CraneBot - interesting new printer concept design discussion on reddit

[Ray Price]

Saw this in my feeds. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/s/n6EdvLRXSo

Interesting concept, and a fair amount of "yeah, but have you thought about this?" In the discussion.  

He's working on a website for the unveiling

[Bryan Eckert]

Is the "crane" in the middle of the build plate? I've seen other polar printers before like the Sculpto:

https://sculpto-shop.com/en-us/products/sculpto-pro2-3d-printer?srsltid=AfmBOoqfp99_Drm42vd_b2Dh0dShznLIQPXAVSz1LeuiArwabM559WP5

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[Kurt]

Hey there Ray - sorry to Rayn on your Parade! 

I honestly think this printer design is kinda Dumb. For Several reasons. 

That whole cantilevered gantry armature is just Bad news and a bad design. And, the whole armature doing radial type motions - it just makes the whole thing overly complicated without much Real Payback - AFAIK. Think about it. Just to Slice an object for this printer will require a Special Slicer - just to get the job done.

Yeah - I just went to the link shared by Bryan - and that Sculpto printer looks like a bit of a joke as well:


Notice the Sold Out notice. I find that to be Humorous. Why? Seriously - the printer looks REALLY Silly. And, seriously - HOW Many people would actually buy this printer? I can NOT Believe it's sold out Because SO MANY people bought this silly unit. Especially considering the price! I think it's WAY Too expensive for a printer of this size and capability. I BET you the reason it's so expensive - is that they do NOT Do mass production of the unit - cause they sell so FEW of them - and I bet the main parts - all the white plastic ones - are all 3D Printed - and since they produce limited units - they probably don't get the parts really cheaply - like printers like the Ender3. Just sayin'...

-K

On Wed, Jan 21, 2026 at 2:00 PM Ray Price <r...@theraypriceshow.com> wrote:

[Bryan Eckert]

Kurt as far as I know the Sculpto isn't made anymore. I think it's just a dead web page that is still up, although the company makes boxes full of building parts and I think that's their whole business now. Their European and Danish websites are current.

That machine came out before the Bambu X1C, and was marketed at kids and education environments like elementary schools. It didn't require a computer, everything was handled with a mobile app which at that time was pretty revolutionary, as was the whole rotary bed.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/CAN5ou48ZYAw3ufceCYr_X5djbQ8BBaVzj3m8ypQWkfwRDOcbBw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Kurt]

Hey there Bryan,

Thanks for that feedback. It does indeed make sense - to target this printer to Edu market and kids. But, a major issue with this printer is being so open - and the potential for young kids to get burned on the printer. It does indeed look like a printer targeted to kids - as it does look like a toy!

Interesting info as well -- about it being essentially a dead webpage. Very VERY Typical of the 3DP industry and it's instability - like dead products and dead companies (although this one is NOT a dead co. - the product is dead). 

So - yeah - thanks again for that feedback. 

-K

[Sean]

I bought a Sculpto when they were clearing out stock for $75/unit.I got it mainly for the novelty and to explore another kinematics system, it's pretty neat. The mechanical components were all pretty high-end (ish): true servo brand steppers, an official 3D V6 Lite hotend, and an official BuildTak bed surface. The entire body was injection molded. The software was a mixed bag. For when it came out it was ahead of its time but still limited. Like Bryan said it ran primarily from an app or web page. It had Thiniverse integration built in. you linked your account and could directly import files via the app and web app. That broke when the Thingiverse rewrite happened during their last transfer of ownership. The built-in slicer was fairly feature sparse, but i believe that was by design to keep it simpler for inexperienced users. You do have an option to enable "expert mode" to have the ability to upload externally sliced files. Using Simplify 3d I could  actully tune the profile  and steeings to get this to print halfway decent. All in all it printed fairly well though it definitely wasn't going to win any speed contest.

 The primary limitation of the unit was it's print quality when printing over centerline of the bed. The rotary SCARA kinematics lead to thinning of the extrusion due to the need for constant acceleration and deceleration when printing across the entire rotating platform. They had builtin calibration routines to help mitigate it though. The FB community is still quite active, I believe even some of the OG software devs or customer service reps still frequent the group because they still manage account transfers and technical questions. The last time I used the printer, about 6 months ago, the servers were still active so you can still use one if you can find a used one and are curious.

I linked a video of one of my very first prints with this machine. The quality isn't fantastic, I hadn't learned how to utilize the slicing tools and tuning to their best quality.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/XoXr1NbEnXcwv9xP8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/S4bJwQc8H7gDTM31A

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[Ray Price]

Anybody else see Gemini trying to get all up in our business?  Guess at least it recognizes that it might not get everything right...

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[Bryan Eckert]

Hey Sean - does that Sculpto have a heated bed? I know it's primarily a PLA pusher.

[Sean]

No the sculpto does NOT have a heated bed but in some of my experimentation with how far I could push the printer, I was able to get the bed hot enough with a heat lamp shining on the black surface to be able to successfully print small PETG parts. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/3d-printing-tips--tricks/CANjNy1VZEb_G7U8kCCBXFpM2rgz0C%2B0_inh%2BZ3BsEQmXa15H_A%40mail.gmail.com.

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Ray - I have been suddenly seeing some AI suggested responses to emails I get on my phone for my GMail. I suspect that is what you're speaking about. 

Yeah - it's actually giving me a run down of discussion threads I have been having with people...

-K

[Bryan Eckert]

You can turn the gemini stuff off. 

In gmail in the web browser click the settings icon, click "all settings" and scroll down to smart features and uncheck it.