4-meter tall giant Magna Delta 3D Printer unveiled by Japanese creators

July 29, 2014

Japan has a reputation for being a technology giant. 3D printing is being used in Japan for all sorts of applications, and, increasingly, in small and medium-sized enterprises. Japan will also join other countries in introducing 3D printing into schools and other educational settings.

One recent innovation is from Japanese company GenKei, which has designed a giant Delta 3D printer called 'Magna'. Magna is designed for printing architectural elements, full scale furniture, products, and life size figures.

With the Delta technology, the three axis carriages move simultaneously and complement each other. It can precisely position extrusion head along X, Y, and Z axes. 3D printer with the Delta design is capable of printing very tall objects.

The Magna Delta 3D printer features highly robust structure. It includes massive aluminium frames and laser-cut stainless steel panels for preventing vibration from motor movement and swing of effector and rods.

The Magna printer is 4 meter tall (13 feet) and is extendable up to 5 meters (16 feet) to suit a variety of needs. It has a large build volume of 1.4m (5 feet) in diameter by 2m tall (7 feet). With the 5 meter frame it is capable of printing 3m tall objects.

A week ago we reported that 3D printer manufacturer SeeMeCNC has produced an inexpensive Delta 3D printers that is 4.9m (16'-2") tall and features print size of 1.2m (4 feet) in diameter by 3.4m high (11 feet). These huge printers can be very useful for printing architectural structure, large scale products such as furniture.

Hironao Kato, designer and concept developer of this Magna 3D printer told 3ders.org that the printer is very easy to transport. "Since the structure design adopts partial vertical frame, the whole unit can be transported by minivan!" Kato said, and no huge truck is needed.

The Magna 3D printer is currently on display at the Art Museum of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music as part of the exhibition 'Materializing II' that runs until August 8.

For the exhibition, the team disassembled the giant printer and moved all parts to the museum and re-assembled again at there. Up to now Magna has been running over a week without any problem. It includes two lines of power supply, massive motors and drivers for stable prints. Kato said two extruders and hotends (or maybe three) can be set on the effector without bowden tube.

The Magna 3D printer works with PLA filament, but the team is considering using pellets as material. "We will update some parts such as extruder to be pellet extrusion and other core mechanical system." Kato said.

For demonstrating the capability of the Magna Delta 3D printer, the team plans to print out a huge 3D objects based on the weather data over the last year for the exhibition.

The team members include:

Hironao Kato, a designer and concept developer of the Magna 3D printer at Genkei.LLC.
Minoru Sakurai, a designer and engineer who wrote the code for the big data visualization software. (takers design engineering).
Fujisaki Keiichiro, Chairman of Design Planning and Strategy at Tokyo National University of Art.
Sugimoto Masaaki, the organizer and advisor of this project. (Agic inc.)
Takato Sasaki, a graduate student at Tokyo National University of Art.
Coprec Inc. staff, the supporters of this project.