Anyone Have MakerGear Feedback?

This page is for the review of MakerGear Products.

I stared out in RepRap over 2 years ago with a Makerbot Cupcake, Makergear parts where what allowed me to get that box working after many months

I have owned over 8 Makergear hot ends over the last 28 months, never had one fail outside of my own stupidity (What do you mean a hot end will not survive 400C?)

I have also owned a Makergear Prusa Mendel for the last 6 months now, and love it more than than any of the other 10 printers I have put together for myself.

I can not more highly recommend Makergear. Only kit seller out there that can be contacted almost 24/7 in the IRC.
[webchat.freenode.net]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2011 04:33PM by spacexula.

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repraplogphase.blogspot.com

I bought my MG prusa 3 months ago. I must say that the kit came with everything -and more than i expected.
I managed to build and print fast enough with the help of Rick through the #makergearv2 irc channel.
I must admit that for me building would be rather difficult without any help and support, especially form the
man who know very well his job, Rick.

I must note that during building i realised that a small part was missing, but after metinoning this to Rick,
the part crossed the atlantic and landed at my home in less than 7 days.. pretty fast i would say!

MakerGear is awesome! Who else sends chocolate with their orders?!

I bought a hot end kit from MakerGear, and since then bought assorted other parts and plastic stock. All orders received on time and in great shape. The kit was spectacular, the instructions on the web site clear and complete, and the quality is outstanding.

The best part about MakerGear, though, is that they have an IRC channel [#makergearv2] and Rick, the owner of MakerGear, he's on there constantly. He and the rest of the community there is always game to help, even with stuff that's not bought from MakerGear.

I didn't buy a kit from them, and that was a mistake. I put together parts from all over the place, and wound up with lousy parts, the wrong parts, and mismatched parts. But the parts I got from MakerGear caused me no grief, and were the choice replacements for stuff I got elsewhere. If I had to do it over again I would buy a Prusa kit, and I would buy it from MakerGear.

I love MakerGear. Buy their stuff, seriously.

buggerit.blogspot.com

I have bought a Mosaic kit in preorder in June. Back then, they offered a choice of 1.75mm/3mm extruders. I mailed them before ordering to make sure I got 3mm and they agreed.
Later when the Mosaic was fully designed, they decided to only offer 1.75mm filament extruders for new orders. However, they honored their previous offer - I got TWO extruders, one fully mounted for 1.75 and another partially assembled for 3mm (two hot ends, two stepper motors, etc). That's a 170$ worth in extra parts! It was really surprising and I can't imagine better customer service.

I assembled Mosaic in one day and started running it the next day. I had some firmware/software problems but thanks to Rick (from Makergear) on #makergear they were solved in a short amount of time. The prints are of very high quality.
I definitely recommend both Mosaic as a printer and Makergear as a company.

I have Cupcake 475 that I got in December of 2009. It never really worked right until I got a MakerGear hot end. I have been running that hot end with no issues since March of 2010. At NY MakerFaire 2010, I met Rick and he was very nice. I asked him about the new insulator he was using on his prototype modular printer and he gave me a pack right there. Since then I have ordered plastic, extra parts, a hot end for my reprap, stepper drivers, and numerous other products from MakerGear. I have never been dissatisfied.

My MakerBot Cupcake pretty much choked right out of the box. A mosfet on the extruder controller smoked almost right away and, well, it came with MK4. MakerGear parts and support is what got my MakerBot working. Rick was on the MBI google group and walked me through my MK4 problems when MBI was totally missing from the support scene.

I've never had a MakerGear product fail. Even though I'm not running any MakerGear hardware at the moment, I continue to support them every chance I get.

Two thumbs WAY up.

I've used a few MakerGear hot ends, and they have been 100% reliable. I totally recommend them.

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Just like for so many of these replies, my Cupcake was problematic to put it nicely - until I got my first Makergear hot end. No failures of the extruder at all since printing a Brut and putting together an Op's kit hot end on it.

And the chocolate, oh my. I should order something again.

Seriously, a wholehearted recommendation and approval from me for Rick and the crew.

I knew I'd never be happy with a Makerbot build volume, and Ultimaker was too expensive and not available (IIRC). Makerbot had the reputation and a complete kit with the best electronics going at the time.

Rick has always been helpful, and the materials in the kit were quality stuff. Easy to recommend.

My only real complaint is that filament is not consistently in stock. That seems to be a problem for a lot of vendors though.

Dale Dunn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I knew I'd never be happy with a Makerbot build
> volume, and Ultimaker was too expensive and not
> available (IIRC). Makerbot had the reputation and
> a complete kit with the best electronics going at
> the time.
>
> Rick has always been helpful, and the materials in
> the kit were quality stuff. Easy to recommend.
>
> My only real complaint is that filament is not
> consistently in stock. That seems to be a problem
> for a lot of vendors though.


You don't need to buy from MG; the hot end on that machine will chew up and spit out just about anything you stick in it. The Makergear hot end on my Prusa has never once jammed, and is about 1,000 times better than the one on my Thing-O-Matic.

kwixson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MakerGear is awesome! Who else sends chocolate
> with their orders?!

I don't know for chocolates, but the grrf send gummy bears in their package

I've never bought from makergear personally, but have seen some packages people I know received; Only good things to say about it.

Great great great so far.

I ordered a Mosaic 5 weeks ago and received it three days ago. Prior to the end of the 3 week lead time, they told me they were very busy with orders and needed another week. Then prior to the end of the extra week, they told me they were adjusting the Mosaic a bit which added another week, but for the right reasons. They shipped on the revised target date and sent me a link to the carrier's shipment tracking page with my shipment number in the link.

Me being a big kid, I was disappointed by the delays, however I was not disappointed in MakerGear because a) they let me know of any delays well ahead of time and b) they explained their reasoning each time.

I assembled my Mosaic in about 6 hours (it will take less time for makers not as rusty as I am). I started testing and initial extruding by midday. Rick the owner was online via IRC yesterday and he coached me through the various steps and parameters until I could test print. I have a lot to learn about 3D printing, but about 3D printer makers, I can confirm the blogs and forums: MakerGear service and product quality are outstanding.

I received my Mosaic from them a few days ago, assembled it very quickly and started printing the next day. The most time consuming part was getting a completely level platform for the machine to sit on (hooray for living 90min away from any large hardware store). The quality of all the parts are excellent, and after some brief conversations with Rick over IRC and some internet research I was able to get some very nice prints very quickly.

MakerGear is an excellent company, their customer service is top notch, and they send chocolates. I can't speak highly enough of them from my experiences.

Well 'sprach'.

Pointedstick Wrote:
---------------------------------
> You don't need to buy from MG; the hot end on that
> machine will chew up and spit out just about
> anything you stick in it. The Makergear hot end on
> my Prusa has never once jammed, and is about 1,000
> times better than the one on my Thing-O-Matic.

That means you're not trying hard enough!

I bought a MakerGear Prusa kit and within 5 days of receiving it I had it built, calibrated, and printing perfect parts! This is because of the high level of attention to detail that the folks at MakerGear have when they put together their kits. I also owe my success to the fantastic support that Rick from MakerGear gives, as well as from the faithful icr dwellers in #makergearv2 on freenode. Everything about this company is top notch!

I highly recommend them!

This is literally my second print:
[www.youtube.com]

I love my MakerGear Mendel Prusa. It's the ultimate toy factory. I haven't done much modelling yet because it's so much fun printing objects from Thingiverse designed by other people. I get to learn the limits of my printer by trying things I would have thought were impossible (like the OpenSCAD pirate ship, and Soppho's head). There are pictures of some of my printed objects on my blog, and on Thingiverse.

The kit went together well, and all the parts feel high quality. Print quality (comparing my prints to others on Thingiverse) is good, even though I've only had a month of experience now.

Paying the extra $50 for the fully assembled RAMPS electronics is a no-brainer. Trust me, you'll have enough other things to play with - spend the time you would have spent on trouble-shooting your soldering on 3D modeling or calibration instead. Trouble-shooting surface mount soldering is not something I would enjoy.

There are copious notes on my blog about the things I learned during assembly, and from the helpful folks on the MakerGear Google Group. Many people praise MakerGear|Rick's presence on the IRC channels, but I don't do IRC, and prefer the structure (and searchability) of the google group.

Andrew Roberts
brazenartifice.wordpress.com

The parts I print with my Thing-o-Matic and the Prusa it printed (with MG hot end!) attract a lot of interest from everyone who sees them. I had a poor experience with Makerbot support (who shipped me a faulty DC motor and then sold me a replacement extruder with a $5 discount and acted like they were doing me a favor) so I was reluctant to recommend them to others. Not out of spite: I just feel like I'm staking my own reputation on any recommendation I make, and I didn't feel like MBI had earned that trust.

Based on my experience buying from MG, using the MG hot end, and seeing the obvious attention to detail in the MG Prusa kit (which has many nice enhancements over the Prusa source repository at the time) I felt confident recommending the Mosaic to people who want to be up and printing quickly. I know of three people who have purchased Mosaic kits on my recommendation. Two of them I see regularly (my brother in law and a coworker) have both praised the quality of the kits. The prints my coworker is getting with his Mosaic only weeks after purchase are better that what either my ToM or Prusa can produce. It's great to have a kit and a vendor I can wholeheartedly recommend to everyone who gets interested in 3D printing and I'm grateful to Rick for making that possible.

Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents here.

I just finished building my first Prusa. The other hot end I had purchased was tricky because it was so hard to find the assembly instructions.

I ended up munging it up so I ended up ordering a maker gear hot end from someone's recommendation.

The packaging of the kit is top notch, clearly labeled and also clearly described in the instructions makes the assembly so much easier.

It was dead simple to put together following their excellent instructions, and they also have a very active google group for support and discussion of everything RepRap.

I've been running my printer pretty much non stop 24/7 for over two weeks and the only issue I had was caused by operator error.

My MendelMax that I'm building will have the MakerGear plastruder in it after seeing someone else's with it installed and admiring how compact and reliable it is.



Plus the send gummy bears or chocolate.

I want to buy some small pieces for 52$, but when I checkout, the shipping costs to Thailand for under 200 grams are 38$. They have only UPS, and this prices not ok, normal post will be under 10$.
Now, I wait for them, answering my email...

spirit47 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I want to buy some small pieces for 52$, but when
> I checkout, the shipping costs to Thailand for
> under 200 grams are 38$. They have only UPS, and
> this prices not ok, normal post will be under
> 10$.
> Now, I wait for them, answering my email...

FWIW, I've always had issues receiving physical items from overseas via regular postal channels. Things from either lots of damage, opened packages with stuff missing, all the way to missing-in-action. I've definitely come to appreciate courier services for international post.

Correspondence is generally pretty speedy and reliable, though. Go figure.

Gotta say I've bought from MakerGear a bunch of times to resurrect my Ultimaker. Recently got a full hotend to replace a broken hotend on my Prusa and ran into an issue where something was out of alignment or whatever which would block up pretty instantly. They were awesome enough to ship out another one, not even charging for shipping. New one works the treat, so, they wound up saving both of my machines.

Never have problem like you with normal post. Sometimes I get parts with courier to, than I have to pay tax... But UPS is the most expensive and terrible courier here in Thailand, I think I phone with all their staff in Bangkok for training their english, because they think my adress will be wrong. And, I don't pay 38$ for 200grams letter, thats sure.
If you want to be helpful, you can sent me a 0,35mm nozzle.

Answer from Makergear:

Thank you very much for your interest in our products.

I want to point out that we ship via USPS, not UPS. Additionally, while I apologize for any inconvenience this causes, due to too many issues, we no longer offer USPS First Class International shipping (normal post).

Thanks again,
Karen

I only know, that 38$ for 200gr. to Thailand is the highest shipping rate I ever see.
No fair shipping, no order...

Anyone know how i get a plastruder working with Sanguinololu 1.3 and sprinter?

I got a MakerGear Prusa Mendel in November 2011. My main goal in buying from MakerGear was to get everything I needed in one box, from one place. I wasn't interested in self-sourcing everything, dealing with multiple companies, and minimum orders, etc. MakerGear delivered in this regard. Support via the mailing list and IRC was good, but the documentation definitely needs work. I ended up guessing on some parts where I couldn't figure things out, but in the end, most of my guesses (along with the docs and support) worked out fine, and I've got a working 3D printer.

I am using a Makergear Mosaic. I need help asap with regards to the temperature indication problem. The printer interface says that the temperature of my bed is at 357 degrees celcius and it is actually at room temperature. It just happened and I have no idea how to solve this problem.

I tried unplugging the T0 and T1 to see what happens and also to pinpoint the fault.
Results:
With T0 unplugged, nozzle temperature indicated T: 0.
With T1 unplugged, bed temperature indicated B: 357.

So I plugged the nozzle pin into T1 and bed pin into T0.
Results:
With nozzle temperature reading in T1, B: 357.
With bed temperature reading in T0, T: 25.

So I came to conclusion that my T1 is faulty. Is there anyway i can do anything to help it?
Otherwise, is there anyway I can make use of T2 for the Bed temperature reading instead of T1?

Please reply asap. I've posted on webchat.freenode.net but there wasnt any advice.

Somehow you've managed to destroy the pin connected to T1, probably by shorting the heater and thermistor together. Try to figure out how it happened and prevent it happening again. You can use T2 by changing pin assignments in firmware, this will require compiling and uploading fresh firmware.

If you break T2 you can short to another free pin on the processor and use that pin. You may get odd results unless you break the connection to the original pin on the Mega.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2012 07:17AM by Andrew Smith.

I've had some experience with a Makergear stepper plastruder, it was one of the best extruders I've ever used, the instructions were pretty good and the quality of the machined parted were superb. Unfortunately it died due to a dogey batch of filament

I love my MakerGear Mosaic. Its a great little entry level printer if your handy with a screwdriver and electronics you can put it together in a few hours. It handles car trips like a champ and it rarely ever has any issues. I'm also super impressed with the Z height on this bot. its comes out at about 140mm which is much more than my Prusa's can do (100mm with a gregs extruder, 120 with a plsatruder)! We got the Mosaic back in January and since then we have added 2 Prusa i2's and a MendelMax 1.5 to the family. We put MakerGear hotends on them with a combo of Greg's Wades extruders along with the MakerGear plastruder and have had a TON of success with them. Even with the new printers in the house I find myself printing with the Mosaic more often than not! <3 <3 <3

I own an old Makerbot Cupcake CNC. The extruder that came with it broke itself in about 1 week. It got all messed up and clogged, then the DC motor died too. Someone on IRC suggested I get a stepper motor driven extruder kit from Makergear. I did and I never regretted it since then. The assembly instructions were very clear and It's been about 3 years and it's been running fine. I never had to clean it even once or whatsoever.

And hey, they actually did send a chocolate with my order!

Great work, Makergear!

p.s. The only "problem" with Makergear is their name gets easily confused with Makerbot. And I'm 100% sure I will never get anything from Makerbot anymore. Apart from the dreaded Cupcake CNC, there is their new software for the new Makerbot called Makerware. Guess what, I downloaded and installed it -- just to take a look at it (it does not run with Cupcake CNC) and it turned out it's spyware! I used the filemon from Winternals to check: Makerbot software does recursive scan of all files on your harddrive! And it does it not only when it's run, it somehow runs all the time when the computer is on. I noticed it due to unusual harddisk activity and then found out which application was responsible with filemon. It runs some python script that does it and if you try to terminate it in task manager it relaunches itself.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/09/2014 05:35AM by AngelOfGrief.