High-end Timelapse X-Axis Mod for the Bambu Lab A1 and A1 Mini

Have you ever wondered how to do high quality 3D Printing timelapses like this? Well so did I, which is why a spent a ton of time figuring it out so you don't have to!

Makers have been showing off the 3D printing process with timelapses for years now. I got my start with a cheap webcam, a Raspberry Pi 3B+, and an Ender 3 Pro. Jump forward several years and lots of modern 3D printers come with that functionality baked in. But what if you want to take it up a notch? Well, there are a few things you can do!

We have here a Bambu Lab A1, one of my favorite 3D printers and the one we will be using in this tutorial but don't worry if this isn't the printer you have. Nearly everything we cover in this video will either be directly transferable or can be done fairly simply in most slicers.

The first and by far the easiest way to improve your timelapses is just one setting in Bambu Studio. In the "Others" tab in the "Prepare" dialog there is a section labeled "Special mode" Changing the "Timelapse" setting from "Traditional" to "Smooth". This will move the print head and build plate to specific locations for a few moments between each layer giving a much smoother timelapse effect. Then all you need to do is start your print and you're off to the races!
 

For an easy button press this looks pretty nice, but we can do better. While playing around with settings, I realized that in the "Smooth” time lapse mode the head of the printer goes to the exact same position between each layer, which gave me an idea. If I could get the printer to press a trigger button for one of our high-end mirrorless cameras between each layer, it would be a game changer.

So, I went down to my local Micro Center and picked up the Sony RMT-P1BT Remote Commander,  a remote camera trigger that will wirelessly tell our mirrorless camera to take a photo. Back at the office, remote in hand, I took some measurements, and jumped into Autodesk Fusion where I designed a printable mod that would hold the remote, and a separate one that could be easily attached to the head of the A1 or A1 mini. After removing the original X-axis endcap and replacing it with the printable mod I ran a quick test with a small calibration cube. Success! We can now use professional photography equipment for a beautiful time lapse.

It was at this point however that I remembered a video I saw a few years in which the lyrics for Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush were being printed in time with the song itself before revealing that the full print is a bust of the character Vecna from season 4 of Stranger Things. I loved the idea and wanted to figure out how they did it. And, while I'm not entirely certain that my methodology is  exactly how they did it, I did develop a plan that consistently results in top-notch time lapse prints.

The key to it is (unfortunately) math. But don't worry; I did it so you don't have to. Now, there are a lot of things you’ll need for this, but don’t worry, it’s not nearly as intimidating as you might expect. To create a time lapse of your own, you are going to need:

·         the example spreadsheet,

·         a video editing software of your choice (I'm going with Adobe Premiere Pro),

·         the video or audio file you wish to use,

·         the 3D model you want the words to appear inside,

·         the 3D design program of your choice,

·         Bambu Studio, and, strangely, Cura.  -- We’ll double back to why we’re using multiple slicers in a minute.

The first thing you're going to need to do is open your audio or video file in your video editor, throw it on the timeline and fill in the frame rate of the video as well as the end point of the video. So, say the video ends at 00:42:15 and has a frame rate of 30 fps. For Frame rate you would fill in 30, for Video Length (Seconds) you would fill in 42, and for Video Length (Frames) you would fill in 15. Next, you’ll need to find the start and end times of small chunks of audio. I usually determine How long each chunk should be based on the number of words, 2-3 words per chunk.   of the audio and Fill the start and end timecode in on the left of the spreadsheet alongside the text chunks themselves so you can stay organized.

Once that's been accomplished you are well on your way, but there are two more numbers you're going to need. Open your 3D file in Bambu Studio and slice as you normally would, then find out the number of layers and the layer height. Enter those into the spreadsheet and the math part of this is over!

Now it's time to make the Text into STL files. This is going to be different depending on which program you use. I prefer Fusion for this, as it's fairly easy to type the text, extrude and export. Once you have your exported text STLs, you're going to want to take them and your main print file into Cura.

The reason for using Cura is twofold. Firstly, in Bambu Studio there is no way to have an STL that is not part of an assembly floating in mid-air, which we need to do. Secondly, once you add STLs to an assembly in Bambu, the coordinates (seemingly) become relative to one another. There may be other issues going on, but that’s an investigation for another video/article. If you know what’s happening, let us know down in the comments.

Once your main file and text is in Cura, you need to change the orientation so that the text is legible from above. Once the text is rotated, it needs to be moved on the Z axis to the height specified in your spreadsheet. At this point, the text should be in the middle of the main model. Now, it's time to set the Z Scale to the thickness calculated by the spreadsheet. More than likely that your text will suddenly be WAY too big, but don't panic. We'll just uncheck the uniform thickness option and start scaling down the X and Y settings equally to match the shape of the main model.. Once the text is completely obscured, you'll rinse and repeat as many times as is necessary until all the text is within the main model. 
 

Now for the twist. Select only the main model and scale it down to a miniscule size, roughly 10mm tall. Make sure that the option to "Drop Down Model" is selected and then make three clones of the model and place them at the four opposing corners of the build plate. All that's left to do in Cura is to save the project (unless you like living on the edge) and export everything as one STL file.

Now that the most tedious part of the timelapse is over, it's time to open Bambu Studio and import our main file. Once the main file is imported, go to the per-object view and right click on the name of your main model. A sub-menu should appear where you can select "Add Negative Part" and then click on "Load". From there, just import the STL you made in Cura a few steps ago and make sure it's centered on the build plate. Slice as normal, making sure to have the "Smooth" Timelapse setting enabled.

And that’s everything you need to set up a time lapse print like ours! There are still a few steps left – setting up the camera, connecting the endcap – but those are going to be specific to your printer and set up.