MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled  

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

@rogersbarn has a point in using the old fashioned printed assembly manual. IMHO, it is easier to follow it in linear sequence. But you have to use both, the written advice as well as the pictures. I would have preferred having gotten one for my XL as well. I got the pdf but still shy away from printing the pages out. The problem when using an electronic form instead is that you are constantly jumping back and forth and get distracted very easily. That is amplfied when you use 3rd party sources like videos as well. All too often, that does not help with staying calm.

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Post deleted  by moderator due to personal attacks and unacceptable  language 
Joan Tabb

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

I am a long time lurker, but did the OP say he didn't know the frame would have to be straight?  And had to go back and do it over?  This tells me you need some basic training in common sense thinking, and maybe that is your sticking point.  How would you get an accurate machine of any kind if the frame of said machine is crooked or misaligned?

I would suggest that you read over entire chapters first and then go back over it again while you assemble so that any "Surprises" you might find are identified early.  I Assembled a Mk3 kit once upon a time and it was doable without too much difficulty.  Perhaps the Mk4 is an order of magnitude harder, but just pre-read everything before you start assembling and take it slow.  It's not a race, it's an exercise in following directions and getting it right so your machine is awesome.  If you get frustrated take a break have a beer and relax a bit before you go back at it.  You will learn how all the parts of your printer work and it will make you better at these things in the future.  If you just thought you were going to save a bunch of money (300$ ?) and it wasn't going to require some work, yes you should have bought it pre-assembled.

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

Blauzahn:Yes, the time estimates seems very optimistic. I hope I will find the patience to finish it one day. Maybe there is some calming agent in the Haribo pack, because I haven't opened it yet...Using a printed manual could maybe have helped me stay focused, video is useful too, I will watch some steps ahead to see where its going etc...

ronnie:at this point im not sure what your saying, i gave you more examples of exact steps that are tedious, would you agree that the last example is legitimate or not? i think probably you agree with me more than you dare to say...

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

Puresteel

This is not what most people would think of, they think that how it's machined and put together would make it accurate enough once you have put the screws in place.

I knew it was going to require some work I bought the kit and as I have pointed out there is too many optimistic posts about how long it will take, and not that it was double the time often referred to, and that there where so many ill fitted parts and tight spaces. It's wasting my valuable time, and 3D printing has already done that with so many bad recommendations, I was just expecting the Prusa experience to have a bit more honesty / accuracy with regards to that, its not worth 14 hours of annoying work, 7 hours of easy work is the max I would do for the savings, but its not accurate

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

If you can find a 3d printer kit that you have to assemble yourself, and it doesn't tell you to check the frame with a square after you assemble, I would avoid that kit.  You didn't take a shop class in high school or anything?  I would recommend you check out the book:  Measure Twice and Cut Once. 

Instead of complaining you could send it back or sell it or whatever since you don't want to put it together.  None of us telling you its worth it or not that hard will sway you, so you do you.  You are spending more time complaining and responding to this thread, put that energy into completing your task and you would be printing already. 

The short is this, you are not an "Assembling a printer" guy, that's fine, move on, don't order a kit again and everyone (including you) will be better off.  I am sad that you didn't have a good time with it, I found it pretty relaxing (though it took me a little over 10 hours).  I am a slowpoke that stops to take a break if I am frustrated at all, so it probably took a total of 2 days with about 6 hours on day one and 4.5 on day 2.

It's okay to be frustrated and not like assembling it, but it is one of the easier builds out there that isn't "Semi-assembled" like the ones that take screwing in the top half to the base semi-assembled.  I moved on to soldiering wires in another kit, and I will take the Prusa all day long as far as that goes.

Love Jeremy.

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So please, throw it in the trash if you think it's such shit, and think about the fact that you made a mistake because you bought bad stocks that turned into worthless papers. You can't blame the stock market for buying bad stocks either. But once again, please stop writing your litanies here. In the time you've spent writing these litanies about how precious your time is, you could have already assembled it. Thousands and I would say more than tens of thousands of people before and after you have compiled it without any problems. And if they had them, they solved them even without such talk, or they asked here how to solve a specific problem. And I'll bet you anything that there was always someone to give them advice.

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

I must also say that it was a pleasure to assemble the MK4. 

You really have to read the manual carefully and implement it step by step.  Otherwise you run the risk of overlooking things and having to pay for it later.

I didn't time it exactly, but I put the frame together quickly in the evening. The MK4 was running the next evening. And I did some other work outside in between. 

My main reason for assembling the printer myself was to do it particularly accurately. I can take my time to check and optimize everything important several times.  The Prusa employees are certainly under a certain amount of time pressure.  Sometimes children assemble a Prusa under supervision.

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Okey so I was going to give it a try and see if I could manage chapter 5 in 2 hours, which is already way too much time. I came to step 11 within 45 minutes, and ended it there when the manual cannot even f*****g explain to me what a "chamfer" is. I tried to google it, its something about an angle cut but I don't fully grasp it, and I cannot identify it on the part itself. There are several comments in the manual on that step one of whom said he spent an hour to try to find out what it is... 

Rainer:
I'm a bit confused as to what part of putting it together is a pleasure, I have yet to find a pleasurable step in the manual

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

I feel for @oompyor. Prusa doesn't make a point of letting people know what they are getting into when they buy the kit. Lets face it, we all go "wow" when we see how many screws and nuts and parts there are in the kit. I built an MK3S and now the MK4. The MK4 build was easier because I had built the MK3S, and there were many improvements in the parts and the design. @oompyor is lucky not to have had to build the MK3S. I also used a small screwdriver with an allen head instead of the supplied allen wrenches. That saved a bunch of time. I'm a hands-on engineer type with lots of patience. I was willing to spend time reading many of the build comments, and was able to add a number of my own to help others. When anything came up during the build (and things did) I just figured out how to fix it. Hole is a little snug, just drill it out. I figured that I could build the printer better than someone getting paid to do it at the factory. That was my motivation for getting the kit. Certainly not to save some money. I just wanted as perfect a printer as I could get. And I'm very happy with my printer. It's printing away as I write this.

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Quality control of putting it together oneself is probably a good reason to get the kit...

One day in the future hopefully I can learn to like the MK4 and not be angry at it, but I think this experience will make me resentful. Its probably mostly not the fault of Prusa as I think it ties into my experience with Creality, a lot of wasted time and false promises. The time and clunkyness of the MK4 build ties into the total hours wasted with 3D printers. So Prusa has interjected itself at my peak annoyance with the hobby. But also at one time it absolved it with the Mini...

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

Posted by: @oompyor

Okey so I was going to give it a try and see if I could manage chapter 5 in 2 hours, which is already way too much time. I came to step 11 within 45 minutes, and ended it there when the manual cannot even f*****g explain to me what a "chamfer" is. I tried to google it, its something about an angle cut but I don't fully grasp it, and I cannot identify it on the part itself. There are several comments in the manual on that step one of whom said he spent an hour to try to find out what it is... 

Where necessary, the sub-steps within a step are colour-coded.  The description of the chamfer has a dark magenta bullet - check the photos for the corresponding colour.  In this case the chamfered teeth have a dark magenta circle in the inset in the first photo, and dark magenta arrows showing the required orientation of the part.  Click on the photo to see a bigger version.  In the second photo, even though the chamfered teeth are not picked out, they are visible in the enlarged version.

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

I think many of the kit frustrations are due to the 3D printed parts not being injection molded perfect. Plus the fact that you have to stick so many of those little nuts into the parts. Are the Prusa printers better engineered because they use their printers to print all of those parts? That's the story. Probably some truth to it.

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Chris Hill

Thanks for trying to clarify, but it still doesn't make sense I looked at the image as well

fabnavigator

yes, 3d printer parts and all the nuts and bolts are part of it, a lot of them

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EDIT: the full image above doesn't show until you click on it, so my added text may look truncated above.

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I drew a thick red circle clearly showing the "chamfer" (angle cut on the teeth) on one side of the gear. Make sure that side of the gear is in the direction indicated in that photo.

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

Sorry, I really don't mean to sound stupid or presumptuous. But if you don't even know what a chamfer is, it's better to go for a ready-made device.  

I assembled the printer relatively early on. The instructions weren't even available in my language. There were hardly any comments either.  I read through the MK3 instructions before ordering. You can then assess whether you're confident enough to do it. I only had to rework one part a little. And that was just a small cover.

But now there's no going back.

Go through with it. You can do it 👍

And you'll be proud afterward 😍

And you'll save the time you spend now for printing later. Because the MK4 has simply worked for me ever since. Just printing, nothing else. 

If you had worked instead of complaining here, you would definitely be further along 😉 

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

I ordered the printer immediately after the first mention of it, when the construction procedure had not even been issued. But it was clear that it would be based on MK3, and that was enough. It is true that I have experience with Prusa kits since MK2. That's where @oompyor would be out 😂. A basic frame assembled from a bunch of threaded rods, washers and nuts. There, the perpendicularity of the parts, the distance of the nuts from each other had to be monitored, etc. The pile of parts was also connected using ZIP tapes, which was quite a treat. Finally, what I would write about it, you can see for yourself here: https://help.prusa3d.com/guide/1-introduction_79768 Then came the conversion into a solid frame, the necessity to construct , draw and print a bunch of parts for this build. Next, making a copy of MK2 from the very beginning (buying hardware, electronics, etc. Again, quite fun. But we continue on. I recommend only one thing to everyone who is interested in buying a kit: Look at the construction process as Prusa describes it, and ask yourself the question: Do I have enough skills and knowledge to successfully complete the construction? If you answer yes, buy the kit and get to work. If your answer is negative, buy the finished printer. But even in this case, you will not miss the need to check the entire finished printer. They are cases are described here when the screws on the pulleys were not tightened enough, or they loosened along the way, and other and other problems. And finally, I am not even surprised that Prusa does not offer a kit in the case of the XL printer in like the MK4 design, i.e. a set of parts as we are used to, but only pre-assembled with by the user completing only some non-essential operations.

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

Watch my video build guide through before going any further (link in sig). Watch all parts so you know what's coming up in the next few sections and in what order. Then go back to your build. There are plenty of tips included - such as NOT screwing the frame screws in tight to start with, etc. I created the video guide using the official Prusa manual, but also added in plenty of tips and tricks along the way to make the build an easier process. I hope they help you!

RE: MK4 kit, really frustrating assembly wish I was recommended fully assembled

Seriously - if you are unsure of the assembly process I would urge anyone to check the video build guide in my sig. It will not only prepare you for what is to come, but you will see the entire build process in detail and hence know whether its something you want to get in to or not. I've had tons of users commenting on how they have used only the videos to build the entire printer! 

The videos are sequential, taking you from start to end through the entire build, but add extra details not included in the official build guide - tips on getting parts to fit the right way, etc

You will also find you wont have to revisit and re-do parts - like loosening screws to square up the frame etc - as these are already covered in the build. Either way, its good to see the entire build on video before you even start, as it'll give a good understanding of what's to come so you can have it in mind while you build.