Automated print ejection

The problem

A printer that needs a human to clear the bed between jobs is a machine that only runs while somebody is standing next to it. For small production runs, that is the whole cost.

What I did

Tall parts give you leverage. Push near the top of the part rather than at its base and you get a much larger moment for the same force, so the toolhead does less work to break the part off the plate. That makes cup-shaped parts close to ideal: tall, flat-based, and with a small contact area.

The cycle is a G-code routine at the end of each job, followed by a start on the next.

The result

Semi-automated production of tall parts. It still has bugs and it is honest to say so: the failure modes are on tall thin parts and on anything with a large first-layer footprint.

Note on the state of the art: bolt-on ejection kits for Bambu Lab printers are now around $129, and larger operations have run conveyor-based ejection for years. This is a real cost advantage in my own shop rather than something I would claim as unique.

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