Youtuber prints a 3D benchmark in under a minute - and completely rebuilds his machine to do so
Youtuber Yan Roetz completes his Minuteman project: printing a 3D bench in under a minute. All he needs is a lot of time and a good dose of DIY madness.
A year and a half ago, Youtuber Yan Roetz asked himself a simple question: is it possible to print a 3D Benchy - the 3D printing Community's small reference boat - in under 60 seconds? What followed was an almost two-year project full of failures, redesigns and technical obsession. In episode 20, the final instalment of the Minuteman project, he provides the answer. He succeeds in printing a Benchy in 59 seconds.
For context: modern, conventional printers can print a 3D benchy in 20 to 30 minutes.
The motion system needs to be changed
Roetz completed the last test in 74 seconds - so another 15 seconds had to be saved. His self-developed hotend achieves a flow rate of up to 400 mm³/s, while the cooling nozzle blows around 400 litres of compressed air per minute onto the printed object. Both were no longer a bottleneck. The problem lay with the motion system.
Roetz tackled the problem in two steps. First, he replaced the heavy aluminium pulleys (around 40 grammes each) with ultra-light printed versions weighing only around 15 grammes. Then comes the more radical step: he throws out the previous air bearing system completely and replaces the movement platform with a water jet-cut carbon fibre plate construction. This slides in a wafer-thin gap between the granite base and a glass plate and is driven by pre-tensioned cables. The result weighs only around 117 grammes - for a machine that is built on a 1300-kilogram coordinate measuring machine.
Acceleration of up to 250 G
In the subsequent tests, Roetz gradually increases the acceleration - up to 250 G, or 2.5 million mm/s². For comparison: the Voltron Nevera roller coaster at Europa Park reaches a maximum of 4 G. During one test, a fastening element breaks, which he redesigns and reinforces. After further iterations, the system runs stably. In addition, the slicer settings are finely tuned: 1700 mm/s print speed, 200 instead of 250 G acceleration, ten per cent line infill, two walls - and the filament FormFutura Volcano PLA in black, which cools particularly well at high speeds. Thanks to various optimisations, the finished Benchy weighs only around 7 grammes.
Source: Screenshot Youtube / Roetz 4.0
After numerous failed attempts, it finally works: a complete, repeatable Benchy print in under 60 seconds. Not perfect, but functional - and fast.
Not a competition, but a Community
Shortly before the final video, another creator called Matt The Printing Nerd had also published a sub-60-second benchmark. Roetz takes it sportingly, but misses the technical details of Matt's approach and appeals to him to share his findings openly. For Roetz, the project was never a race, but always an article for the Community. And he has definitely succeeded in doing so with this conclusion.
From big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.
From the latest iPhone to the return of 80s fashion. The editorial team will help you make sense of it all.
Show all