Jacob's 3d Printer!

Well, it's here, and I now have got a print off of it I'd consider a success. Mostly.



More on the print later, first, the printer.
Here's my at-a-glance, 24-hours out of the box review.

The Good:
- It's a magical machine that somehow makes stuff out of plastic!
- Everything works!
- The different pitches of the motors as they move creates the soothing melody of SCIENCE.
- I've never 3d printed before, I'm not "handy" and I don't identify myself as a "DIYer", yet I managed to get it to work.
- That means you probably can too!
- It basically delivered on everything that was promised. It was easy to set up (plug in, adjust Z stop) easy to start up, and look nice.
- The bed was perfectly level.
- Like, perfectly.
- Dude, it traveled 3100 miles in the "tender care" of the USPS, and the bed is level.

The Bad:

- These are all basically nit-picks, but hey, might as well mention them.

- The printer head clipped one of the binder clips the first time I told it to "Home". The raised ridge happened to lie exactly in the path between the front-left corner and the center of the bed.
-I just slid it down a bit, problem solved.

- The wiring on the bottom is a bit sloppy. As it lacks a base-plate, this could cause it to snag on something, I'll have to be careful.

- The Z-Axis stop. It's hard to adjust.

- If I move it up/down the Z-axis at full speed, the left threaded rod squeaks, and seems a bit wobbly.

The Rest
- It came with this cute little fan in a bag. I imagine it's to cool the plastic as it comes out of the nozzle.
- Where, exactly, am I supposed to mount it?
- Where on earth are the pins it's suppose to plug into.

- My dog lacks my enthusiasm about home fabrication. She remains fixated on home bacination.

As for the "First Print":
Newbs to 3d printing, realize that when I call this a "first" i mean "First thing that can really be considered a print".
I spent a few hours wrestling with the infamous problem:
Print refused to stick to bed. tried many, many times. Cleaned bed, got bed hotter, etc etc etc. This resulted in a dozen "prints" of gooey/stringy messes.
- Solution: Aquanet extreme hold. (Unscented).
- p.s. this stuff sucks to clean off the bed later.

here's a closeup of what I ended up with (the 5mm calibration cube from Thingiverse)


And the backside:



Only a little minor sagging in the overhangs (though a bit more, not visible in picture, in the infill)
I'm, quite frankly, floored by the initial quality, ignoring that top block

No looping, no silly stringiness, crisp corners, overhangs, and a pretty dang smooth surface considering this was printed in .25mm layers.

Yeah, that top block, about him. That one turned into a gooey cylinder. I think I need to either slow down the printspeed (or at least the acceleration), add the cooling fan, or drop the print temp. Or maybe all three.

I'm still have a few other issues I still need to work out first though:
1.) the extruder slowly leaks out a bit of plastic when it's up to temp. It stops if I set it's temperature lower, (195 or so) but at that point, it can extrude for printing.
2.) The filament doesn't seem to be feeding well. Anyway to give it a better grip on the filament?

Well, the adventure continues tomorrow!

 

search the forum for user improvements.

 

Wait a minute...it came with a fan? Can you please list everything it came with? Thanks.

 

Actually harry, quick question about the fan mount, is there a .STL available anywhere?
Figure I might was well try printing my own

 

Hah thanks, didn't know it came with a fan but i'm excited it came with one

 

Thanks for sharing these information