My Mk3 Experience  

My Mk3 Experience

So, I decided I wanted to purchase a printer last summer and decided to wait for the Mk 3. I placed my order on January 2nd and received it March 6th and had it built in a few hours.

Since then, I have printed parts for school (maritime engineering), model ship parts (of the Paul R Tregurtha, a great lakes ship) parts for the ship I was just on and name tags for people's doors on the ship.

I decided to take the Mk3 with me aboard the M/V Kaye E Barker, a 767 foot long self unloading bulk carrier while I sailed on it this summer. I sailed 3 months and printed many items while aboard.

For the most part, the printer performed flawlessly until the very end when the PEI finally started to not hold parts well(I couldn't have acetone due to the high flammability) .

The vibrations of the ship was what gave me the worst issues. The vibrations caused very slight layer visibility. I could tell this by the fact that when we were in Port and the shaft wasn't turning, the prints we're really smooth. Going through the rivers and shallow areas, the layers were pronounced slightly and in open water there was a very minimal, but present layer visibility. Overall I was really impressed.

The features of the printer such as the power loss recovery and filament detector worked fantastic and we're tested multiple times.

I wrote this to let people who may be iffy on putting their mk 3 in odd situations, to encourage them to try it, and see what happens. I have no detectable wear or issues after being on a ship for 3 months but I did learn a few things:
A. Take a spare sheet to be able to have one in reserves.
B. Take extra nozzles because it can be tricky getting them.
C. Try to find a case for travel.

I would like to hear about some environments other people have put their printers in.

Thank you. -Mike