One year later... (long post)

One year in:

My thoughts after a whole year of 3D printing on a ROBO: If I had had any idea how much time and frustration would go into this process, I might have hesitated; even waited for a more mature machine. The beta ROBOs were not entirely as advertised. That said, I’m somewhat glad for the process because along the way I have gained a vast amount of information about both the process and the machine itself. I can create things from my own or others’ designs. I have changed, replaced, reworked and modified most areas of the printer except the basic framework. I’m on my third hot end and waiting for my third bed to arrive. If not all good, it certainly isn’t all bad either.

On filaments: Looking forward to all of the new developments here. PLA is fine for general use. Nylon (Taulman Bridge for low warp) is great for strength and flexibility. I liked PET based filaments like Colorfabb XT and t-glase for a while but lately have had a lot of trouble with them. Taking a break from those. Not all of the expensive stuff is good and not all of the cheap stuff is bad. As I almost never buy multiple rolls from the same batch, the inconsistencies even in the same brand can be unexpected. Colorfabb has some really cool stuff with the new bamboo, bronzefill and wood fiber. I’m sure there are more in the works. Carbon Fiber PLA from ProtoPasta is fabulous for shapes and finish. And PolyMakr is making great strides with strength, high temps, etc. I’ve never tried ABS (fumes and warpage) or any of the flex materials though they look interesting.

Software: I most often use Cura for slicing, Marlin and Arduino for controls. Everything is improving at a fine pace and if you want to pay for software, Simplify 3D gets high marks on this forum. Matter Hacker doesn’t. Auto level is a fine idea; I still do it by hand. I design in Tinkercad. It’s free, fits my brain and I have had good results from it. Here is a pic for a 30mm parts fan for the ROBO chassis using an e3d v.6 hot end: I wanted a less clumsy/bulky set up than the 40mm ones I have seen. The .stl is attached if anyone wants to print one; it just snaps in place and is quite strong with 1.2mm perimeters.

ROBO the machine: Needed most everything I have done to it. Had there been someone standing next to me to help me figure all of this out as it happened, it would have gone easier but I might not have learned as much as I have. I’m sure the newest ones are a vast improvement over the early ones. It would be nice, and worth some extra money, to have a good printing volume in a reliable and calibrated machine out of the box. Even more valuable would be solid customer service and communication. The ROBO boys have done OK on machines but failed miserably on customer contact/follow up. I may get another machine before too long but it might not be a ROBO purely because of this factor.

Ribbing: I have found a couple of ways to actually make it happen. One is too obscure to actually be a part of the problem, but the other addresses the situation directly. One of the puzzling parts of this is that it so directly correlates to the threads on the z screws. So, many have tried to find a mathematical solution as well as a hardware solution. Ziggy and others have really done some impressive work and made significant steps toward eliminating the problem. My small contribution is this: x belt tension. Too tight makes ribbing occur to the degree the screws are mildly out of round. I would love to see a simple, repeatable method of calibrating belt tension beyond the “dull twang” method. Belt tension is not the whole solution, but can be a part of a well-adjusted, effective machine. Which leads me to:

My best advice: calibrate calibrate calibrate. You may need to go wildly wrong before getting it reliably right. A good first layer is essential to a good outcome. Persevere.

The biggest downside? Wasted plastics. Anybody need some spools or once used filament? Nonetheless, I remain completely intrigued and entranced by this process. I can just sit and watch it do its thing. I love producing things I’ve envisioned. I am amazed I print parts on the machine the parts are for. I will be doing this for a long time.

Finally, this forum is invaluable. It isn’t always pretty, but it is by far one of the overall best intended forums I have encountered. Thanks to Harry for setting it up, ROBO for wisely letting it do for customers what they are too busy to do and, especially, the three current moderators: Tesseract (Jeff Janes), Mike Kelly, and Printed Solid (Matt Gorton). Many of us are contributors, but these three guys go above and beyond day in and day out. A major thanks to each of you. Simply awesome.