Initial impressions  

RE: Initial impressions

Really happy that you received it, I'm printing now for 3 days constantly and having a lot of failed prints, maybe still learning, I'm wondering what results will you get.

RE: Initial impressions

Hi Dario, 
what is the fail mechanism that you are seeing?
if it's failure to bond to the build plate, then :-

make sure that your build plate is impeccably clean before starting a print,

make sure that your vat has no cured particles of resin getting under the build plate, Empty resin into spare container, using strainer, clean Vat, Inspect FEP film, and start again...

if the preceding options don't help, consider raising your display platform a tiny bit more during configuration, and / or

increase the first layer time a little

regards Joan

  .

RE: Initial impressions

Making progress on assembly.  The only hiccup so far:

They have two versions of connecting the “right blower fan” (a squirrel cage with a shroud) to it’s metal holder.  The new way looks sharp: there are hollow threaded metal columns, the fans slides over them and you screw it down.  So of course I have the old way, which involves screwing an 10mm M5x1.0 metal screw through the metal plate into plastic and hoping it the threads hold in the fan plastic.  One of mine did (once I reamed the metal hole a bit so it would feed straight).  The other immediately stripped.  I think an M4x35 bolt/washer/nut would have done the job nicely (just through bolt it, but make sure the nut is on the metal, the screw head is on the plastic), but I don’t have one.  I ended up going with a longer 16mm M5x1 bolt which got a bit of grip (I’m nervous actually tightening it down much).  

It looks pretty accessible later if it doesn’t hold.

RE: Initial impressions

Stopped for the night.  About 3 hours of work on/off (I wasn't really tracking).  Still seems very solid, lots of thick metal, with a few 3d printed parts with slotted nuts thrown in just to remind you it is Prusa and make you feel at home.

A few places I had to use a tap to clean out a hole a bit.  Generally smooth, and much easier than assembling a mk3.

RE: Initial impressions

Posted by: joan.t

Hi Dario, 
what is the fail mechanism that you are seeing?
if it's failure to bond to the build plate, then :-

make sure that your build plate is impeccably clean before starting a print,

make sure that your vat has no cured particles of resin getting under the build plate, Empty resin into spare container, using strainer, clean Vat, Inspect FEP film, and start again...

if the preceding options don't help, consider raising your display platform a tiny bit more during configuration, and / or

increase the first layer time a little

regards Joan

  .

Yes I have constant failures regarding bed adhesion, and also errors when printing some 50x50mm cases for custom electronics, can't seem to get the right position so that prints don't appear "melted" or warped.

It seems that I need to do a calibration before each print, this is the only way that bed adhesion succeeds, but that means cleaning the whole VAT every time, and removing it, I was thinking that I can print continuously without having to clean everything after each print.

RE: Initial impressions

Posted by: paul.m27

Making progress on assembly.  The only hiccup so far:

They have two versions of connecting the “right blower fan” (a squirrel cage with a shroud) to it’s metal holder.  The new way looks sharp: there are hollow threaded metal columns, the fans slides over them and you screw it down.  So of course I have the old way, which involves screwing an 10mm M5x1.0 metal screw through the metal plate into plastic and hoping it the threads hold in the fan plastic.  One of mine did (once I reamed the metal hole a bit so it would feed straight).  The other immediately stripped.  I think an M4x35 bolt/washer/nut would have done the job nicely (just through bolt it, but make sure the nut is on the metal, the screw head is on the plastic), but I don’t have one.  I ended up going with a longer 16mm M5x1 bolt which got a bit of grip (I’m nervous actually tightening it down much).  

It looks pretty accessible later if it doesn’t hold.

 

 

Yes, had a same issue, for me screwing the M screw into a plastic part is not an engineering way of doing it, it should have been a screw for the plastic or screw with other end having a nut

RE: Initial impressions

Cable management was a bit more of a pain than the manual lets on.  If you follow the manual, I think you’ll have spaghetti wires between the boards and the cover and there isn’t much space in there.  (The manual shows pretty pictures with very little wire in front of the board, but either they didn’t follow the same procedure or they have shorter cables).

I followed the procedure up until I realized.  Then I unscrewed and removed the whole 2-board + backplate assembly, snipped all the cable ties, and redid the cable management starting at the *board* end.  Figured out what went together or the same distance, cabled tied those together a few inches back, sorted the wires out.  I then cabled tied the bundles back into the printer (kind of a pain once the bottom LED was installed).  

Put the board back and wired it all up.  Looks pretty good now.  

I would be prepared to spend a bit of time on this step.  I’m paranoid that the UV LED and possibly the reflector will be hot and I want to make sure no wires come too close.

I ran out of time before buiding the resin tank, but I’m <1 hour from first light.

RE: Initial impressions

I had the same experience with the cable harness. The wires was to long or in the wrong places when mounting the boards.
Had to backtrack, take the UV LED out and adjust wire length to get shorter wires to the boards. This added over an hour to the build time.

It would properly been easier to get wires right, if the boards had been installed at an earlier stage and wires put into place one at a time.

Another tricky part was the WiFi antenna plug - it is tiny and difficult to get seated when the board is installed. I ended up using a tiny screw driver with plastic handle to gently push it into place with the handle. Maybe easier to plug in before the board is mounted on the backplate.

Threads in the metal sheets needed to be cleaned for paint with a tap (M3/M4), otherwise the screws where to hard to insert.

Connecting the SL1 to my WiFi was tricky as I needed the MAC address to allow the printer to connect (just my network). I couldn't find the MAC addresses anywhere in the menus and had to set it up as Access Point just to read the MAC address. I expected this information in the About menu as found in any mobile phone (maybe I was looking in the wrong place).
I would like to be able to browse/send/move/delete print files from a PC (Explorer), but haven't found a way to do that yet.

All in all a really nice kit to build with very good instructions - difficulty level is below assembling the MK3S.
Some exploded diagrams would have been nice to give an overview and maybe help getting the wires right the first time around 🤔

Now getting ready for first print... 😀 😎 

RE: Initial impressions

Several more hiccups:

1) my self-check fails about 50% (2 out of 4) times at teh .  It failed the first time: build plate rotated 60 degrees, it raises the cantilever to the top, then lowers it down to a few cm above the resin tray (definitely not touching), then says “failed resin level sensor”.  I go to the menu, try the wizard again, and this time it does the same thing (still not touching the plate) and says “passed”.  Not trusting that, I did a factory reset, failed the first time again, passed the second time.    I haven’t cracked open the cover to double check my connection, but it’s a simple wire connection, can’t see how it can fail 50% of the time.

2) the speaker self-check asks if I hear music.  I don’t.  I hear plenty of beeps, but no music.  Either there are two speakers (one for nice beeps, one for music), or the self-check is faulty.  This appears to be a common issue.

3) firmware update failed 3 times at various points (self-update over the internet).  Trying it a fourth time and it seems to have worked this time.  No details on the fail, but my internet connection is solid, so something flakey is going on.  4th time appears to have worked (rebooting now).

FYI, I was on 1.2.0 firmware, apparently this is updating to 1.2.1.  I’ll try self-test again and see if it works better.

(BTW: does anybody know how the resin sensor works?  Is it resistive or capacitive?  If it’s resistive, I don’t see how the self-check can work without the build platform touching the tank.  Capacitive seems more likely, but unclear how I failed 50% of the time)

RE: Initial impressions

Firmware 1.2.1 fixed the music.  My “resin sensor” self-test passed first time, finally (still didn’t touch the tank, must be capacitive, which is weird because they have you rotate the build platform saying “it should hit the tank”)

One thing for others: the “first print” checklist says “have you filled the tank with the right amount of resin?”, but gives no way to know how much the right amount of resin is!  So I just put in 100% and went for it.  Once you get past that it sends you to “print->examples->” and you pick one.  Once you select one and say “print”, it displays “Please add resin to at least 40%” or some number.  That would have been useful back during the checklist... 

Printing now...

Also printing the vent hose adapter on a mk3.  I just need jury rig a fan and find some appropriate vent hose.

RE: Initial impressions

Have the same issues as you (Firmware 1.20):

1) First attempt failed, second succeeded. Didn't try more after success. I was sure the connection was right as I tested it and found a resistance lower than 0.1 ohm.

2) The same. There was a comment in the assembly guide that others ran into same issue with music - all concluded that the speaker worked, as it could make beeps...

3) I am in 3. attempt of updating to 1.21 firmware... have very stable fiber internet connection.

Went on to first print:
The message “Please add resin to at least 40%” confused me too and I added some more resin - was then informed that the level was approximately 80% now.

10-15 min into the print (original_prusa_sl1_calibration_test_object_v2 presliced) I heard a click. After two hours I could see an empty build platform - the first print had failed!

I found the failed print attached to the FEP film only 1.37 mm high.

I am missing the function to raise the platform to check the model if it is still attached - it is long time to wait until it can be seen over the resin.

Found error in Support menu:
QR codes works, but the listed URLs is pointing to nowhere - get 404 page when using them in Firefox.

RE: Initial impressions

I’m halfway through the first print, expecting it to not stay attached (based on others fails).

I’m not clear what to do if it doesn’t.  If the FEP and build platform are completely clean (IPA wipe), there isn’t much non-automated.  Can you override the calibration to make the platform slightly higher or lower?  I suppose if you are slicing you have options, but with pre-sliced cleaning seems like the only variable.

RE: Initial impressions

It’s sticking!

RE: Initial impressions

Ah, well.  Made it until about 15 minutes left...  It came unstuck.  I’ll still wash it, what the heck.  Debug tomorrow.

If their initial presliced test-print doesn’t stick with new resin and a completely clean platform/FEP, I’m concerned.

RE: Initial impressions

Definitely my prettiest failed print.  It clearly failed trying to peel the big flat surface at the top of the hexagon:

RE: Initial impressions

First print:

It detached from the build platform after 10-15 min. It should have been the original_prusa_sl1_calibration_test_object_v2 presliced from examples folder on the SL1.

Managed to update firmware to 1.2.1 in 4th attempt and re-calibrated (URLs in support menu is still wrong in 1.2.1).

FEP and tank cleaned in water and disc-wash only, build platform cleaned in IPA (99%) -> I will give it a try again today.
If it's not working, I am unsure, what to do next...

RE: Initial impressions

I have the same issues, 60 to 70% of my prints fail, sometimes at the beginning sometimes mid print, and even if I succeed in printing there are some deformations on the print on some heavier objects, miniatures are fine. Maybe we need to increase exposure time for heavier objects.

Definitely there is a need for some kind of  pause option or something like that to see what is happening and not to wait 2 or more hours to see that it is not printing anything, even more, guide says you need to throw away that resin as it is contaminated if it's unsuccessful print.

One thing I learned that helps in knowing if it's adhered to the build plate is that if your model has a build pad, your resolution is 0.05mm, build pad is 1mm high, that for the first 20 layers you need to hear that "pluck" or click that tells that it is separating from the FEP film, if you don't have that sound, you can cancel immediately.

Here are pictures of my prints:

On the first one (prusa) you can see that I have a layer shifting on the base, second one is perfect, third one you can see that opening that should have been vertical is somehow melted and also first corner on the left.

Second model was printed with base directly on bed, third model was printed in air with 45 degrees on both axis and lots of supports.

I tried to print last model so that it is directly on the print bed bed but it failed, will try it again. I'm now printing third model upper case part also 45 degrees and heard pluck all the 20 layers so I think it will be successful, to bad I need to wait 4 hours to see.

RE: Initial impressions

Posted by: Area51

First print:

It detached from the build platform after 10-15 min. It should have been the original_prusa_sl1_calibration_test_object_v2 presliced from examples folder on the SL1.

Managed to update firmware to 1.2.1 in 4th attempt and re-calibrated (URLs in support menu is still wrong in 1.2.1).

FEP and tank cleaned in water and disc-wash only, build platform cleaned in IPA (99%) -> I will give it a try again today.
If it's not working, I am unsure, what to do next...

Beware that all of the screws that are holding the FEP film need to be lower than the FEP film, use a small ruler or something straight, put it on FEP film and go around to see that all the screws are lower, one of my screws was higher and I could not get first layer to stick to build plate, lost two days debugging.

RE: Initial impressions

@dario-f I saw your note on the screws and made sure all mine was seated correctly.

I am one hour into second attempt after washing the FEP and tank in hot water with disc-wash - it still gives a little click/tick when the tank is tilting - must indicate that the model is still hanging on to the platform  🤔

Just tried the URL links for Manual and Videos in the SL1 Support menu - they are working now!