Modix currently has four printers in our extra-large category: the Modix Big-Meter, Big-120X, Big-180X, and Big-120Z. They all received an upgrade in late 2022 with the company’s sweeping product-line improvements called Generation 4.

The most significant upgrade is a move from dual extruders to independent dual extruders (IDEX) as an optional add-on ($900). The dual extruders ensure accurate printing of soluble support material.

All Modix machines are modular and come as self-assembly kits. This makes it easy to add features such as air filters or things that Modix will come out with in the future. For a large machine, the Modix printers boast a respectable 100 mm/s in high-detail mode and higher speeds in draft printing mode.

Modix now offers a full set of automated calibrations, including automated bed tilt, bed leveling, gantry alignment, and Z offset calibration, on all models. Multiple other improvements in the 2022 update include optical end-stops that improve job recovery accuracy, improved enclosure sealing and ergonomics, and an emergency stop button as default.

Modix offers an optional Griffin printhead made with a custom extruder developed by Bondtech and an all-new hot end designed by Modix itself. Printing temperatures can reach as high as 500°C, enabling high-performance filaments, such as carbon fiber materials.

The Extreme 3000 Pro from Dutch manufacturer Builder is made to deliver 24/7 for industrial applications, the company says. The Builder Extreme comes in two other slightly smaller versions that still make our list’s 1,000-mm minimum: the 2000 Pro (700 x 700 x 1,700 mm) and the 1500 Pro (1,100 x 500 x 820 mm). Simplify3D slicer software is included.

The frame is designed for easy access to the build plate from both sides by removing the side panels so you can easily remove your huge prints. Three nozzles diameters, 0.4, 0.8, and 1.2 mm, are included to optimize print quality and time for your specific needs.

The Extreme 3000 Pro is enclosed and has a heated bed, filament detection, a backup battery pack, and automatic bed leveling. There’s also an onboard camera for continuous monitoring, and the print speed is pretty zippy for a large-format machine at 500 mm/s.

If you’re looking to print in engineering materials, Builder 3D has you covered with their 1500 Pro HC (heated chamber) printer ($53,000) that’s smaller than the 3000 at 1,100 x 500 x 820 mm, but ideal for large prints with materials like carbon fiber infused Nylon. Builder also sells materials in huge 4.5-kg spools, which start around $120 for PLA, and recommends other brands that it says work well in its printers.

The German-engineered BigRep One from BigRep is ideal for high-strength industrial applications or prototyping in full scale, the company says.

The BigRep One is another configurable and modular 3D printer. It features interchangeable extruder nozzles for speedy high-flow or maximum-detail additive manufacturing in a range of materials, including PLA, PETG, PVA, and TPU. You can choose from single, dual, or twin extruder modes. The dual mode enables you to use the second extruder for water-soluble support filament or mix two filaments with different mechanical proprieties for more complex applications. The twin mode lets you print two identical parts at a time using the two extruders simultaneously, which doubles your production.

The transparent printer housing with automatic door sensors is an optional add-on, as is the on-board camera and dry box filament storage. You can even customize your printer’s color, replacing the standard BigRep orange with the paint color of your choice.

BigRep software including the Blade slicer and BigRep Connect, that enables you to set print queues, monitor prints, and review job analytics.

Slightly larger in height than the BigRep One is the enclosed and heated BigRep Pro, topping out at a build volume of 1,020 × 970 × 980 mm. BigRep Pro is an industrial 3D printer for producing full-scale, large parts, including functional prototypes, factory tooling, patterns and molds, and end-use parts.

BigRep produces its own filament, but you can use other brands as well. A 4.5-kg spool of PLA sells for about $175.

The CreatBot F1000 is the largest of the CreatBot 3D printers and was created to make industrial 3D printing large-scale objects and prototypes as easy as possible, the manufacturer says.

The F1000 features a dual extruder, an enclosed heated chamber, an automatic leveling system, and a camera control app where you can view, pause, and start prints. With a fast-heating platform and hot chamber, this high-resolution large-print workhorse prints with a wide range of materials, including carbon-fiber nylon. A filament dryer and storage keeps your 2.5-kg spools of filament from absorbing water.

F1000 features what the company calls a smart auto-rising dual-extruder with a hot end that can reach up to 420 ℃. There are also servo motors and a thick linear rail structure that CreatBot says ensures accurate printing.

Ensuring your large prints are ruined by a material or power outage, CreatBot technology automatically memorizes the current extruder position and will continue to print from the last stopped point after the material or power is restored. The maximum speed is about 120 mm/s.

The T3000 from Dutch manufacturer Tractus3D combines a large volume and a narrow footprint (the printer can fit through a standard doorway), packing all the volume vertically. It boasts a delta-style architecture, meaning that the build area is cylindrical and the print head is suspended on three printing arms. This enables tall prints, such as mannequins and signage.

This delta’s 300 °C nozzle and 110 °C build plate enable it to print with a wide range of industrial materials, including ULTEM and PEEK. Plus, its closed chamber minimizes the risk of warping, the company says.

With a travel time of 300 mm/s, your large prints can be completed relatively quickly, and with five nozzles to choose from you can achieve as find as 10-micron detail, which is uncommon in a large-format printer.

Other bells and whistles include a 15-inch touch screen and 7 interchangeable nozzles to achieve various layer heights.

There’s an even bigger Tractus called the T3500 (1,000 x 1,000 x 2,200)  and a slightly smaller version, the T2000.

The Delta WASP large format printer 3MT HDP is popular among businesses and designers needing a powerful extruder for technical materials such as polypropylene and Nylon in filament, as well as sustainable materials in economical pellet form. A bag of 25-kg of PLA pellets goes for about $250.

Because large prints take a lot of material, WASP machines have two safeguards against running out in the middle of a print. The pellet tank has an out-of-material sensor warning, and when using filament, one extruder instantly takes over for the first when it runs out of material.

Consistent heating in the chamber of large format 3D printers can be a challenge, so WASP introduced a moving heated chamber system up to 150 °C, called the Firecap System. This feature introduces heat only where necessary.

The 3MT HDP features a brushless motor laminated safety glass for thermo-acoustic insulation that makes it silent so you can print in an office or in exhibition areas. It also has a 7-inch touch display, an onboard camera, and prints at about 100 mm/s. For software, the 3MT HDP is compatible with Simplify3D, Cura, Slic3r, and AiSync.

Texas-based Re:3D manufactures the Gigabot in a range of sizes and its two largest versions, the Terabot ($34,400) and Exabot ($85,000) fall in the extra-large category. These open printers can handle PLA, ABS, PC, and thermoplastics with a melting point below 350°C.

With its dual extruder, the Exabot can print with a base material and a soluble support material. The finest layer resolution is 100 microns and there’s a heated bed up to 115°C.

Re:3D offers its own materials and suggested third-party vendors. A 2.25-kg spool of Re:3D PLA costs about $95.

The company’s slightly smaller printers (the Gigabot X, Gigabot X XLT, and Terabot X) can print from pellets and reclaimed plastic waste, but the Exabot and Gigabot are filament-only. Re:3D donates one Gigabot for every 100 sold commercially to a group or individuals making a difference in their community.

Swedish manufacturer Industry (aka The Industry Sweden AB, formerly known as BLB Industries) offers a large-format 3D printer aptly called Magnum. It’s capable of printing with pellet materials and recycled plastics in a range of formats. This new industrial printer can print with composite materials containing wood, hemp, flax, and other biomaterials to become “the most sustainable 3D printer on the planet,” the company boasts. Not only are pellet materials less than half the price of filament, but printing with pellets is typically faster.

Magnum’s large print volume (2.16 cubic meters) enables really large prints but is compact enough to be transported in standard containers. The printer also features an air-cooled nozzle to remove heat from the object to prevent the collapse that can happen with really large prints. Depending on the material, this can enable it to print even faster. The top print speed is an impressive 600 mm/s.

The patented heated vacuum table enables more efficient and cheaper production, the company says, because you can remove the print on the printing sheets and then immediately start another print.

3D Systems Ext 1070 Titan Pellet (formerly Titan Atlas 2.5) is a large-format, high-speed industrial production system that uses thermoplastic pellet feedstocks.

The base unit includes a single pellet extruder but can be equipped with up to three tool heads, including a second pellet extruder, a filament extruder, and a 3-axis CNC spindle. Adding a filament extruder or second pellet extruder enables high-speed multi-material printing. The CNC spindle tool head allows true hybrid manufacturing, machining 3D printed parts both during and after the printing process.

The actively heated enclosure (up to 80°C), heated bed (up to 140°C), extruders that can reach 400ºC, and open architecture enable 100s of material choices, including carbon fiber-PEI, glass fiber-PEKK, glass fiber-PC, and highly flexible elastomers and high-percentage glass and carbon-filled materials.

An even larger version with many of the same features is the Ext 1270 Titan Pellet.

Massivit 3D Printing Technologies is a maker of very large volume industrial 3D printers, but they have a unique method that sets them apart from the rest on our list and makes them a possible stand-out for one application in particular: directly casting industrial molds.

Instead of using polymer filament, Massivit 3D printers have extruders that dispense a photopolymer gel at high speeds before curing it into solid layers under UV lights attached to the extruder. One printhead prints the sacrificial outer shell of the mold, while another printhead fills the mold with an industrial-grade polymer casting material. The outer shell is removed by soaking in water, and what’s left is an industrial-grade mold with no layer lines or supports, which can also be machined for surface finish or tighter tolerances. Taking just a couple of days, the system speeds up traditional mold production processes and is also used to create jigs and fixtures.

An advantage of photopolymer gels is that you can print with practically no support structures, the company says. The 1800 is the smallest of Massivit’s printers. There’s also the larger 5000 and 10000.

Founded about 10 years ago in Youngstown, Ohio, large-format 3D printer manufacturer JuggerBot 3D offers industrial pellet-fed 3D printers called the Tradesman Series.

The P3-44 machine, which comes in variations, thus the “series,” is a fully enclosed 3D printer capable of printing at a speed of 13.6 kg of material an hour. The bed can be heated to 120°C and the chamber to 95°C, so you can print with a wide range of materials, including glass- or carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers, PEEK, PEKK, Ultem, and more.

Rather than a touch-screen, the Tradesman is built with an integrated workstation that includes a monitor, slicing software (ORNL Slicer 2), and machine control programs with a library of processing information. Also, included are third-party material profiles streamlined production workflows called Material Cards.

Your Tradesman includes a pellet material hopper and feeding systems with a mobile drying unity to remove moisture.

JuggerBot 3D says its industrial machines include “robust integrated motion controllers” coupled with closed-loop servo motors and absolute encoders to ensure “reliable and repeatable movement.”

JuggerBot 3D’s machines range in price from $275,000 to $325,000.

Elegoo’s OrangeStorm Giga

The popular consumer brand Elegoo debuted its first very large-format 3D printer last fall, and All3DP’s testing lab is hoping to get its hands on it in 2024. The large-format (800 x 800 x 1,000 mm) OrangeStorm Giga ($1,250) FDM isn’t professional just because of its size; it has features. There are four 300℃ extruder nozzles that work simultaneously, so you can print four identical models or experiment with different colors and materials without worrying about nozzle drips or complications. The maximum print speed is a nice 300 mm/s.

The printer’s heated bed has four independent and individually heated PEI magnetic, high-temperature platforms, so when you’re not printing huge parts, you can focus your printer on a quarter or half of the bed. There’s also one-click automatic bed leveling, filament detection, power loss recovery, double-sided powerful cooling fans, a portable 7-inch HD screen, and caterpillar cable tracks.

Fused Form P1000

If your business is located in South or Central America, shipping a large-format 3D printer from Europe or the US is likely cost-prohibitive. But that’s certainly not the only reason to consider the P1000 large-format pellet 3D printer from Colombia-based manufacturer Fused Form.

“Our machines are designed to be durable, robust and 24/7-hardworking,” the company says.  The P1000 has an impressive 1,100 x 1,100 x 1,300 mm enclosed volume, a 300 mm/s maximum printing speed, a super-hot extruder  (450°C), and a heated bed to 120°C.

Amnova Big Brother

South Africa-based start-up Amnova offers a modular large-format filament 3D printer called the Big Brother. This system integrates proven third-party equipment, such as extruders from Dyze Design or Massive Dimensions, with industrial servo motors, linear rails, and ball screws for precise and repeatable manufacturing, the company says.

Big Brother V1.1 boasts a print extrusion rate of  5kg/hour.

Make3d Pratham X

The Pratham X is a large-format 3D printer that was announced last fall in India by Make3D, a local 3D printer manufacturer. It’s not listed on the company’s website for sale just yet but what we know is that it’s an industrial-grade FDM 3D printer that can print objects with a build volume of 1,000 x 1,000 x 600 mm. The Pratham X is designed to address the increasing demand for large-scale prototyping and tooling in Indian sectors like automotive and shipbuilding. It has a metal chassis, an aluminum build platform, and a heated bed mat that can reach 120°C in under 30 seconds, the company says. It also features automatic bed leveling, linear ball screw motion control, carbon and HEPA filtration, and linear guides. The Pratham X can be configured with either a single or dual extruder setup, and it is compatible with PLA and TPU filaments.

Q.BIG 3D Queen 1

German couple Katja and Dennis Herrmann founded Q.Big 3D in 2019 to make large-scale 3D printing economically viable, they say. The company’s first machine, the Queen 1, debuted in 2023, and it sports some innovations that may catch on quickly in the large-format 3D printing space.

First is its print head with variable nozzle diameters that can switch from a 1.5 mm diameter to a 3 mm diameter, which enables it to print fine detail in parts that need it and less detail in parts that don’t, resulting in faster print times. Maximum print speed is 500 mm/s.

The Queen 1 only prints with material in pellet form with a maximum output of 2.0 kg/h. It’s a fully enclosed machine with a build volume of 1,700 x 1,050 s 1,050 mm, a heated chamber to 80°C, and a heated bed to 120°C. Q.Big 3D says its machine is particularly designed to “accelerate development and early-stage manufacturing of large parts.”