Folger Tech Kossel Delta 2020 Full 3D Printer Kit w/Auto-Level

I would interested in any information or opinions regarding the Kossel Delta 2020 kit by Folger Technologies. I have tried searching this site for information and did not come up with anything. I see that several of you have purchased the Prusa I3 clear model from them. The feelings seems positive. I have been researching for quite some time now and feel that I have learned enought to get started and willing to learn more. Just a little afraid of purchasing something that is a bad product from the beginning (not intended to be offensive toward the supplier of this product). I origionally planned on building a printer from scratch or even someone elses open build but the price of this machine seems hard to beat. But then I do keep hearing you get what you pay for ($399.99).......Any information is appreciated.

Tank you.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2014 08:49PM by Kasahabo.

I ordered one from their site. I emailed asking if there was any advantage of ordering from their site over eBay which included shipping. I got an email with a coupon so ordered from their site. It states 5-10 shipping. So far, it's a week past their 10 days. Called a few times. Emailed a few times. No correspondence. I heard from someone on this forum creating their Prusa i3 manual that they are working on the Kossel manual, but nothing directly from Folger.

Would be nice to hear something from Folger Tech about my order. Anything.

rtideas

Sorry to hear about your situation. As far as customer relations, doesn't sound good to me. Also, it does not make sense to offer a kit without instruction manuals. But that is just me.

Good luck with your purchase I hope things work out well.

I'm pretty excited because my wife bought this kit for me as my Christmas present. She's frustrated because she ordered it from Folger Tech on eBay on Dec 6 and it hasn't shipped. She never received a response after requesting an update on the status of the order from Folger Tech via eBay messaging or direct email. We'll see what happens.

If anyone already has one, I'd love to hear about their experience putting it together.

Fozzie1410

Merry Christmas to you. It has been Christmas around here for about and hour and half, still no sign of Santa. I would be interested to hear about your experiences with Folger Kossel 2020 e.g. kit quality, documentation, print quality.... Even a short write up and the end of your journey would be great...

Thank you and good luck!

Hi there. I just received my Folger Kossel Kit on Tuesday, December 23. I ordered it on November 29.
I have experience with other types of printers, but this is my first experience with a delta.
I just opened the kit earlier tonight and started putting the frame together. I will post some pics when I get more time.
I'm new to deltas, but it seems odd to me that this kit comes with 3 x 36 tooth GT2 pulleys. Most of the Kossels I've seen online use 16 tooth. What do you think?

I'll definitely share my experience with the kit... After I get it.

I don't have first hand experience with building a 3d printer, yet... so I'm not sure if there are significant advantages for having 16 vs 32 tooth pulleys. I read somewhere that more teeth will help prevent the belt from slipping. There may be something to this idea. When I think about how a belt might wrap around the pulley, I can imagine that more teeth equals more surface area for the belt to come in contact with.

Woodywong,

Where are you located? Are you in the States? That's a much longer time than the stated 5-10 days. But it was shipped so there is hope. They really should update their listed time of 5 to 10 days and inform customers of any delays beyond their published times.

Eager to hear your build experiences, too.

I ordered and paid for mine on Dec 3rd and received Dec 24th, I'm located in NY USA. After emailing them they stated they were a bit behind after a laser cutter caught fire.

I think I'm missing printed parts though, am I supposed to have more than what's pictured here? I also received a bunch of clear laser cut parts you can see on the right that I'm not sure what to do with...

Woodywong and anyone else who may have received this kit, can we verify parts to make sure nothing was missed?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2014 03:27PM by parco.

We are working on the manual for the Kossel, hoping to have it available soon.

---

Making it better for Makers!
[makerfront.com]

hello everyone! I'm new here and I want to share my experience with Folger Tech so far. I ordered it November 28 and the 5-10 days shipping was BS. I received the kit December 24th. It took almost a month for it to come in. Although the shipping fee was free, I didn't care too much that it took that long. They need to update their page if they are not going to be able to follow through with their 5-10 days promise.
I'm still in the process of building it. I have the frame built up. I'm in the process of wiring up the whole thing. I believe that those laser cut clear parts are the end stop mounts and the extruder motor mount, because those are what's missing when I was building it. I just used a different motor mount that I had previously and decided to use double sided tape for the end stops for now and print the plastic end stops.
What's confusing is how I was going to build the auto-leveling parts. There were no instructions on how to build it, so I'm scouring the internet for some instructions. That is how I came to this forum.
I'll come back here for updates to my build. I won't be finishing it anytime soon though, because now I'm away from home.

I never received all those clear laser cut parts for mine. I believe that big plastic piece is your power supply mount. those little "L" angles i believe are your bed mounts. One may serve as a spool holder there....as for the rest, I have no idea. I received a completely different set for mine.

Here's an update. I have everything put together except the auto-bed leveling. I could not figure it out with all the pieces I received, so I will be doing manual leveling for now and print a FSR mount for it. I had Marlin uploaded to the Arduino, but the RAMPS board that came with the kit was dead. It wouldn't power up. Good thing I had a spare one. I will be sending Folgers a message to ask for another board.
The kit comes with a 36-tooth pulley. I thought the resolution would be fine but while calibrating the printer, I noticed that the steps are not very smooth. It wobbles and skips steps when adjusting at 0.1mm. I would recommend going for 20-tooth or lower pulley. I have 20-tooth pulleys installed now and it seems to be working fine so far. I'm still in the process of calibrating and trying to figure out how to power up the heat bed.
Till next time! I have a lot more figuring out to do.

unnokeng.

Thanks of the update. Any pics to envy until my kit is shipped?
As I saw on their Facebook page, make sure you use support@folgertech.com to try to communicate with them.

I hope everyone was able to get their kits in time for Christmas or will be receiving them shortly so they can have fun putting them together over the weekend.

I was curious though about the 5-10 day shipping everyone was mentioning. I have only briefly looked at their website, but I was thinking it was 5-10 days BEFORE they would ship the kits as opposed to you receiving them in 5-10 days. I assume this is because they don't create the kit until the order is placed. Then of course you have to live with the cheapest "free" ground shipping available from the USPS or UPS, which probably takes longer during the peak of the holidays. Just a thought.

As for the number of pulley teeth, I just switched from the 32 (?) tooth pulleys that came with my Rostock Mini originally to 20-tooth pulley's from Utilbots. While more teeth make sense to me, I believe it all comes down to math, at least from what I have read. So at 32 teeth, my steps per mm is something like 88.6 while 20 teeth should be a nice even 80 steps per mm. Its easier for the 8-bit processor to perform calculations using intergers rather than real numbers, and delta style printers are already pushing the limits of the Mega2560 chips. Again, just a thought, would love to have someone more knowledgable explain it to me.

Hi all,
First time putting a delta together, or a 3d printer for that matter. Got mine on the 23th of Dec, perfect because I have some time to play with it over Xmas...but I found myself pulling 5 all-nighters, because I'm either short of or missing hardware. The eBay listing did say that time is needed, and yes it does. It's now assembled and I was able to figure everything out except for the auto-leveler. Similar to one other person, I still have trouble getting the heated bed to work. It heated up very slow, and then stopped working all together, perhaps I have a bad cold solder since I was not able to get my solder hot enough to solder the wires to the bed; it's just absorbs way too much heat. Will be taking it to work and using two solder guns to do it. Also be sure to set TEMP_SENSOR_BED to 1 to enable it.

I would say, not having a manual is very hard to figure things out. I used some other sources on-line, while depending on the three pictures that was on eBay. All the plexiglass pieces are a little bit oversized, so most holes won't line up. The two big "L" are for the power supply mount, must be angled a little to line up with the open frame. The three little "L" and six ring spacers are for the top limit switches. The big plexiglass looking "K" is the holder for the heated bed. The two other pieces are for the filament holder that sits on the right side. And the last little small piece is probably for the auto-leveler since it looks like the level switch will mount to it.

The extruder was a little confusing, and impossible to mount. There's a triangle plexiglass piece for that, but you actually need two very long bolts to mount it. I couldn't find these in the hardware store, so I took the back plate of the stepper motor and drill two holes so that I can mount two shorter bolts from the inside-out. The solid aluminum piece goes on top, and the black plastic piece goes on the bottom of the motor, and don't forget to put the grooved bearing inside the plastic piece, on the right side. The extruder runs counterclockwise, so either plug in the wire backwards or adjust that in firmware.

36-tooth pulleys? After playing with the configuration.h file, I found that I has to change the DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT to 44.44 to properly compensate for their larger diameter. And there were other settings too, limit switches need to be set to TRUE for the arms to home to the top. Otherwise, the arms will move a little bit up before stopping, confused the hell out of me at first. During the calibration, be sure that these limit switches are adjusted to the proper height so that the three axis locations are zeroed out. My MANUAL_Z_HOME_POS is 234.0, and I'm using DELTA_DIAGONAL_ROD of 250. What is every else using? Additionally, I'm using DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET of 197, DELTA_EFFECTOR_OFFSET of 24.4, AND DELTA_CARRIAGE_OFFSET of 29.5.

I still have problem with the printer, the head crashes to the right rear side when I'm trying to print. Maybe my firmware is not properly set. I would say that having the right "configuration.h" file is very important, or the proper knowledge. Otherwise you could spent days on figuring things out like I did. Can anyone help me out with the correct configuration file or additional insights? Would love to hear from others and their experiences. I also have a lot of leftover lock washers, not sure what they are for since the nylon nuts are all you need. I can include additional pictures if anyone is interested. Just don't have them right now. Hope this helps.

Yes. It is 5-10 days before shipping plus shipping time. I paid for 2-day shipping, but I see now, that doesn't matter that much when it is now 23 days after I ordered. I figured (hoped) it would ship by Christmas. The waiting time would not be an issue of they are upfront about the real time. Basic business sense is under-promise and over-deliver -- and any communication would be nice.

They may be waiting for the manual to be wrapped up, but at least keep customers informed. There are good ways to automate communication.

Can't be a doctor without patients.

Your delayed unit might be a blessing in disguise. You have doctors figuring it out for you. So as a patient, you have less mistakes to worry about. I'm not saying I'm a doctor, but I sure have vested a lot of time putting it together, and some of my notes here should help. The Blomker's assembly guide is very helpful since Folgers is not ready with their guide yet.

Quote
Kurzaa
I hope everyone was able to get their kits in time for Christmas or will be receiving them shortly so they can have fun putting them together over the weekend.

I was curious though about the 5-10 day shipping everyone was mentioning. I have only briefly looked at their website, but I was thinking it was 5-10 days BEFORE they would ship the kits as opposed to you receiving them in 5-10 days. I assume this is because they don't create the kit until the order is placed. Then of course you have to live with the cheapest "free" ground shipping available from the USPS or UPS, which probably takes longer during the peak of the holidays. Just a thought.

As for the number of pulley teeth, I just switched from the 32 (?) tooth pulleys that came with my Rostock Mini originally to 20-tooth pulley's from Utilbots. While more teeth make sense to me, I believe it all comes down to math, at least from what I have read. So at 32 teeth, my steps per mm is something like 88.6 while 20 teeth should be a nice even 80 steps per mm. Its easier for the 8-bit processor to perform calculations using intergers rather than real numbers, and delta style printers are already pushing the limits of the Mega2560 chips. Again, just a thought, would love to have someone more knowledgable explain it to me.

Yes, it says 5-10 before they shipped it out. I ordered the kit on November 28th, but it never really left for shipment until December 19th. That's why I was saying it was BS.

dnguyenai598,

Pictures would be incredibly helpful.
Mine has been sitting here for days and I'm still trying to figure out if I have all the parts.

You used the nyloc nuts for everything? (I only have 35 nyloc nuts and 89 of the wing looking nuts).

I forgot to mention. There are three plexiglass "C" looking items. These are the bottom stops for the sliders, put them on first. I'm using about 80mm off the base. When putting on the sliders, only use every other mounting hole since I didn't have enough hardware for all the holes. Will include some pictures tonight, but I have one pic, partially finished from 4 days ago.

dnguyenai598,

LOL. Yes a blessing. And thanks for the pic. Drool. Good to see they are shipping. I did print out a drawing of a Kossel to scaled to 700mm tall, on multiple sheets of paper taped together to roughly see how big it will be on my desk.

The real thing will be there soon enough. I look forward to your reports and pics. Thanks again.

This is what I have so far. I don't have the bed fixed to the frame yet. I was using the L-brackets, because I thought they were it. Turns out, they were the upper endstop switch mounts which I though I was missing. I have Kapton tape on the bed now.


I am using a fan mount for my E3D v6, so you won't have this blue piece in your kit. I read somebody's post that they had trouble putting the hotend to the effector. You don't need longer bolts for it. The hotend is supposed to go inside the hole. Yes it was a tight fit. I just heated the effector a little bit with a lighter, then inserted the hotend while the effector was soft.


This was the lower endstop that came with mine. It's not plexiglass like what the others received. I didn't use it because it wasn't thick enough to stop anything. I just used a longer bolt on the last hole on the rail for now.


I didn't know that the L-brackets were the mounts for the upper endstop switches. I just used a double sided tape here. I will swap them out with better endstops I found on Thingiverse.


I replaced my pulleys with 20-tooth ones because I noticed that the movement weren't smooth and when I got down to adjusting to 0.1mm steps, they were only moving every other click.


I didn't receive a big plexiglass piece for my bed. Instead, I received these pieces which I have to drill holes into.


I also did not receive an extruder mount, so I'm using one that I made a while back.


Like I mentioned before, I wasn't able to put the bed auto-level together because of lack of instructions. Also the RAMPS board that came with the kit was dead. I contacted them, but wasn't hopeful for a reply any time soon. From all the comments I've read about their customer service, they're almost non-existent. The whole project was also halted because I accidentally put the auto bed-level switch into the wrong pins and my spare RAMPS board started smoking and won't take power anymore.

I have some fiberglass embedded ABS filament around and wanted to print new parts for this printer. When I get everything figured out and working, I want to create a full instructions manual to help all who bought this kit. I'm fairly new to this Kossel concept, too so I would also need some feedback for all the guys who are experts in Marlin.

Unnokeng,

Thanks for the update and all the awesome pictures. Seeing the progress on yours is great. I really hope they ship mine soon

Finally got her working. The G-code file had the wrong offset, so it was trying to print in never-never land, thus crashing the print head trying to find the origin. Here are some pictures. I still need a bit of tweaking.

The first major hurdle was a bad power supply right out of the box; it actually tripped my breaker. Didn't have time to ship it back, since my order took over two weeks to ship (and I think I'm one of the luckier ones)...took it apart and after a little while found the bad part, which was the main rectifier, two of the legs shorted (made it china, what do you expect). Luckily, I had a somewhat similar part. Learned a lot, but having a bit of fun and excitement at the same time. I have a few more pictures so I will upload when I have more time. The good thing is...now I have the ability to make it better by printing additional parts.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2014 03:21AM by dnguyenai598.

Quote
dnguyenai598
Finally got her working. The G-code file had the wrong offset, so it was trying to print in never-never land, thus crashing the print head trying to find the origin. Here are some pictures. I still need a bit of tweaking.

The first major hurdle was a bad power supply right out of the box; it actually tripped my breaker. Didn't have time to ship it back, since my order took over two weeks to ship (and I think I'm one of the luckier ones)...took it apart and after a little while found the bad part, which was the main rectifier, two of the legs shorted (made it china, what do you expect). Luckily, I had a somewhat similar part. Learned a lot, but having a bit of fun and excitement at the same time. I have a few more pictures so I will upload when I have more time. The good thing is...now I have the ability to make it better by printing additional parts.

Glad to see you got it working! Did your kit come with the LCD? Mine didn't come with one. One suggestion though, putting rubber bands on your carbon fiber rods would help lessen the noise and vibration. It may improve the quality of your prints, too.

We just finished the build manual!

[drive.google.com]

Enjoy all!

---

Making it better for Makers!
[makerfront.com]

Thanks for the build guide It looks great, we are also on freenode irc now at #folgertech.

Also a note to anyone waiting on there Kossel kit still, we are working as hard as we can, the holidays have us backed up a bit. We really appreciate everyone's patience. We are working on hiring a few more people in here to help us get the kits packed and sent out. After today we should be caught up and back to our normal 10 business day handling time, and once the holiday rush settles we will be pushing to get these down to a normal 3-5 day handling time.

Thanks guys, you can always email me directly with any questions.

Dan
dan@folgertech.com

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2014 09:10AM by Dan_FolgerTech.

Yay! Just got my shipping order! Glad things are progressing along.

"The best part of waking up, is Folger's in the mail!" Sorry. You probably get some form of that for years, but very glad it is on its way.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2014 10:51PM by rtideas.