When we founded the company, one thing was clear quickly: we wanted to show how we actually work – not a glossy version, but the real one. The first video on our channel is therefore a tour of our three rooms in Jena, from goods-in to the control cabinet. This article sums up what there is to see.
What a “system printer” is
The name says it. Normally you go to an online shop and pick a fixed build size from a catalogue. With us it works the other way round: you tell us your requirement and we scale the system to it – build volume, number of print heads, material, print parameters. The frame, the drives and the electronics always follow the same modular system. That is not a marketing term but the reason why a 220 mm benchtop machine and a system with a metre of build volume are built from the same components here.
Not just mechanics: boards, materials and software
We develop considerably more around the machine than you see from outside. We design our own circuit boards, work on materials and write the software to go with them. There is a solid reason for that: a production system is meant to earn money. If instead a skilled worker stands in front of it for weeks hunting for parameters, the machine burns money rather than earning it. That is exactly the part we want to take off your hands.
Room 1: stores and our own parts production
Everything arrives here – aluminium profiles, sheet metal, linear guides, stepper motors, motor drivers, electrical components – and gets sorted. Our farm of Prusa machines stands in the same room; we use it to produce plastic parts for our own systems.
Incidentally, that is the only area where ordinary plastics are involved. Day to day, everything revolves around ceramics, metals, compounds and highly filled materials. You can order both from us as contract manufacturing: if your own machine does not pay off at your quantity, we produce the parts here.
Room 2: frame building and assembly
Aluminium plates we order to size are finish-drilled here; small parts are made on the lathe. The sheet metal is laser-cut and powder-coated locally in Jena. The result is a frame that does not suffer if a screw drops onto it while you work.
The linear drive system is deliberately over-specified for small machines. We use it everywhere regardless, because we scale up to a metre of build volume – and because we know it works. If something does break, it can be replaced easily, by us or by you.
Why our print head stays put
Technically minded viewers asked about this: why a cartesian system where the bed moves, rather than the moving head that is standard today?
The reason lies in the pellet extruder. A filament extruder feeds solid material through gears and only melts it down in the heater block. In a pellet extruder, by contrast, a screw draws the pellets in, melts them, compresses and mixes the mass – and what ultimately moves is the entire melt. That process is considerably more complex, and it does not tolerate disturbance. So the heavy head hangs statically on the gantry and everything else moves beneath it, on precise ball screws. Shake the stationary system and nothing happens. Turn the screw and it moves. That is precisely the prerequisite for an even bead of material.
Room 3: electrical assembly and our own boards
We build the control cabinets in small series to industrial standards – three systems at once on the current order. We use components from Meanwell and Siemens and fit safety relays. In some places we build safer than we have to. That makes our processes simpler, and for you it means a system you need not worry about.
Our toolhead board is made at the soldering station. A pellet extruder has considerably more wiring than a filament extruder – several heating zones, many fans, numerous sensors. The board sits directly on the extruder, brings all that wiring together over a short distance and goes into the control cabinet on a single six-core cable. On large machines that saves considerable cable runs. Because every chip carries its own ID, the machine also recognises which tool is fitted: anyone wanting to retrofit a filament extruder later simply moves the plug. More on this in our article on the 48 volt system.
The software: an open control station
Closed manufacturer systems are familiar – Prusa and Bambu Lab each have their own farm management. But that is of little help if a business already runs twenty machines from other manufacturers and wants to integrate ours.
We therefore developed a control station that picks up information from every machine: nozzle and chamber temperatures, the material loaded, the running job. G-codes go into a pipeline from which you can steer where printing happens. Open rather than an isolated solution – for the same reason we chose Klipper.
Honestly
What you see in the video is not a finished machine. We are currently building our first series machines, and some of it still looks mechanically rudimentary. But from our point of view that is not the whole story: solid mechanics, solid software, solid electronics – and as a complete package it works.
Questions about a specific application? Get in touch.
Chapters in the video
The video is in German; the chapter titles below link straight to the relevant passage.
- 0:00 · Intro – Jonas & S2S Systemdrucker
- 0:20 · Configurable industrial 3D printers
- 1:07 · A whole system: boards, materials & software
- 2:03 · Tour – room 1: stores & parts production
- 3:15 · Contract manufacturing: ceramics & technical materials
- 4:00 · Room 2: frame building & assembly
- 4:43 · Linear drive system & scalability
- 5:15 · Cartesian X-Y system – why the head stays put
- 5:48 · The pellet extruder explained
- 7:13 · Room 3: electrical assembly & control cabinets
- 8:23 · Our own boards – the toolhead board (48 V / 24 V)
- 10:14 · Software: the control station
- 12:03 · Conclusion & sign-off