First thoughts- Original Kit build
Hello, I just received my kit and finished the build.
Firstly I was surprised on how fast it shipped and made it to me in USA. After I ordered I read about some people having some customs charges or other things, but it arrived in about 2 days. Great job on this.
Instructions were great and got me through the build. I took my time and double/triple checked things as I went along. Great learning experience.
I do hope you keep adding information to the instructions. I got a little lost after the mechanical part and had to do a little research on how to home the printer and level the bed to understand exactly what I needed to do.
Overall I am VERY happy with the product and glad to support an original. I almost went with a steel kit elsewhere because of the advantages of the steel frame, and surely would have bought one here if it was offered.
I struggled with a few things, but learned a lot in the process, I spent extra time going over things again and again to make sure they were as correct as I believed them to be. To my surprise my first treefrog came out pretty good, though learned another lesson on removing it from the glass(snapped off a front leg) and the little Marvin guy looks OK. So really happy with the results so far as my first step into 3d printing.
The kit is well made, but I already find myself looking to redesign/replace some things. I expected that because I'm a tinkering sort of person and why I went with a kit instead of a assembled printer.
I will say there are some things that were more frustrating then they should have been. So along with my praise I will include a few things I think could be improved with the kit.
End stops:
Mounting is frustrating and hard to adjust on X-Y, Z is OK. I found myself having to add an extra Zip-Tie behind the switch to keep the switch in place when setting home. I will be definitely looking for some sort of printed switch mount.
Bed leveling:
I struggled with this for a while, my screws didn't slide easily into the holes and would hang up, making the bed hard to adjust. I ended up using a small drill bit to clean out the holes and remove a little of the extra paint. It works OK now but still will be looking for another way to make the adjustment more precise and easier.
Z-Axis: This is working fine right now but the tube/heatshrink doesn't seem to be a great choice of coupling, I plan on getting some other couplers as one of my first mods. One of the main issues is how hard it is to do maintenance/repair, I felt like I was going to break the mount just trying to get the rod all the way down to the motor even though I was supporting it with my other hand. I'm wary of trying to disassemble,reassemble this connection if required.
Rambo enclosure: This works fine as designed, but found it very frustrating to try to get everything together properly with the harnesses zip-tied to the cover, and after reading about the heatbed connectors, I am not looking forward to opening it up to check them as part of my regular maintenance. As I want to try to avoid the burnt connectors, even though I tightened them down very tightly and secured the harness to the cover to avoid wiggle. For piece of mind I may do the solder to the board mod. but overall I think there should be a little better way to enclose all the wires and manage the cables a little better.
Those are my only nit-picks so far, and really I'm just trying to provide feedback to continue to improve this awesome kit.
I can't stress enough how happy I am with the kit, and really want to thank you for the great product and helping make 3d printing more accessible to all the tinkerers and makers out there.
Thanks for reading,
Bruce
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
Hi Bruce
I often tend towards overthinking problems. The solutions provided by Josef generally are very simple and they do work very well for most of us.
This printer is a starting point for most, and many end up with a variety of mods. That's the beauty of this and Open Source in general.
When I received this printer, I was very surprised by the basic simplicity and thought that some things were not up to the job, but I was wrong.
With regards to your comments I would say that once I understood what was going on, I appreciated why things had been done like this.
I have never had an issue with the end stops. Once lined up and positioned, they are fine and work perfectly without any extras.
I really struggled with bed levelling at the start but now, it takes only a few seconds every 5 to 10 prints and very rarely needs changing.
Rather stupidly, I changed the Z-Axis connectors for aluminium ones and have to endure constant squeaking when the axis is homing. What I did was not an improvement!
With regards to the bed levelling, the most common problem is a twisted frame, Ensure all 4 feet are perfectly flat on the table. Next, undo all 4 locking nuts under the bed PCB a little to allow the screws to move. The screws will go into the chassis better; heat up the bed and tighten the nuts. The expansion of the PCB can cause it to bow up slightly.
Josef will be along soon and well take on board your feedback.
Enjoy your printing!
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
I second the bed leveling problem. Have the same issue with holes being too small for screws. I haven't got time yet to tackle this problem but will do the same; ream it to make sure screws comes easily. For now I used some zip ties to make sure all is in place 🙂
Seeing that more people have problem with this maybe changing the hole size when laser cutting would be a good idea.
I am talking 0.2-0.3 mm to make up for paint variety in tolerance.
Michal
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
Guys
I have a spare Y chassis and a few spare screws from the build. I took the screws and pushed them into the holes in the chassis. Two were a perfect fit, the other two were tight.
I simply tightened up the screw in the holes, added a further turn and pulled the screws out with pliers. Those two holes are now a perfect fit as well.
There really is no need tor drills or reamers. These holes need to be quite tight in order to prevent X/Y wobble. They simply need the excess pain cleaning out.
Don't forget to loosen the lock nuts, fit heater to chassis, heat up and tighten lock nuts.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
This is definitely one way of doing that. But you risk damaging the screw and really can't be sure about the final results.
I'd say it's good if you don't have an access to the proper workshop and it is safer probably.
But if you know what you are doing, and have a good pillar drill and use reamer not a drill bit than you will get a sweet perfect fit 🙂
And that is what I am going to do later. And the other mods I already have in mind. But printing first, need to make the head of BB-8 before I start tempering with printer 🙂
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
Michal
I do have access to a pillar drill and reamers in my workshop. But we are here talking about a very tiny amount of excess paint build-up (caused by surface tension) around the edges of the holes. Nothing more. (Paint here is probably a powder coating and surface tension is electrical charge.)
Damaging a screw when I have a few thousand in my workshop if the least of my worries. My biggest worry is to get it wrong and have a hole hat is oversized.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
Peter,
It is all true. If it is tiny amount of paint that would be fine but in my case it seems that it is really tight. When I will disassemble the Y axis I will tell you more of what it needs and what way would be best. If the screw is really just biting into paint I'd even say round file would do the job really well but it if is biting into the aluminium I would rather ream. Masking these holes for painting would be good.
Michal
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
Michal
My guess is that the frames are laser-cut on the same jig and using the same code. The only differences would be the paint thickness.
The holes would be oversized to allow for a layer of paint, but the top/bottom hole edges will always get more than the centres. In a production environment, masking holes for painting would be a somewhat costly exercise.
Peter
Please note: I do not have any affiliation with Prusa Research. Any advices given are offered in good faith. It is your responsibility to ensure that by following my advice you do not suffer or cause injury, damage…
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
Yeah, just thought the same the moment I posted the comment. Masking it would add a lot of cost to the process. But it would be nice if they were 😀
Anyway, I will look at my frame later and see what needs to be done.
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
Michal,
Bruce,
Peter,
All,
Here I would like to echo Bruce's every single words on the quality of the printer and of the very clear and detailed instructions to build it.
This is my first experience in the field, but I can already say that I am impressed by the quality of the prints! Of course I made mistakes, such as the 2 extrusion screws with the spring too tight, sub-optimal Z calibration, not enough "glue" on the glass (...), but the learning curve is very steep! A very big THANK for the support (email + the online)... they are just fantastic. I could solve many little hiccups here and there thanks to them!
Overall, I had only a couples of little issues/comments - all identical to Bruce's - all resolved now:
(1) Bed leveling:
2 out of 4 screws of the heated bed that didn't slide easily into the holes, and it really made the bed calibration a nightmare if you have not understood that these screws need "to sit" (i.e. not be screwed) in the Y chassis. The 2 holes were indeed too small for the screws most probably due some of the painting layer in the holes. I didn't want to drill anything since I was afraid damaging the Y chassis or creating bigger holes and allowing X/Y wobble. I took me really many (many) hours of trials to figure this out! Happy to read now Peter's recommendation to solve the issue. It is exactly what I have done. Would be nice to include this somewhere in the instructions as I read now that I am not the only one who had the same issue!
To finish with the bed little issue, and following Peter's recommendation to loosen the heated bed lock nuts, fit heater to chassis, heat up and then tighten lock nuts when heated, I think it is a good idea in order to make sure the bed is well placed in the Y chassis.
(2) Rambo enclosure:
Here again to follow Bruce's comment, I found the housing of the Rambo a bit weak or having a very "cheap look" (to say the least). I then printed Wilfred's new housing (found in the forum here http://shop.prusa3d.com/forum/improvements-f14/housing-for-rambo-t253.html#p1412 ) which I found a lot better, with more space for all the cables.
To conclude, I would warmly and without any hesitation recommend this printer kit. I have learned "by doing" that is quality not only relies on the hardware, but as well on the documentation, the support and importantly on how you build it yourself! It is a matter of many subtle details, but in the end, every single details really count to allow this printer to run perfectly.
Kind regards,
Dominique (my first post in this forum).
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
I just want to be clear about the cleaning of the holes, i just took a small drill bit that fit snugly and twisted it with my fingers to remove the excess paint and the holes then worked as expected, but it took me a little bit to figure out why they weren't adjusting well, they would pull up and not go back down etc.
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
In my case sliding and rubbing a bolt through the hole was not enough, did this many times. I really had use a 3mm steel drill. Out came not much, a bit of chafed bits. After that, a great fit with very little play.
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
I'm going to chime in on this one as well. Same overall experience to the OP. Am also from the US and thought shipping was quick and the package arrived in great shape with no customs issues or anything else. That said, those instructions could be re-written to include some of the suggestions made by the users in the comments.
I did have my frame "out of whack" by a few mm initially which was an issue for me, but the bed leveling was even after that. As others have said here and in another thread, there was an issue with the screw holes... mainly the rear one next to the Rambo case for me. I finally ditched the thumb adjusters except for the front left one, and manually screwed the other three straight into Y-carriage frame. Used calipers to match the distance all around, and have pulled some perfect prints off since then.
I have to agree on that Rambo case as well. Really flimsy compared to everything else and the cable management could be better. That will actually be the first thing I replace or fix whenever I get ready to make some true adjustments to the machine.
Happy with the machine overall though and absolutely love the filament. Would purchase more but shipping is too expensive to the states unfortunately.
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
Bruce.w and adam.f2, I have found a great design for replacing the RAMBo case which I use myself: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1102368
I love it. Maintenance is easy, both because the PCB is faced outwards and because you can easily remove the side panel without the whole housing collapsing. Plus, the cable management is way more clever in this design.
/Sascha
Re: First thoughts- Original Kit build
Bruce.w and adam.f2, I have found a great design for replacing the RAMBo case which I use myself: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1102368
Have that in my print que now, thanks!