3 months with Prusa MK3
Hi, I started my way with the Prusa three months ago by assembling my MK3,
and just want to give some general feedback and since I'm still a bit of a
beginner - I could always need some feedback/hints.
1) Why a 3D-Printer?
After seeing some 3D-Printers in a shopping-center and seeing their awful demo-prints
I was sure to never ever purchase a 3D-Printer. But for some time now I used buttons loosely
plugged into a breadboard as a customized USB-Makro-Keyboard. I use the buttons every day,
so I definitely needed something more solid.
I need custom cases for electronics and other Maker-stuff - so a 3D-Printer is just the way to go.
After researching things on the internet for a week my choice fell on the Prusa.
2) Assembly (was good)
A few things were not so clear in the beginning (how much tension is good for the belt? - hard to understand that from written words).
I think the hardest parts have been improved in the most recent revisions (e.g. mounting cables to the Einsy case).
The manuals are really great - printed manual is good, but online-versions are even better.
Currently for me an overview for repairs would be nice, e.g. a drawing of the extruder that shows where all the screws
are and which screw has what kind of nut. Things start to get a bit confusing with all the new different part-revisions.
3) CAD
Well, I chose the hard way and learned to make use of Blender. I didn't feel like looking into any
proprietary software, so for open hardware - sticking to open source felt like the right choice.
Wow, Blender is a tough piece of software! But for my use case in fact it works.
4) Octoprint
I mounted a Pi-Zero onto the Einsy-Board and used it for quite a while.
It's nice to start jobs over WiFi. When experimenting a lot it saved me some time.
But:
- starting up is slow
- shutting it down is a bit annoying
- it wants to talk to the internet (so I have to wrap it in firewall diapers)
I think I'll continue to use it at least for remote temperature monitoring.
For monitoring by camera I installed a separate Raspberry Pi (still need to print a good mount for it).
5) Material:
Mostly I printed PLA and PETG - I experimented a bit with ABS
I think if the first thing I had printed had been ABS I would immediately have stopped printing anything.
The warping of ABS was a lot worse than I expected (as an enclosure I only use a photo-tent).
Printing an Einsy-case worked ok, but not great. But I think anything bigger or more massive will probably just not work?!
Currently I'm a bit curious about Nylon - does Prusa have Nylon in the shop? - what's wrong with nylon?
6) Failures & Troubles
6.1) I once clogged everything really bad with ABS.
The ABS had warped - I found a smelly spaghetti monster.
Good luck the printer had stopped on a fan-error (some filament started blocking a fan).
Well - at least now I know how to get rid of a clog.
The needle from Prusa was useful, but it took a bit more to get everything unclogged.
Using a wire and heating it with a soldering iron finally melted the clog away.
6.2) I probably ran into some kind of Firmware-Bug (V3.3.1)
I aborted a print - and after restarting the job and some small Z-adjustments
the printer dug its nose deep into the steel-sheet on the 1st calibration point.
It did that twice, so now each side of the steel-sheet has a hefty dent right at
the calibration point. (I now slightly tilt the sheet...)
Checking the bug-reports I saw that Z-adjustment during calibration caused still problems in V3.4.
I meanwhile upgraded to v3.5 and only use the Z-adjustment while printing the first layer of the prusa-logo.
6.3) Extruder problems
Last week I had serious extrusion problems. It turns out that the tiny screw from the bondtech-gear went missing.
While disassembling the extruder there was a small plonk - and I found the screw on the bottom side of the steel sheet
- the magnets caught it. With the tiny screw I was always careful not to over-tighten it - maybe it was not tight enough
and managed to escape after I printed a 16 hour job with lots of small infill-moves.
7) Air-Quality
For ABS I moved the printer out of the living-area into the basement.
I'm not so sure what to do for air-quality - and so far don't know how to measure it.
So far I have only a small ventilation-system for an airbrush - probably better than nothing.
Maybe getting a good measuring-device for air-quality would be a start.
There are some sensors available for arduino, but from what I've read calibrating cheap sensors will be a pain.
For now I avoid ABS, but as a last resort I have a gas-mask that works good against the ABS-smell,
but I'm not so sure if it's good against fine dust - and I might scare the neighbors...
8) Successful Prints
I now have
- two customized small USB-Keyboards I use every day
- two custom MP3 Players (used for vulcano-sounds on a photo-exhibition)
- a small merry-go-around (kolotoc krtko) made with blender and the help of some 3D-Printer spare-parts
- some really nice tiny figurines made with 0.25 nozzle
- nice thingiverse-stuff...
- I printed some spool holders and a bit of equipment for a drybox, next I have to make the furniture around the printer ready for that.
For now I use a photo-tent and it's not yet clear where any filament-tubes should go to.
I'm happy and the printer is now running a new 16 hour marathon...
9) Things now on the ToDo-List
- Experimenting with hardened steel nozzle - Steelfill/Brassfill Filaments
- I need some custom keycaps for my Alp-Switches
- christmas decoration
- A more solid enclosure would be nice - I think I can get someone to punch a few steel-parts for me,
but I'm not so sure about the dimensions yet. I ordered the MMU2 and that will probably change the situation again (next year).
- a powder coated PEI-sheet would also be nice, but it's probably difficult to get/make one.
I think I can get a powder-coater to make me something custom, but there's probably more science behind the PEI?
Long story...
Summary: I'm happy!