The Development Story of R1
How the R1 Came to Life
While developing the L4, we kept coming back to one question: when a 3D printer gets faster, does its actual production capacity necessarily increase with it?
Clearly, the answer is not that simple.
Through our conversations with print farm operators and 3D printing enthusiasts, we uncovered a pain point: when demand surges, they have to hire extra help or work overtime themselves, making repeated trips to manage printers that are already running. That leaves them with two difficult choices: set alarms on weekends and late at night to collect finished prints, or turn away potential customers and orders.
We realized that the bottleneck in continuous production is not always the printing itself. Sometimes, it is the simple manual step between one print job and the next.
That is where the development of R1 began.
We Explored Every Direction
At first, we did not decide to build an automatic print removal system.
We reviewed a wide range of publicly available solutions, chatted with users online and in person, and tested different approaches: waiting for prints to cool and release automatically; using the print head or gantry to push them off; sliding a scraper underneath to separate them from the surface; tilting the build plate and letting gravity do the work; using active cooling to reduce adhesion further; adding a moving film or tape layer to the plate; continuously carrying prints out with rollers or a conveyor belt; and removing completed prints vertically, with a chain-driven mechanism, or with an external robotic arm.
After multiple rounds of testing, we found that many direct print-removal approaches eventually run into the same problem: a printed object is not standardized.
It may be tall or short. It may touch the plate at only a tiny area or cover almost the entire surface. It may be made from different materials, and it may include brims, supports, or multiple separate parts. Any mechanism that pushes, scrapes, or grips the print directly has to accommodate all of these variations at once.
And in our testing, prints did get damaged.
Remove the Print, or Remove the Entire Build Plate?
Our discussion gradually narrowed to a more fundamental question: should we remove the print itself, or the entire build plate?
Removing the print directly appears to save space and may require less hardware. But the mechanism then has to handle finished parts with different shapes, materials, weights, and levels of adhesion.
A build plate is different. Whatever has been printed on it, the plate's shape, dimensions, and entry position are always predictable.
We also noticed that when people handle a finished print, they usually remove the PEI build plate from the printer first, then separate the print from the plate in whatever way best suits that particular model.
That gave us an important insight: instead of asking a mechanism to imitate the human hand and cope with every possible print, why not automate the more standardized and predictable step first - removing the entire build plate?
Once we committed to removing the plate, we explored forklift-style mechanisms and centralized robotic arms. A single mechanism could move complete build plates between printers and storage racks, and could even serve multiple machines. But it would also be larger, more expensive, and more complex to install - a better fit for large print farms.
The R1 We Built
R1 is not a standalone machine. It is an expansion module mounted to the front of the L4. The L4 handles printing, while R1 prepares fresh PEI build plates, removes completed build plates, and stores finished prints together with their build plates.
Actual photo of the R1
Workflow
1. Loading New PEI Build Plates into the Storage Area
The new-plate storage area features four independent slots, allowing it to hold up to four empty PEI build plates. It is completely separate from the storage area for completed build plates.
Each slot is equipped with a presence sensor that detects whether an empty PEI build plate has been loaded, ensuring that a plate is ready for the next replacement cycle.
2. Loading a New PEI Build Plate into the Printer
Retrieving a New PEI Build Plate
Once printing is complete, the plate-handling mechanism rises and engages the locating holes in a new PEI build plate using a pin-locking mechanism.
Inserting the New PEI Build Plate into the Printer
The mechanism then pushes the new PEI build plate into its installation position inside the printer. A position sensor confirms that the plate has been installed correctly.
At this stage, the finished print is still inside the printer chamber. The new PEI build plate is inserted underneath the plate holding the finished print.
3.Transferring the Completed PEI Build Plate to the Automatic Part-Removal Unit
Returning the Completed PEI Build Plate to the Part-Removal Unit
A friction-based gripping mechanism engages the PEI build plate holding the finished print and pulls it away from the heated bed. The mechanism then engages the plate’s locating holes and transfers the completed build plate to the bottom of the automatic part-removal unit.
Moving the Completed Build Plate into Storage
An internal lifting mechanism transports the PEI build plate to an automatically selected storage position. Once the plate has been stored, the automated plate-removal cycle is complete.
The complete build-plate replacement workflow is now largely stable. We will continue refining the mechanical structure, hardware design, and exception-handling logic to make plate changes more reliable while simplifying installation and everyday use.
Stay tuned for real-world demonstration videos and more behind-the-scenes content, which we will gradually release ahead of our crowdfunding campaign.
From Automatic Plate Swapping to Automated Production Scheduling
Automatic plate swapping alone is not enough to deliver truly continuous production. If users still have to return to their computers after every job to slice another model, send the file, and start the next print, the workflow remains interrupted.
That is why, when R1 is connected to L4, it also works together with the desktop slicer and the mobile app. Users can slice models on the desktop, add multiple print jobs to a queue, and set their order in advance. Based on the status of the printer, build plates, and job queue, the system then completes each print, swaps the plate, and starts the next job in sequence.
Full-Plate Swapping - and Its Trade-Offs
Full-plate swapping also means preparing more PEI build plates. The machine comes with four PEI build plates. What the system eliminates is the manual interruption within a finite queue of jobs - it does not create 'infinite printing.'
The number of completed plates that can be stored is not fixed, either. Each plate enters the storage area together with its print, so model height directly consumes the vertical space between levels: the taller the prints, the fewer completed plates the system can hold at once.
Installation also requires some work. Because R1 mounts to the front of the L4, the original display must be removed and reinstalled on the front of R1. We still chose to have both devices share the same main controller and display because R1 is part of the L4 workflow. Printing, plate swapping, the job queue, and error states should all be coordinated through a single interface, rather than let users operate two separate systems.
Actual photo of the R1
A Final Note
R1 is not the only approach to automated print removal, nor is it without trade-offs.
The complete R1 plate-swapping sequence is now largely stable. We are still refining the structure, hardware, and installation experience, and we hope this article has explained honestly why we made these choices.
If you have ever waited for a print to finish so that you could swap the plate manually, or if you manage print jobs that need to run overnight and through the weekend, we would love to know: what matters most to you?
Your answers will help us continue making R1 better.