00:03:03]>> Yeah. Exactly. We just decided, okay, we're going to change the plane and that only requires one arithmetic transformation rather than doing one for doing it continuously variable like Grasshopper did with those approaches.

[00:03:15]And so we kept compute time to really to a really low amount. So this part actually after I clicked the slice button only took about 15 seconds.

[00:03:24]>> So >> Oh, that's that's within like normal consumer flexi dragon >> slicing times.

[00:03:32]>> Yeah. And we Yeah. And we did this all within our own fork of Orca Slicer on layered slicer. So that is how we were able to do we were able to utilize the most powerful slicing engine in the world right now that everyone uses and then we were able to piggyback off that with the multiacis which gives us all that power of like the open source community with the ability to eliminate supports and truly print unconstrained.

[00:03:53]>> All right, Alex, a fork of Orca Slicer.

[00:03:56]Does this mean you're going open source?

[00:03:59]So yes, our slicer will be open source and because we we care and we think that this technology should become mainstream in 3D printing and we think that it's about time that the software is agreement for this machine. This is something that that software is going to use and this is what you're going to offer. Correct.

[00:04:16]>> This is cool cuz I can see this is multiaxis.

[00:04:19]>> Yeah. And in probably about like 2 minutes it's actually going to do a plane change maybe the interview. Yeah.

[00:04:24]>> And that will start printing the propeller blades. So, a lot of research have been done where they like multiaxis print a propeller, but we were just casually like, "Oh, it's about time we can print a propeller now." And >> so now, okay, this is an orca slicer fork.

[00:04:37]>> Yes.

[00:04:37]>> So, is it still going to be able to be slicing standard XYZ or Z sorts of material or machines?

[00:04:45]>> Yeah. So, this machine actually can print its own parts. We printed the majority of the parts on this for this printer on the previous generation using our slicer. So, it works as a normal slicer, too. That's very rep wrap of you.

[00:04:57]>> Yeah, it funnily enough it runs rep wrap so kind of and we're at rep wrap festival so a lot of rep wpping.

[00:05:02]>> My money don't jiggle jiggle it folds.

[00:05:04]>> Do you have an anticipated release date for this machine or an anticipated price?

[00:05:09]>> Well, we want to bring this machine to the mass market and it's just a matter of time of getting it ready. We're still we're here to figure out what people want, what people are looking for. We're also at rapid TCT. Okay.

[00:05:19]>> And so I can't say for sure right now.

[00:05:21]>> What was the impetus behind this? Were you guys just at a party one day and you decided to fix this problem?

[00:05:26]>> So, Unlayered is a company and that designed to bring this technology to the mass market. We started it because my co-founder cut himself really badly removing support material and I was like enough's enough. And so about a little over a year ago, we started designing these machines from the ground up to be some of the best five-axis hardware. A lot of things have this is our third generation machine. We've just been improving every step of the way. How many revisions do you think you have to go until you're going to be good for release?

[00:05:53]>> If I knew that number, I'd be able to tell you when we're going to release >> in due time. Um, >> what's missing from here that you're going to be adding in the future?

[00:05:59]>> I think a big thing for us is some of the cleanup work. Like we've talked to a lot of other companies, what they're doing for like this wiring here. We're going to switch to a more Pusia style.

[00:06:07]Oh, okay.

[00:06:07]>> And then we're also looking into different some different calibration techniques and ways to ensure greater reliability because that's one thing that's kind of become the norm nowadays is people want printers that are reliable.

[00:06:19]>> Right. Well, it depend. Are you is your f is your initial offering going to be for like engineers, beta testers, or like the mom in the kitchen with the kids making like cookie cutters?

[00:06:30]>> I think it's much more the engineers because they're able to take advantage of this technology. like just being able to it's an entirely different manufacturing process in a way like it still hurts my brain to think about how can I design parts to do to use this technology.

[00:06:44]>> Alex, one more question before we wrap up which uh is actually kind of an interesting thing to think about because there's something called full control which allows you to use like mathematical formulas to define motion and extrusion.

[00:06:56]>> Usually that's done with like a a normal 3D printer or something that can do different you know small layer changes.

[00:07:03]But when you have multi layers like we could we could do crazy things, right?

[00:07:08]>> Yeah, we haven't experienced dabbled in it much right now, but the hardware is fully capable of non-planer techniques and also just being it can do whatever you tell it to, but you just have two more axes that you can use. So, it's like not full control plus. So, it's more of the question of will full control be able to support this, not will we be able to support full control?

[00:07:27]>> Ah, that's a good way to put it. Well, you know what? This has been a good talk. I know we got a lot more to get going on, but uh before we go, I want you to look in the camera and tell everybody where they go to find out more about Unlayered.

[00:07:37]>> So, to learn more about Unlayered, you can go follow us on our socials at Unlayered 3D or our website, Unlayered3d.com.

[00:07:43]We post lots of five access printing content because it's I I think it's awesome. I mean, maybe you'll think it's awesome, too. But yeah, we'll be posting more updates there in the coming weeks.

[00:07:52]>> Thanks for watching. If you made this far awesome, don't forget to hug each other more. Fight for cause you believe in. Multiaxis print all the things. And as always, high five. Come on, Alex.

[00:08:01]Best one of the day.