Thinking of buying a Prusa i3

Just wanted to ask owners of the i3 how they like it. This will be my first 3D printer. My plans are to make various parts for myself, and for sale in limited numbers. I am mostly into flying quadcopters, and designing them, parts for the designs is what I would be selling. I've done a bunch of research, and I feel for under $1000 this would be the best deal. Looking at the makerfarm kit. I figure easier to buy a complete kit and save the hassle of getting all the parts.
[www.makerfarm.com]

This is another kit I was looking at:
[shop.diytechshop.com]

Is having one made out of wood a concern over aluminum?

So any other suggestions of comments would be welcome before I pull the trigger on this purchase. Also what accessories should I get? a lot of the parts I will be making will be on the small side, and need to be fairly accurate. Thank you for your time.

Anthony

I have a twelve pro frame I3 close 1st cousin to the makerfarm. The makerfarm looks like a great kit if it was for sale when I built mine I would have looked at it really hard. I have made all kinds of quad parts on mine from frames to retractable landing gear. Here some pics from my last print.

Prusa i3 Yoda

I have the MakerFarm I3 8" kit and it's a very nice printer. With the back braces the wood version is very sturdy. How well it holds up in years of service - we'll see. I have no regrets after getting it up and running. The big thing that comes with the kit is a support person (Colin) who apparently never sleeps. I've emailed him with questions at all sorts of odd hours and there's always a quick reply back. Having someone to answer the (probably dumb) questions that come up gets things moving a *lot* faster than waiting on a forum thread to come up with something. To me the support is a very big plus for MakerFarm.

At least with the MakerFarm, about the only accessories are a power supply, some cut glass from Lowes (or your local equivalent), a bunch of filament, and some place to put the thing (I built a little table). All the other stuff you might want / need / think about, you can print. I might order a couple of spare fans ($2 each) and an extra end stop switch ($1.50). They are the sort of thing that might get broken…. For the power supply, the MeanWell 12V 29A S-350-12 is a rugged industrial grade supply that will more than run everything on the printer now and anything you would want to add later. If you don't have any old SD cards lying around - get a couple of those.

If you want precision, I would not go for a giant machine. Get one that's big enough for your stuff, but not much bigger. As these gizmos grow, they get less stable. These are not CNC machines, so the precision is limited. The up side is that the ABS material is cheap and fairly rugged. They also turn out a part a bit faster than most CNC's will hog it out of a solid block of steel.

Tool wise you will need some metric hex wrenches, A pair of small adjustable wrenches, a #1 Philips screw driver, and a soldering iron. A DVM would be a helpful thing to have (cheap Chinese version is plenty good enough). If you go slow and careful, it will take a couple of days to assemble the printer. You can probably assemble the second one you do in a couple of hours.

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All I know about the other kit is what I read in the listing. I think you would want to add to it:

1) An all metal hot end (nice for ABS, needed for Nylon and other fancy filaments)

2) An LCD display plus SD card adapter

3) A fan on the hot end

4) Z axis supports (not clear than it has them)

All of that stuff comes on the MakerFarm. I'll cost you a couple hundred bucks to add to this kit.

Again, all I'm going by is the web page. All I'm trying to do is bring them up to same / same.

I was thinking about the precision part. From the looks of the prints I see coming off those machines, it should be close enough. If anything, I could design my holes a little smaller, and run a drill press through them to make the holes perfect. I want the option of being able to make bigger parts. I don't want to be limited for future stuff. Right now I just want to do small parts, but I figure with a bigger machine I can set it up and run it to make several at a time (unless this is not smart).

I like the SD option on the makerfarm. I guess worse comes to worse, it would be easy enough to replace the wooden frame if something goes wrong with it. I will probably go with that one.

As far as tools and material, I have everything I need already, for both kits. I suppose once I get my hands on one, then I may go for building one from scratch.

The attached picture is my first attempt at designing something in sketchup. More ideas are in the works. I think 3D printing will work well because there is not a huge market to justify mass production. I kinda just want to get off the ground to see where it will go. I've already hand built a test quad out of carbon fiber to demonstrate what a light sturdy design can do.

[www.youtube.com]

Well I went ahead and ordered a makerfarm i3 8" model. Got a couple rolls of ABS, and a roll of PLA. Got the .40 magma head, and some tapkon tape. Hopefully in a week or so, I will be posting my first prints.
Thanks.

Small high precision inside holes are a challenge. If you want to fit a part tight to a shaft, then drilling it out is indeed the best approach.

If you have the Magma, forget about buying any PLA. The Magma is not very PLA compatible. You can buy a J-Head for PLA, but swapping them is a 15 minute process.

One hint - just build it the way the instructions say. Wait to improve it until *after* it's all working.

You can download the build instructions from the web site. You might as well watch the videos once or twice while the kit is shipping. Seeing the whole process before you begin can't hurt. Unless the pdf has changed, there is a link missing for final assembly. The video is on YouTube, it's just not linked from the pdf like all the rest of the build stuff.

Should you decide to scrap the frame in a few years, most of the money is in the steppers, and the electronics. The cost of the frame is fairly small....

Yeah, good choice with the MakerFarm Kit!

I'm not sure it's needed, but I put a fan on my ramps board. There are a number of different mounts. I used a push on one. The mount was a quick print. The fan was $2.

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Another thing you can do now is to head over and get some glass cut. If you are doing it in the US, the critical dimension is that the width needs to be just under 8".

I recently purchased my 8:" I3 from Makerfarm as well. Luckily enough I live in Utah and was able to drive to his house to pick it up. Colin is a super nice guy, very knowledgeable and always willing to help. I've printed all kinds of things and so far am very very happy with the kit.

..... videos of the MakerFarm visit to follow????

LOL, it was short and uneventful. Nobody really wants to let a stranger roam through their house (especially one that open carries a gun). He had my kit ready to go, answered some questions I had, showed me some of the things he had printed and I was on my way. I still had to stop by Walmart for the hairspray and Lowes for the glass. All I could think about was getting started on the build!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2013 02:09PM by vetteguy112233.

I hope Lowes did a better job with cutting your glass than they did with mine. I had to go back for a second try....

Not really, but it works and the guy gave me 2 for the price of one since all the discarded pieces basically equaled one total piece anyway.

The first time I went over, the guy could not figure out how to get 4 pieces out of one stock chunk of glass. Ultimately I figured out that the accuracy of the bulk glass is not good enough to get 4 out of the cheap(er) piece of glass. The second time I spent $2 more on the bulk glass and got 4 correct pieces out of it. Either way it's cheap enough that it's not really an issue....

I've got a self-made i3 (the 'laser cut frame' variant, made from wood). I love it.

It's my first 3D printer, so I've not really got anything to compare it to, however prints come out pretty nice and I've not calibrated it fully yet. Using calipers to measure test cubes, they are almost bang on perfect.

I did some speed tests yesterday and pushed it up to 120 mm/s and it handled it great.

I do have a few minor annoyances with it though, which I feel could use some work in a future revision:

1. The Y axis frame does't really connect all that well to the vertical wooden frame - it just slots into two holes. I've found this to be a problem if you've not got a perfectly flat surface. I'd like to see this revised to instead have either braces, or a hole in the frame (instead of a slot) to feed the Y-axis into. This or doing away with the underside of the vertical frame and replacing it with diagonal support braces.

2. There's very few decent places to mount endstops that aren't permanent. My Z-Axis endstop is (and I kid you not) mounted with hardened bluetack to the wooden frame. Sure, you can drill into the frame and fix it permanently, but if you ever change the build surface you then need to re-drill everything. Some have come up with printed solutions on thingiverse but I've yet to find one reliable enough to use.

3. Wires everywhere. Ok this is a personal annoyance that many probably wont care about. Because the frame is so open (unlike the box-frame model) you can see wires everywhere .I'm currently working on a few different ways to build in some boxing to the frame to hide them all neatly, along with some sort of side enclosures on the left and right with fans inside for the RAMPS board I use. This is more personal taste and aesthetics however.

Overall it's a brilliant machine and I personally highly recommend it as a first RepRap. The build docs were pretty much non-existent when I built mine, but a very handy animation (can be found in the wiki) helped get everything put together.

My total build cost was approx £330 (~$500 usd) - it could have been cheaper if I'd done the electronics myself, but I bought the reprapdiscount kit.

My good friend who has half a brain owns a hardware store, so the glass is no problem for me.

Is there a wattage recommendation for the atx power supply? Or can I just use a 20amp benchtop power supply?

Oh, and I can already see that the customer service provided by makerfarm is excellent. I wrote to him and asked to switch out the one roll of PLA for another roll of ABS, and even though he had boxed up my machine already, he opened it and switched it out. Probably get this thing today or tomorrow.

Get a real 12V industrial supply like the MeanWell SE-250-12 or NES-350-12. It's a 12V 29A supply. Price is similar to a PC power supply. A 200W pc supply is not going to do the job. You need at least 16A (and probably more) at 12V. A PC supply is rated for the power out of all it's outputs, not just the 12V rail. You are going to be pulling a lot of current from the supply for a lot of hours. You want something that's rated for that kind of service.

The one I have is a Pyramid 20amp 12V supply. I used it on my ham equipment for many years. Is that not good enough?
Or what about the better ATX power supplies like 650watt and greater versions? These are pretty serious power supplies with clean voltage. 650Watt power supply can deliver 54 amps.

A solid 20A supply is a much better option than any PC power supply. You want a supply that will put out >= 20 A and not drop out of regulation.

In order for a 650W PC power supply to put out 54 amps, it would need to be able to do it all on the 12V rail(s). That's never the case with a PC supply. They ration the power between the various outputs. You might get 20A at +12 and all the rest of the power on the others. You really need to look at the specific numbers on the individual PC supply you have to know what it's supposed to do. Once you understand what it's rated for, you have to ask weather it lives up to it's ratings. Some PC supply outfits do live up to their numbers, others simply do not.

I consider ordering Prusa i3 kit from Makerfarm with JHead hotend. Do I need a fan to print with ABS? For PLA, as I understand, I should use a fan. I'm right, aren't I?

Current thinking is that you want a fan for both PLA and ABS with a J-Head.

The upper end temperature on a J-Head is 230 to 235. Past that point the plastic body has started to melt. Printing ABS at 225 is running them quite close to their upper limit. You see a *lot* of posts from people who have melted them while fiddling with them. I'd suggest getting the Magma hot end with the kit, and buying the J-Head as an add on. As Colin has it set up, the Magma works quite well (for ABS and high temp stuff).

uncle_bob Wrote:
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> ... I'd suggest getting the Magma
> hot end with the kit, and buying the J-Head as an
> add on .....

Thank you for your consideration, uncle_bob! It’s seems to be a really good idea to get both Magma and J-Head from one supplier, because fan and some mountings are already included in Magma kit with Prusa i3.

..... I wonder why I figured that out ....

(Yes I bought an I3 from them a couple weeks ago. I decided I needed both hot ends)

I just start looking into 3D printer and thinking of getting Prusa i3 kit.

looking at the two place in OP link, don't know which to get.
dyitechshop i3xl: like larger build volume, cheap. don't know if it have heat bed or not.
makerfarm: seem like better shop and support, lcd interface.

what is pro/con for different nozzle size?

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uncle_bob
A solid 20A supply is a much better option than any PC power supply. You want a supply that will put out >= 20 A and not drop out of regulation.

In order for a 650W PC power supply to put out 54 amps, it would need to be able to do it all on the 12V rail(s). That's never the case with a PC supply. They ration the power between the various outputs. You might get 20A at +12 and all the rest of the power on the others. You really need to look at the specific numbers on the individual PC supply you have to know what it's supposed to do. Once you understand what it's rated for, you have to ask weather it lives up to it's ratings. Some PC supply outfits do live up to their numbers, others simply do not.

Ok, got what you are saying. I think though this kit is wired to run off a pc supply. Not sure but I think each device gets plugged into the various outs on the supply. Doesn't the arduino board use the 5v?

I've built a few gaming rigs in my time and was always impressed with the stability of the voltage coming out of good supplys.

When I selected the magma tip, it automatically gives you the hot end, when ordering the whole kit.

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Antslake
Ok, got what you are saying. I think though this kit is wired to run off a pc supply. Not sure but I think each device gets plugged into the various outs on the supply. Doesn't the arduino board use the 5v?
I've built a few gaming rigs in my time and was always impressed with the stability of the voltage coming out of good supplys.

The RAMPS electronics connect with a terminal block that is fed from a +12 rail on the PSU. It's common to cut a connector off the PC PSU and use that rail. The ATMega typically gets power from the RAMPS board. Any good 12 volt switching PSU should work well.

I just ordered a set of prusa i3 kit (for 499USD, inclusive of PSU and other stuff) from www.3dprinterczar.com, estimated to ship by the coming week. The specs look pretty impressive and comes with free shipping, you might want to take a look.

Disclaimer: The kit has yet to arrive so I don't know how the quality is, if you're interested to know how it goes just drop me a pm and I'll see how I can help. =)

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chngyian
I just ordered a set of prusa i3 kit (for 499USD, inclusive of PSU and other stuff) from www.3dprinterczar.com, estimated to ship by the coming week. The specs look pretty impressive and comes with free shipping, you might want to take a look.

Have you found any specific assembling instructions for this Prusa i3 kit? I’ve found references only to the reprap.org wiki.

That's a pretty good deal. One thing I noticed is no LCD screen or SD card reader. That could make up the difference in the price maybe? 6mm acrylic sounds a little flimsy to me, but maybe not.