Got printer together--now what?  

Re: Got printer together--now what?

Hello John, welcome to a great 3D printer.

Yep. Take the time to get the axies right. It wil be the best adjustment you can make, getting the X Y Z axies perpendicular to each other. Everything will follow on accurately after.

You should not need to calibrate the printer each time you switch it on. I calibrated my MK2 many weeks ago. I switch on and go print, and get perfect prints everytime.

I run 3.08 firmware, you running 3.07 should make little diiference. You should not need to recalibrate before every print. The settings should be stored on the Rambo electronics board.

Re: Got printer together--now what?

My question is, should I take the time and effort to upend it and adjust the frame to try to square it up, or should I leave it alone under the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?"

Yes you should get a micrometer, or a very good ruler and try to make sure it is square. Easier to do now, and then more of your prints will succeed.

Also, I just got some Loctite--is that still recommended to lock the threads down on the P.I.N.D.A. nut? The probe height seems to be right on, so I'd like to keep it that way if I could.

Make sure you use the BLUE Loctite (confusingly, in the red container). It can still easily release with a wrench.

http://www.loctiteproducts.com/p/t_lkr_blue/overview/Loctite-Threadlocker-Blue-242.htm

My MK2 kit arrived just after Labor Day too. I'm just starting the Electronics Assembly today, as time permits.

John

Re: Got printer together--now what?

Thanks Merv & John,

It must be a good printer, because I have been cranking out several models in the last couple of days (with my catawampus frame), and I've not had a bad print yet! And in fact, the quality of the prints has been truly impressive. However, most everything I have tried has been fairly small, so I'm probably getting by with it by virtue of that fact. So this weekend I am going to take a shot at squaring her up. I have a micrometer, outside calipers, vernier calipers, and various other measuring devices--I think I will up-end the printer and study it for a bit and come up with a good strategy for squaring.

The Loctite I have is the blue variety, so I think I'll be good to go--I guess I'll wait to lock the threads until after the squaring of the frame and the subsequent calibration passes. I upgraded the firmware to 3.0.8, and the machine is still operating beautifully. I have been really impressed with this baby! I did my first 3D printing about a year ago with a couple of XYZprinting da Vinci machines that I got on loan from the company. After I had to give them back, I had to save up the money to buy my own--so I've had about a year's worth of withdrawals. It's great to have a machine of my own now!

John--good luck with the rest of your build. Nice chatting with y'all!

Cheers, John

Re: Got printer together--now what?

Thanks Merv & John,
However, most everything I have tried has been fairly small, so I'm probably getting by with it by virtue of that fact.

Likely true, but perhaps their auto-leveling and calibration tools truly are making a difference. On my first printer, I was happily creating 20mm cubes and other small items successfully. It was only when I went beyond 80mm that I started to see issues. That was with a Delta printer, so I'm not sure if the cartesian printers have the same sort of issue with the magnitude of the problem increasing the further you get from the center of the build platform.

John--good luck with the rest of your build.

Thanks! I completed the build today, but I decided to hold off on the firmware upgrade and initial calibration/testing until tomorrow or Saturday. I keep a log of my build time, and the build took me 16 hours spread out over 9 days.

That time seems quite a bit longer than most, especially if you consider this is my second 3D printer kit, but I think I lost a fair bit of time for all the starting and stopping. I could probably add another 3 hours for some troubleshooting that involved some time with the on-line chat.

All in all, a very enjoyable build process. I really benefited from using the online manual and the comments that have been made over the last few months.

John

Re: Got printer together--now what?

Hi Guys, welcome to the 3D Maker movement 🙂

Enjoy yourselfs while you doing it! I printed for not only optimization parts and enclosures for my cam etc so i'm not really in "production" mode yet but im fine with it and it is very much fun to tune the printer 🙂

Anyway: for your "Calibarate every time" Problem -> Print the G2 Calibartion code on the printer. This removes the message is is is printed 🙂

Happy to answer any questions feel free to say hi

Re: Got printer together--now what?

I print many different models on my Prusa I3 MK2 with great success. Some take a long time. I experiement with quieter settings and full stepper power settings. I often seee little difference in prints, but if you can print in full power mode, larger prints may be better.