After already establishing the Witbox as a reliable and affordable 3D printer, Spanish electronics company bq has now upgraded their flagship printer to the Witbox 2. As always, the printer is completely open source and the design files can be found on GitHub here.
With the new printer, the company has improved the extruder with a double drive gear traction system, which uses two gearwheels to slide filament into the hotend and allows the Witbox 2 to handle a range of filaments. bq claims that it can even handle the tricky-to-grip FilaFlex material from Recreus. An inductor sensor on the extruder also allows for improved bed leveling, as a magnetic field generated by the sensor will trigger a small LED to light up when it reaches the optimal distance from the bed. This in turn allows for the printer to detect inclines in the bed and auto-level, adjusting with the angle of the bed.
Additionally, the Witbox 2 features a new circuit board, the BQ CNC, meant for more fluid movement and improved heat dissipation. The board pairs with the printer’s graphic LCD display which, along with the electronics to control the display, was developed in-house. For €1,690, the Witbox 2 is capable of reaching printing speeds of 200 mm/s, layer thicknesses of 50 microns, and it has a healthy build volume of 297 x 210 x 200 mm.
Though it lacks a heated bed, all in all, the Witbox 2 sounds like a pretty nice update to its predecessor. And, given the success of the original Witbox, I can imagine their latest system to be a pretty solid machine. We’ll have to wait for the reviews to come in but, because it’s open source, any issues can be improved with a little elbow grease 😉
