<p>Yes you can print at 1000 mm/s with good quality, but motors really have nothing to do with it. The cheap motors you get on an Ender 3 can go at 1000 mm/s if you have a controller board supporting 48V power supply for the stepper drivers. In general, max motor RPM before you hit pullout (the speed at which torque rapidly falls off because you don't have enough voltage to drive a reversal of the magnetic field for the next step in time) is proportional to voltage. With 24V these motors can take you up to 500 mm/s or higher, so at 48V I'd expect to hit 1000 mm/s without much problem.</p>
<p>However, to reach 1000 mm/s, you need enough acceleration to reach that speed before you have to start slowing back down to stop or change direction. High acceleration, not high speed, is what has tradeoffs with quality, because no physical system is perfectly rigid, and under high forces (F=ma), there will be significant physical stresses on the printer frame, belts, motor shafts, bearings, etc. affecting the accuracy of your print. But fortunately, the accelerations you need to reach 1000 mm/s aren't all that high. You can reach it on 20 mm lines with just 50000 mm/s², which, although 100x the default on typical bedslingers like an Ender 3, is well within the capabilities of good CoreXY, CrossXY, or delta printers, especially with input shaping available on modern firmware. You can find plenty of videos on YouTube of the K3 (by Annex Engineering), VzBot, etc., as well as some RatRigs and Vorons, doing this kind of acceleration at pretty much perfect quality.</p>
<p>Now, the hard part of getting really high speeds is pushing and melting the plastic that fast. Fortunately, you didn't specify a layer height, so if by 1000 mm/s, you mean 1000 mm/s at 0.05 mm layer height, that's only 20 mm³/s, and doable even for a very standard hotend, and easy if it has a CHT nozzle. But if you want to do 1000 mm/s at 0.2 mm layers by 0.4 line width, that's 80 mm³/s. There are very few hotends which can achieve that kind of flow, but the Goliath by VzBot can do nearly twice that, and various hybrid volcano approaches like the Volcomosq can probably reach 60-80 mm³/s.</p>
<p>People don't make high-end gear like this to print ugly boats (well, they do that sometimes for fun, but if you're putting the effort into making it, you almost surely want it to be useful too). The printers that can print at this kind of speed absolutely do it at high quality.</p>
<p>Here's one example I just found of printing at 50k acceleration, 1500 mm/s: <div class="youtube-embed"><div>
                <iframe width="640px" height="395px" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hcMxEkVvIdE?start=0"></iframe>
            </div></div></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-20T18:32:53.473Z
Thanks for the response! Just wondering, how fast can I push my Ender 3 V2 with and without a custom driver?
Not My Name
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-20T19:27:16.533Z
@NotMyName: With the stock firmware (based on Marlin) on the Ender 3 you'll hit some pretty hard limits with skipping steps/layer shifts well before you reach this kind of speed, probably around 4000-5000 mm/s² acceleration. Latest Marlin has experimental input shaper, but up til now you've needed Klipper to do it. You'll also need better stepper drivers, TMC 2209 or better in Spreadcycle mode - the Creality "silent" boards have their TMC's hardwired in Stealthchop mode which is quieter but lacks torque at high speed. And that's still at 24V so a max of around 500 mm/s.
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-20T19:50:04.283Z
This is probably about the fastest raw speed you can get with mostly stock E3 hardware except for extruder, nozzle, and controller board/firmware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4QEEit5aNo
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T13:19:48.827Z
Cool, thanks! Guess I'll be building a printer from scratch. I checked Digikey and the price for 48 volt stepper motors is $80+ so this is gonna be expansive.
Not My Name
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T13:33:21.897Z
@NotMyName: The voltage listing on a stepper motor is not meaningful. As written in my answer, you should be able to drive pretty much any stepper at 48V, including the dirt cheap ones on something like an Ender 3. Only the max current (over which you might burn out the coils) is meaningful. The voltage ratings mean something completely different that I don't understand but that's not important to building printers.
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T13:39:31.373Z
My understanding is that the BOM for nice CoreXY or CrossXY printers runs around $1000, but that's using branded parts from reputable sources. You can do a lot cheaper with random AliExpress parts. Bad belts, pulleys, rails, etc. will give you print problems. Cheap motors are probably fine, but the prices on good motors aren't that high anyway.
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T13:58:29.917Z
Yeah, I'm only making money from cutting our grass so I don't have too big of a budget, I'm looking at around $500, so just wondering, how much am I looking at for the cost and specs of motors that will get me to 1000 mm/s? Sorry if I'm asking a bit too much, I don't have any schooling on much of this.
Not My Name
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T14:12:32.687Z
@NotMyName: The main costs for going that fast will be the controller board and stepper drivers capable of 48V, not the motors. But if your budget is tight I would look at starting with a cheap printer and upgrading it, and question if the magic number "1000 mm/s" is actually what you want, or if you just want something like "10x faster than I'm printing now". Unless you're running Klipper and have tuned input shaping and acceleration, most prints are not running anywhere near the speed you requested because they're acceleration-limited...
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T14:13:43.963Z
...so it's easy to think "I'm doing 200 mm/s now and it's still slow, so I need 1000 mm/s" and that's simply not the case. Rather it's "I'm requesting 200 mm/s but 90% of the print only runs at 50 mm/s or less because it never has a chance to accelerate beyond that before having to slow down again".
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T16:43:37.087Z
Oh, so in the really fast benchys that say they're printing at 1000 mm/s they are really printing way slower. I also take it as I will need to focus on mainly how much torque the stepper motors make.
Not My Name
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T17:43:14.773Z
@NotMyName: There are no speed Benchys printed at 1000 mm/s. To take any significant advantage of a max speed over 400 or so on a Benchy, you'd need accelerations something like 100k+ mm/s². Otherwise it just spends way too little time at high speed to make much difference. I just checked and a Benchy at 60k acceleration only averages something like 200 mm/s. If your goal is Benchy racing you should check out the speeds and accelerations listed on all the #speedboatrace official entries (rules require posting your settings).
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T17:45:38.947Z
A link to all official entries (the "leader board") can be found on the Annex Engineering Discord, #speedboat_rules channel. Direct link is https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lFiJi-X3Xm3hh3I9Ty9dfACMiBWxHFAOUeiU1km9m6I/edit?usp=sharing
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T18:07:16.840Z
Thanks, that explains a bit, i'll try to focus on acceleration in my printer then. How do you calculate the acceleration needed to reach a speed, or will that need to be moved to a different stack exchange page?
Not My Name
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T20:05:55.007Z
@NotMyName: I posted a question and self-answer about speed Benchys in general: https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/q/20714/11157. Part of the answer contains a link to a tool for calculating the acceleration vs speed.
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-21T21:55:19.473Z
Cool, that's all of my questions answered! Thanks a lot and have a good day!
Not My Name
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-05-18T15:09:19.490Z
The motor winding currents have to change rapidly to step faster, and higher voltage (or a lower inductance motor design, perhaps correlated with a lower voltage / higher current rating) is required  in order to do that.  Motor heating may become an issue as well.  Look up "inductance", maybe see if your library has "Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill.
Technophile
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-20T17:35:42.997Z
2023-03-20T18:21:17.373Z
2023-03-20T18:21:17.373Z
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
<p>Alright, a few assumptions about the printer.</p>
<ol>
<li>It can handle the momentum of the nozzle moving so fast.</li>
<li>I have good enough bed adhesion to do this.</li>
<li>The nozzle can handle the amount of filament going through it.</li>
<li>Im using PLA filament.</li>
<li>I have the thing anchored to my desk with 10 foot long 3 inch wide bolts so it wont achieve liftoff.</li>
</ol>
<p>I am somewhat interested in building this printer so that why im wondering. Would it be possible that the filament will move so fast as it exits the nozzle that is doesn't attach the the model itself, just fly off of it? Thanks for any help!</p>

<diy-3d-printer><speed>
If you had good enough motors could you print at 1000 mm/s with good quality?
Not My Name
# If you had good enough motors could you print at 1000 mm/s with good quality?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-03-20)

Alright, a few assumptions about the printer.

1. It can handle the momentum of the nozzle moving so fast.
2. I have good enough bed adhesion to do this.
3. The nozzle can handle the amount of filament going through it.
4. Im using PLA filament.
5. I have the thing anchored to my desk with 10 foot long 3 inch wide bolts so it wont achieve liftoff.

I am somewhat interested in building this printer so that why im wondering. Would it be possible that the filament will move so fast as it exits the nozzle that is doesn't attach the the model itself, just fly off of it? Thanks for any help!

**Tags:** diy-3d-printer, speed

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2023-03-20. Score: 5 | Accepted answer

Yes you can print at 1000 mm/s with good quality, but motors really have nothing to do with it. The cheap motors you get on an Ender 3 can go at 1000 mm/s if you have a controller board supporting 48V power supply for the stepper drivers. In general, max motor RPM before you hit pullout (the speed at which torque rapidly falls off because you don't have enough voltage to drive a reversal of the magnetic field for the next step in time) is proportional to voltage. With 24V these motors can take you up to 500 mm/s or higher, so at 48V I'd expect to hit 1000 mm/s without much problem.

However, to reach 1000 mm/s, you need enough acceleration to reach that speed before you have to start slowing back down to stop or change direction. High acceleration, not high speed, is what has tradeoffs with quality, because no physical system is perfectly rigid, and under high forces (F=ma), there will be significant physical stresses on the printer frame, belts, motor shafts, bearings, etc. affecting the accuracy of your print. But fortunately, the accelerations you need to reach 1000 mm/s aren't all that high. You can reach it on 20 mm lines with just 50000 mm/s², which, although 100x the default on typical bedslingers like an Ender 3, is well within the capabilities of good CoreXY, CrossXY, or delta printers, especially with input shaping available on modern firmware. You can find plenty of videos on YouTube of the K3 (by Annex Engineering), VzBot, etc., as well as some RatRigs and Vorons, doing this kind of acceleration at pretty much perfect quality.

Now, the hard part of getting really high speeds is pushing and melting the plastic that fast. Fortunately, you didn't specify a layer height, so if by 1000 mm/s, you mean 1000 mm/s at 0.05 mm layer height, that's only 20 mm³/s, and doable even for a very standard hotend, and easy if it has a CHT nozzle. But if you want to do 1000 mm/s at 0.2 mm layers by 0.4 line width, that's 80 mm³/s. There are very few hotends which can achieve that kind of flow, but the Goliath by VzBot can do nearly twice that, and various hybrid volcano approaches like the Volcomosq can probably reach 60-80 mm³/s.

People don't make high-end gear like this to print ugly boats (well, they do that sometimes for fun, but if you're putting the effort into making it, you almost surely want it to be useful too). The printers that can print at this kind of speed absolutely do it at high quality.

Here's one example I just found of printing at 50k acceleration, 1500 mm/s:

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thanks for the response! Just wondering, how fast can I push my Ender 3 V2 with and without a custom driver?  
> **username_1**: @NotMyName: With the stock firmware (based on Marlin) on the Ender 3 you'll hit some pretty hard limits with skipping steps/layer shifts well before you reach this kind of speed, probably around 4000-5000 mm/s² acceleration. Latest Marlin has experimental input shaper, but up til now you've needed Klipper to do it. You'll also need better stepper drivers, TMC 2209 or better in Spreadcycle mode - the Creality "silent" boards have their TMC's hardwired in Stealthchop mode which is quieter but lacks torque at high speed. And that's still at 24V so a max of around 500 mm/s.  
> **username_1**: This is probably about the fastest raw speed you can get with mostly stock E3 hardware except for extruder, nozzle, and controller board/firmware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4QEEit5aNo  
> **username_0**: Cool, thanks! Guess I'll be building a printer from scratch. I checked Digikey and the price for 48 volt stepper motors is $80+ so this is gonna be expansive.  
> **username_1**: @NotMyName: The voltage listing on a stepper motor is not meaningful. As written in my answer, you should be able to drive pretty much any stepper at 48V, including the dirt cheap ones on something like an Ender 3. Only the max current (over which you might burn out the coils) is meaningful. The voltage ratings mean something completely different that I don't understand but that's not important to building printers.  
> **username_1**: My understanding is that the BOM for nice CoreXY or CrossXY printers runs around $1000, but that's using branded parts from reputable sources. You can do a lot cheaper with random AliExpress parts. Bad belts, pulleys, rails, etc. will give you print problems. Cheap motors are probably fine, but the prices on good motors aren't that high anyway.  
> **username_0**: Yeah, I'm only making money from cutting our grass so I don't have too big of a budget, I'm looking at around $500, so just wondering, how much am I looking at for the cost and specs of motors that will get me to 1000 mm/s? Sorry if I'm asking a bit too much, I don't have any schooling on much of this.  
> **username_1**: @NotMyName: The main costs for going that fast will be the controller board and stepper drivers capable of 48V, not the motors. But if your budget is tight I would look at starting with a cheap printer and upgrading it, and question if the magic number "1000 mm/s" is actually what you want, or if you just want something like "10x faster than I'm printing now". Unless you're running Klipper and have tuned input shaping and acceleration, most prints are not running anywhere near the speed you requested because they're acceleration-limited...  
> **username_1**: ...so it's easy to think "I'm doing 200 mm/s now and it's still slow, so I need 1000 mm/s" and that's simply not the case. Rather it's "I'm requesting 200 mm/s but 90% of the print only runs at 50 mm/s or less because it never has a chance to accelerate beyond that before having to slow down again".  
> **username_0**: Oh, so in the really fast benchys that say they're printing at 1000 mm/s they are really printing way slower. I also take it as I will need to focus on mainly how much torque the stepper motors make.  
> **username_1**: @NotMyName: There are no speed Benchys printed at 1000 mm/s. To take any significant advantage of a max speed over 400 or so on a Benchy, you'd need accelerations something like 100k+ mm/s². Otherwise it just spends way too little time at high speed to make much difference. I just checked and a Benchy at 60k acceleration only averages something like 200 mm/s. If your goal is Benchy racing you should check out the speeds and accelerations listed on all the #speedboatrace official entries (rules require posting your settings).  
> **username_1**: A link to all official entries (the "leader board") can be found on the Annex Engineering Discord, #speedboat_rules channel. Direct link is https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lFiJi-X3Xm3hh3I9Ty9dfACMiBWxHFAOUeiU1km9m6I/edit?usp=sharing  
> **username_0**: Thanks, that explains a bit, i'll try to focus on acceleration in my printer then. How do you calculate the acceleration needed to reach a speed, or will that need to be moved to a different stack exchange page?  
> **username_1**: @NotMyName: I posted a question and self-answer about speed Benchys in general: https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/q/20714/11157. Part of the answer contains a link to a tool for calculating the acceleration vs speed.  
> **username_0**: Cool, that's all of my questions answered! Thanks a lot and have a good day!  
> **username_2**: The motor winding currents have to change rapidly to step faster, and higher voltage (or a lower inductance motor design, perhaps correlated with a lower voltage / higher current rating) is required  in order to do that.  Motor heating may become an issue as well.  Look up "inductance", maybe see if your library has "Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill.  

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