Getting into 3D printing witha RepRapPro Mono Mendel

Greetings, makers.

I've been looking at getting a 3D printer for some years, but have only recently got some spare funds to actually do something about it.

I have initially been looking at the Makible Makibox A6 HT, as it seemed a fairly high-quality product for the price. Unfortunately I'm not sure how long it will take for one to actually arrive, as there seem to be quite some delays in manufacturing and shipping from HK.

That led me to look around, and I saw that another printer in my price range is the Mono Mendel, sold as a kit by RepRapPro.

There is such a profusion of available printers in the RepRap stable, I just can't work out where the Mendel as sold by RepRapPro stands. I like the sound of it being upgradable to 3-head printing, and being generally a lot more "open" than the MakiBox.

Apologies for the ramble, I'm just hoping for some general feedback really - be it "oh my god stay away from the Mendel" or whatever. Many posts I've seen elsewhere have generally resulted in suggestions for a £2000 printer or something that's not readily available.

Thanks.

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Currently printing on a MakerFarm Prusa i3. Curiously awaiting a PeachyPrinter.

Do you want something that's fully assembled or are you willing to spend a weekend building a kit? The Mono Mendel is a kit, most of the > 2K (dollars or pounds) machines are fully assembled.

If you are looking at kits, I'd suggest you at least look at the i3 printers. They are a slightly newer design and newer is always better. Cost wise there isn't a lot of difference between the older design and the newer one.

More than happy to self-assemble, I'm quite handy with that sort of thing.

How do the i3 printers stack up when it comes to upgrading to dual-extruder at some point? That's something that seems quite straight forward with the Mendel.

Finding a UK (or at least European) supplier would be good too, to keep the price down, and the delivery time.

i3 seems pricier too.

RepRapPro Huxley: £411
RepRapPro Mendel: £512
Reprapuniverse Prusa i3: £560 (unknown postage)
EMotionTech Prusa i3: £560

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2013 06:24PM by Cylindric.

I think pricing often depends on the quality of components. Pick out a design that has a very sturdy frame when assembled as any flex/looseness will affect print quality. We can source out a Prusa Mendel i3 for under $500.00 or we can source one closer to $700.00. We find that for us, the print quality and reliability are much better with the better components.

Based on some advice here and in IRC, I'm leaning towards one of these Prusa 8" i3's from MakerFarm now - [www.makerfarm.com]

Seems a bit more modern, and still allows for future expansion at some point. Price isn't as bad as I thought either - £420 ($700) delivered.

The MarkerFarm is a good i3 kit. You are shipping it a long way to get it to the UK. I like mine very much. I suspect there are a number of i3 kits that are in the same price range over there.

Mendel 90 nuff sed

I've ordered a Prusa i3 now - the 8" one from MakerFarm

You might wonder - I'm eight or nine time zones away from customer support. Will they be there when the sun's up here?

As far as I can tell Colin never sleeps or eats. He's answered email's almost 24 hours out of the day. Pretty amazing.

Heh, nice. I've also seen some nice build-videos on YouTube that make it seem quite straightforward. Not exactly trivial, but "[almost] everything proceeded as planned", rather than "half the components needed filing, replacing, hacking"

The big issues doing the build:

1) Ok, where did the tiny nut I just dropped roll off to ....
2) I don't need the instructions, this all looks easy ....
3) It's only 1AM, it can't take all that much longer to finish ...
4) I think I'll go with the cheapest no-name filament known to man to set this up with ...
5) I think I can do this better than the way he shows ....
6) One of the dogs decided the plastic tube for the motors was a chew toy ….

Watch the videos now to get an idea of how the build goes. Put it together his way first. Get it all working. After it's all working, there are a few bolts that are slightly easier to keep tight if you reverse them. Go back and change them after it’s been running for a week.

You will need a power supply , some glass and some filament. The glass is easy. Either get it from the local store and have them cut it or spend a bit on something fancy on eBay. The power supply can be a PC supply. I happen to prefer a +12V 30A industrial supply. They are much more robust and only cost about $45. Filament varies from vendor to vendor. I’d find somebody reputable that has good shipping to your location. You really don’t want to mix and match filament from all over the place if you can help it. Calibrate the printer for one brand and move on ….

A few optional things to think about while there’s time:

1) A 40 mm 12V fan on the Ramps board is nice. They are cheap.
2) A voltmeter (DVM) is a useful thing for the build. If you don’t have one this is a great excuse to get one.
3) The printer needs to go somewhere. Anythig from 1/2M x 1/2 M up to 1/2 x 1 will probably do.
4) Mounting the printer (any of them not just this one) to a board will make it more rigid and keep things in adjustment longer.
5) Filament needs to be stored in a very dry location. Either set one up or don’t buy 500 spools on your first order.
6) Calipers are also a useful thing for calibrating the printer. You can get by with a good steel rule. This is a good excuse to buy one of the 150mm / 6” digital calipers if you don’t have some.
7) If your local power is flaky, consider a UPS. The prints can take hours.
8) You can print from SD cards. Anything over a few hundred megs will do fine. Anything over 2 gigs is probably a waste.