> I have come to observe that stiffness, rigidity and lack of undesired movement are preferred characteristics surrounding 3D printing.
Ah. Yes. I have a tested solution for that. Weighs about 50kg
For the rest of us, there's 18 x 18 in and 24 x 24 in paving stones from the hardware store; costs ~US$8-15. Highly recommended under large-format printers to increase mass/inertia of the base, thereby reducing ghosting artifacts.
mnem
What do you define as a large-format printer ? I have a Ender 3 should I try to improve the base ?
Mostly big in the Z dimension, like My Tornado which is 320 x 320 x 400mm build volume. This puts the X-axis on a really tall pendulum, which has a long lever to amplify response to its own movements and movements of the bed. As you can see, this is an older generation printer (CR10 "clone", but technically released before the CR10) from before they started using 4040 for the uprights to improve rigidity; as a result it really needs the chassis triangulated. Also, the huge ceramic & mirror glass bed has a lot of mass, so that translates to a lot of momentum and ringing/ghosting artifacts as well.
But yes, even smaller printers can benefit from this mod... the only reason I haven't done it on my Tornado yet is I have other "must-do" things in the way. Well, that and the fact pretty much
all of the ready-to-use kits apply the struts to the
front side of the printer, and I do not like how that gets in my way when cleaning the bed/removing prints. So I need to devise my own solution, which puts the struts
where I want them.
And yes, increasing the mass of the table they're sitting on and making sure it is uber-solid are very important to getting the best print quality possible, even on little ones. Ringing/ghosting artifacts are one of the most curable faults in
any 3D printer. Put it on a heavy, stable base, and make sure your belts are as tight as possible without causing cogging.
mnem