Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
I've started in been involved in several beginner threads,
May I give some UX impressions that I'd like Joseph Prusa to read?
Regarding the last notification, where I was told to rtfm, I would like to quizzically say, like Obi Wan Kenobi, "RTFM? That's an acronym I haven't heard in a long, long time. I first read it in The Cuckoo's Egg ©1989, and is in the Jargon file alongside terms of derision for people who have trouble with bad UX. I don't remember how many decades it's been since an open beginner asked a question and was told to RTFM. The term is a great deal ruder than a bare F-bomb."
I've owned a Prusa Printer MK3S+ for about a month now, and have successfully printed a test pattern and... well, I kind of printed the bottom half inch of the Stanford bunny before I saw:
I had wanted to set a deadline of "If I haven't made a real print by X amount of time (a month or so), I'll ask for my money back.
I've been told that for printing with PLA I won't get anywhere trying to get by with the textured sheet I made; I need a smooth sheet. But a 3rd party sheet from Amazon didn't have PLA really stick to it at any reasonable nozzle type, and I purchased it on Amazon after finding I needed a Prusa PEI sheet, which is not available from Prusa's shop for an indefinite length of time, and when I hunted on Amazon and eBay, I found plenty of other textured sheets like I have, but not a single Prusa smooth PEI sheet: print sheets, print sheets everywhere, but not a single smooth PEI to acquire!
Apart from the question of whether it would be courteous for the community to refund my money and let me keep trying to get it to work for an open-ended length of time, I am or at least have been a Linux hacker, and I would genuinely like to give, in the genuine sense of a free gift without expecting anything in return, some of how the Prusa experience comes across to a UX aficionado.
For starters, where you sell the printers, you should strongly steer most of the general public towards a pre-assembled and pre-tested kit even if it will cost a fraction of the price more and there will be customs duties. Like most IT's I grew up on Legos, but this printer assembly was beyond my ability. I asked my brother who makes his living in real world IT, and he mostly assembled it, but not to the point that it was operable. I was able to make it (relatively) operable, at least so that the printhead could move its paces, by creativity and use of a large, ancient metal clamp (16" MBP shown for scale):
I don't want to boast or show off, but I kind of ranked 7th in nation in a math contest as a kid, and if I'm a Linux software hacker and have math awards and still can't assemble your kit, maybe your kit is too hard to assemble.
From a UX perspective it would make sense to have a quiet link on your webshop saying "Are you a hardware hacker or DIY enthusiast?", and a happy path to pay a little more and have it assembled.
I also find it a disappointment that the person who steered me towards Prusa and said it was the best option did not warn me of the kit being a minor challenge to assemble... and didn't answer my email at all if I asked if he would assemble my kit for $250, not even by answering, "No."
Your sale of Prusa printers should promote the pre-assembled version front and center; a quiet side note asking "Are you a DIY enthusiast or hardware hacker?", or your existing established and well-known reputation by itself, should be all it takes to steer people who really should buy a kit towards the happy path.
I purchased a printer so I could use it to create art on weekends. It's now a challenge I've been trying to nibble at when I could, apart from presently waiting indefinitely for a PEI sheet to be available (would one kind soul be willing to give or sell me one)?
From a User Experience perspective, "You have a problem," or as has been said in business, "We have an opportunity," to make UX much, much more grateful.
Respectfully Yours,
C.J.S. Hayward
I invite you to visit my website at CJSHayward.com and my bookshelf at CJSHayward.com/books.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
Just a quick note: I obviously can't help with getting smooth sheets into the store but I really like the BCZAMD textured sheets. I use them on both my Minis and Mk3S and they've handled any material I've thrown at them (PLA, PET,G ABS, PC, TPU) with ease. The surface is a bit coarser than what you get with the Prusa textured sheet but I'm used to it now.
They're on Amazon:
Mk3S: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XC673ZT/
Mini: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B088LPJ8PK/
and they're available.
Nothing beats the satin sheets, but again, they're not in stock.
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- until all hell broke loose with the forum software...
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
I am not a genius by any means - yet somehow the kit was exceptionally easy to assemble (except for that damned Nylon filament strain relief -Prusa, shame on you). Had I not been mechanically inclined, I would have been smarter to spend the extra $250 and buy the assembled version. But, even then, reading the handbook that comes with the printer was never an option. The handbook is clear, concise, and actually quite helpful even to the total novice that I was at the time.
So yes, RTFM (Read The eFfing Manual) is actually people trying to help you. We say that because of the questions you ask, the fact you ignore the answers given, then ask them again in multiple threads, and that is amazingly abundantly clear you've read nothing of what Prusa has written. Right down to your not knowing an SD card is required.
The fact you haven't demonstrated a layer 1 print that even resembles what layer one should look like, it doesn't surprise me you can't get a print to finish. But "What's a layer one, and how do I do that? Oh, by the way, I sliced for a printer I don't own, does that matter?" you ask? Read the book.
And if waiting for print sheets, this one works rather well:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V1JYJS2
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
I get such a kick out of these sorts of topics:
So Prusa, please add a link on your store to the fully assembled product:
I mean, seriously? The kit and assembled product are side by side.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
And - my last post here - I promise: I wonder how that C-clamp was used to help the print heads move? Pretty sure I wouldn't even take his printer as a donation. And, the begging for the community to bail him out financially, or give him materials like print sheets? Wow - thought I'd heard a lot of things - but that part of this thread is a touch out there. So if anyone does decide to donate to that cause - hey - add my name to that free money list, please o please o please.
And to @cjshayward - if you had read any of the posts here, or the forum rules, you'd know Prusa doesn't read anything here. They have store chat for that.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
@fuchsr
I bought a smooth sheet today. There are lots of them in the shop. The OP can't even navigate a web site.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
@cjshayward
I know I promised ... but out of the blue this popped into my mind:
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
I'm amazed that the clamp is covered in PLA strands. Apparently the OP did clamp the extruder body ... maybe it has something to do with improving the UX. Can't tell. It's next to a Mac, so ... heh heh. well, you know what they say about Mac's.
Besides, I said (yes it was ME) - Read the FINE Manual. I can't help it if you have a dirty mind.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
Been happily printing PLA, PETG and Ninjaflex on a powder coated bed without any glues, hairsprays or other additives, just a good clean with isopropylalcohol every now and then.
Having problems with bed adhesion every morning...
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
Unfortunately 3D printing is not yet at the "off the shelf" level where you can just grab an appliance, take it home and expect it to work flawlessly from day one. Even a fully assembled one will need tinkering. That said, I bought the kit, and assembled it over the course of 2 whole days, wasting half a day because I failed to RTFM and had to undo operations three times to find where I used the wrong length screw, or fed the cable through in the wrong direction, or put a part on backwards... I can personally attest that the MK3/S/+ manual is *not* meant for speed-reading, and *especially* not the extruder section.
The first thing I did after making a test print of the planetary gear bearing in PLA was switch out to PETG and make spare parts of literally everything (in hindsight I probably only needed the extruder and X/Y/Z axis parts, but never mind, I'm all set if Prusa ever release a no-plastic-parts kit for cheap 😀). I later found my extruder's FS lever was malformed and didn't give the filament runout signal, so the spare I made came in very handy. Bear in mind that if a 3D printed part on your 3D printer breaks before you have printed spares, then you have to get a second printer to print the replacement (take that as a warning, or an excuse to buy more printers, your choice 😉)
Given that the plastic parts on the MK3 are all PETG (apart from the fan shroud which is ASA for the additional heat resistance) and that PETG has such strong adhesion that the textured sheet is mandatory to allow easy removal, I'd recommend getting a reel of PETG and making spare parts for your extruder while you wait for a smooth PEI sheet to become available. This would help you test the function of the analyser and give you a bit of a safety net at the same time just in case your extruder ever decides to go a bit melty.
Also bear in mind you will need to do maintenance. Every few months you will need to check the wired connections are still good, especially to the hotend and heatbed power, as if they get loose it can become a fire hazard. If you haven't de-lubricated and re-packed your bearings (an advanced technique that I haven't done myself yet), then you'll need to apply a little bit of sewing machine oil or 3-in-1 oil to the rods on both sides of the bearings on each axis every few weeks, with the oil blotted onto and then applied using a bit of kitchen roll to help clear the dirt off the rods at the same time. You will need to clean any spring steel plate (e.g. your textured plate) with isopropyl alcohol on a bit of cloth or kitchen roll regularly, ideally between every print when the plate is cool, and ensure you don't get any fingerprints on the build area. Finally, at some point, all spring steel sheets regardless of coating will become so clogged with microscopic bits of plastic that they lose adhesion in a way that even alcohol won't solve, requiring instead a brief, soft scrub with washing up liquid and water followed by a thorough drying and a quick heat-up on the MK3's heatbed to ensure no moisture stays long enough to damage the surface. I'd recommend getting some latex or nitrile gloves to wear while cleaning so you don't get any fingerprints on the sheet at all. When you get the smooth PEI sheet you can also use acetone to rejuvenate its surface, but *never* use acetone on the textured sheet as this will severely damage it.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
Thank you; I have ordered two reels of PETG.
I invite you to visit my website at CJSHayward.com and my bookshelf at CJSHayward.com/books.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
[...] I also find it a disappointment that the person who steered me towards Prusa and said it was the best option did not warn me of the kit being a minor challenge to assemble... and didn't answer my email at all if I asked if he would assemble my kit for $250, not even by answering, "No."
Your sale of Prusa printers should promote the pre-assembled version front and center; a quiet side note asking "Are you a DIY enthusiast or hardware hacker?", or your existing established and well-known reputation by itself, should be all it takes to steer people who really should buy a kit towards the happy path.
The page for the Mk3 kit states:
The MK3S+ is available as an assembly kit, which is the best way to get to know your new 3D printer. Assemble it screw by screw to learn truly everything about its design and how it works! You can also get it fully assembled and factory tested, so all you need to do is to unpack it and plug it in.
This isn't ambiguous in any way, and "screw by screw" certainly doesn't imply it'll go together like a SnapTite Revell model airplane. I'd be a bit put off by somebody who read all this, elected to buy the kit, then wanted to obligate me to assemble it for them!
There's nothing wrong with biting off more than you can chew, but I don't think you can place the blame for your decision and assessment of your own skills on others.
and miscellaneous other tech projects
He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking. -- Spock in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
RE:
I've started in been involved in several beginner threads,
May I give some UX impressions that I'd like Joseph Prusa to read?
Regarding the last notification, where I was told to rtfm, I would like to quizzically say, like Obi Wan Kenobi, "RTFM? That's an acronym I haven't heard in a long, long time. I first read it in The Cuckoo's Egg ©1989, and is in the Jargon file alongside terms of derision for people who have trouble with bad UX. I don't remember how many decades it's been since an open beginner asked a question and was told to RTFM. The term is a great deal ruder than a bare F-bomb."
I've owned a Prusa Printer MK3S+ for about a month now, and have successfully printed a test pattern and... well, I kind of printed the bottom half inch of the Stanford bunny before I saw:
I had wanted to set a deadline of "If I haven't made a real print by X amount of time (a month or so), I'll ask for my money back.
I've been told that for printing with PLA I won't get anywhere trying to get by with the textured sheet I made; I need a smooth sheet. But a 3rd party sheet from Amazon didn't have PLA really stick to it at any reasonable nozzle type, and I purchased it on Amazon after finding I needed a Prusa PEI sheet, which is not available from Prusa's shop for an indefinite length of time, and when I hunted on Amazon and eBay, I found plenty of other textured sheets like I have, but not a single Prusa smooth PEI sheet: print sheets, print sheets everywhere, but not a single smooth PEI to acquire!
Apart from the question of whether it would be courteous for the community to refund my money and let me keep trying to get it to work for an open-ended length of time, I am or at least have been a Linux hacker, and I would genuinely like to give, in the genuine sense of a free gift without expecting anything in return, some of how the Prusa experience comes across to a UX aficionado.
For starters, where you sell the printers, you should strongly steer most of the general public towards a pre-assembled and pre-tested kit even if it will cost a fraction of the price more and there will be customs duties. Like most IT's I grew up on Legos, but this printer assembly was beyond my ability. I asked my brother who makes his living in real world IT, and he mostly assembled it, but not to the point that it was operable. I was able to make it (relatively) operable, at least so that the printhead could move its paces, by creativity and use of a large, ancient metal clamp (16" MBP shown for scale):
I don't want to boast or show off, but I kind of ranked 7th in nation in a math contest as a kid, and if I'm a Linux software hacker and have math awards and still can't assemble your kit, maybe your kit is too hard to assemble.
From a UX perspective it would make sense to have a quiet link on your webshop saying "Are you a hardware hacker or DIY enthusiast?", and a happy path to pay a little more and have it assembled.
I also find it a disappointment that the person who steered me towards Prusa and said it was the best option did not warn me of the kit being a minor challenge to assemble... and didn't answer my email at all if I asked if he would assemble my kit for $250, not even by answering, "No."
Your sale of Prusa printers should promote the pre-assembled version front and center; a quiet side note asking "Are you a DIY enthusiast or hardware hacker?", or your existing established and well-known reputation by itself, should be all it takes to steer people who really should buy a kit towards the happy path.
I purchased a printer so I could use it to create art on weekends. It's now a challenge I've been trying to nibble at when I could, apart from presently waiting indefinitely for a PEI sheet to be available (would one kind soul be willing to give or sell me one)?
From a User Experience perspective, "You have a problem," or as has been said in business, "We have an opportunity," to make UX much, much more grateful.
Respectfully Yours,
C.J.S. Hayward
Tough day. I am having similar results with ABS-T.
--------------------
Chuck H
3D Printer Review Blog
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
Not sure if this'll be liked, but...
The difference I've found between trying to get a Prusa printer working and a Dremel 3d20 is a lot like the difference between running Gentoo and Linux Mint.
I've had one job where Gentoo was the shop's distribution of choice, and the main difference it meant to be running Gentoo was that I spent an hour of company time a week playing mechanic with random things that broke. I have technical and UX objections to compiling glibc for myself. I do not want to voice an opinion about whether Prusa is analogous on any technical plane to the Gentoo's flaws, but I do have an opinion on the UX level. I have more to show for a week of ownership from a company that wants to lock me into their filament than I did for half a year of efforts to get an MK3S+ to work.
"Ubuntu. An African word meaning, 'Gentoo is too hard for me.'"--seen on a signature in the Gentoo forums.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
Not sure if this'll be liked, but...
I'm more curious why you came back on another account after 6 months. Are you still working in printing issues?
and miscellaneous other tech projects
He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two dimensional thinking. -- Spock in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
RE:
A good friend of mine recently got into 3D printing. He decided on a MK3S+ kit and admits to having very little mechanical aptitude. He built his printer over the course of 30 hours.
But because he was slow, careful (despite being half drunk most the time), and took pains to RTFM (paying attention to user comments at the end of each section) his printer was flawless once he figured out Z offset.
A MK3S+ fell into my lap preassembled. I took a look at the Fine Manual anyway, and can fully understand why people keep talking about it. It is astoundingly good. The photos are incredibly clear, the colour coding within a single image is so easy to follow. The user comments point out different perspectives or methods, or indicate which parts need extra attention from the builder. I came from a Chinese printer where it was a single sheet of paper that explained nothing of consequence.
I don't want to boast or show off, but I kind of ranked 7th in nation in a math contest as a kid, and if I'm a Linux software hacker and have math awards and still can't assemble your kit, maybe your kit is too hard to assemble.
This was a very odd thing to have to pull out as justification.
RE:
Where are you at, I’ll give you $250 cash for it.
L.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
I've asked my Dad (a computer scientist with his doctorate in physics) to assemble it. I'm hoping that he'll have better luck than the other IT's I asked.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
You would do better with an old machine tool guy.
RE: Tea. Earl Grey. NOT!
He's also an amateur mechanic who fixed all sorts of things as a boy. I'd really like that someone like that be adequately qualified to assemble a multicolor MK3S+.