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

you will want longer rods, i regret using 230mm rods so I'm going to change them out. I switched to manual bed leveling (just replace three plastic spacers with pairs of washers with a spring between them) and it made calibration MUCH easier. My steppers haven't overheated so i wouldnt worry to much about them overheating and skipping steps but definitely increase extruder motor to .65mv, it will still be cool to the touch. Basically the printer is amazing for its price point and even though my package was missing all of its 10mm and 12mm screws (about $10 from ace hardware -_- ) it was still an amazing price. Prints amazingly even with my lower resolution 32 tooth pulleys (which you should change out for 20 tooth)

Going to add an extruder fan for PLA prints. Can anybody tell me where to wire up the fan on the RAMPS so my slicer can control it with PWM?

Mine just shipped today, hopefully I will have it this weekend since I only live about 120 miles from Folger tech.

When did you order? I ordered a while back and haven't heard anything. Wondering how much longer.

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kirkm
When did you order? I ordered a while back and haven't heard anything. Wondering how much longer.

Order date was 2/28/15 Ebay and shipped 3/12/15

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2015 01:34AM by vewdew34.

mine shipped this week too. I ordered on 2/21

Thanks guys. Ordered 3/2. Shouldn't be long now. Hope to be building next weekend.

Recently my kit has started to have drifting issues and the only thing I can think of as being the problem is that my stepper motors get hot. A little but hotter than too hot to touch. Is that normal on a delta? I'm set to . 35v, should I lower it or think about cooling them?

The motors should not get that hot. Try turning down the potentiometers on the stepper motor drivers a little.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

what should i lower the voltage to if theyre at .35?

hey guys, have an update. My stepper motors go to around 50C so i'm leaving them at that voltage because they still function. My problem was actually due to a USB hub that still used USB1.1 and my shifting problem had to do with commands not being sent over the slow port. Everything is back to normal thankfully

I also ordered on the 2nd March. looking forward to hearing from Folger. no word yet.

If anyone has prints theyd like to share, be great to see. I'll be contributing more once mine arrives.

My experience with FolgerTech is they communicate at the barest minimum. Other than evolving instructions and not knowing I bought into a beta, they have come through, albeit not as fast as I hoped. I ordered my printer December 6 and received it January 2. They were inundated with holiday orders. It was shipped without the LCD controller I ordered and missing some parts. I documented, according to the part lists on the packages, what was missing and emailed them. A couple days laters, I got an email with just a tracking number. Less than a week later, I rececived the missing parts--except the LCD controller. I emailed them again. A day or two later, another tracking number. A few days later, the missing LCD.

It may take time, but they do seem to follow through.

It has been a challenging kit for me to build. Their initial manual had many issues, but with help of others online, a few all-nighters and dogged determination, I think I finally have a nice printer for a very reasonable price. I have learned way more than I really wanted to know, but in the long run, I think it has and will help me to understand problems that pop up and why. And a Dremel helps.

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vorpal
I also ordered on the 2nd March. looking forward to hearing from Folger. no word yet.

If anyone has prints theyd like to share, be great to see. I'll be contributing more once mine arrives.

Here are a few of my first prints:
The pic of the two red heads: the one on the left is at .2mm layer in spiral vase mode (you can see the hair angle was too steep to fill in. The one on the right is at .2mm layers and .8 thickness and 7% fill, printed upside down.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2015 09:19AM by mmcginnis9272.

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rtideas
My experience with FolgerTech is they communicate at the barest minimum. Other than evolving instructions and not knowing I bought into a beta, they have come through, albeit not as fast as I hoped. I ordered my printer December 6 and received it January 2. They were inundated with holiday orders. It was shipped without the LCD controller I ordered and missing some parts. I documented, according to the part lists on the packages, what was missing and emailed them. A couple days laters, I got an email with just a tracking number. Less than a week later, I rececived the missing parts--except the LCD controller. I emailed them again. A day or two later, another tracking number. A few days later, the missing LCD.

It may take time, but they do seem to follow through.

It has been a challenging kit for me to build. Their initial manual had many issues, but with help of others online, a few all-nighters and dogged determination, I think I finally have a nice printer for a very reasonable price. I have learned way more than I really wanted to know, but in the long run, I think it has and will help me to understand problems that pop up and why. And a Dremel helps.

Sounds like your expectations were tested.
Hopefully folger have been more diligent in their efforts without the pressure of the holiday season. Im looking forward to see what I can do with the printer. Glad to have a found a solid support base here.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2015 08:00AM by vorpal.

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mmcginnis9272

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vorpal
I also ordered on the 2nd March. looking forward to hearing from Folger. no word yet.

If anyone has prints theyd like to share, be great to see. I'll be contributing more once mine arrives.

Here are a few of my first prints:
The pic of the two red heads: the one on the left is at .2mm layer in spiral vase mode (you can see the hair angle was too steep to fill in. The one on the right is at .1mm and .8 thickness and 7% fill.

Nice prints. Amazing the difference in the heads.
Some surprising detail on the building.

Did you use supports on the yoda ears? is that nylon your using?

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vorpal
Sounds like your expectations were tested.
Hopefully folger have been more diligent in their efforts without the pressure of the holiday season. Im looking forward to see what I can do with the printer. Glad to have a found a solid support base here.

That's it. It was my expectations (but they did initially say 5-10 days for processing and I paid for 2-day shipping so it should have been 16 days max with extra weekends). Customer service from some companies is astounding--but you pay for it with higher prices. I tired to price out the parts alone for the printer and I don't see that they are making much profit. They sell their small Nema 17s for $9 on their site alone. With plug wires. I don't see them having that much markup so customer support is very minimal. But they have come through every time, eventually, with anything that was missing. Old saying "Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick any two."

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vorpal

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mmcginnis9272

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vorpal
I also ordered on the 2nd March. looking forward to hearing from Folger. no word yet.

If anyone has prints theyd like to share, be great to see. I'll be contributing more once mine arrives.

Here are a few of my first prints:
The pic of the two red heads: the one on the left is at .2mm layer in spiral vase mode (you can see the hair angle was too steep to fill in. The one on the right is at .1mm and .8 thickness and 7% fill.

Nice prints. Amazing the difference in the heads.
Some surprising detail on the building.

Did you use supports on the yoda ears? is that nylon your using?

I did not use any supports on the ears. The overhang capability of the printer is quite good, and I was using no fan. If you are familiar with this file, you will know that the tips of his ears hang down to about a negative 15 degrees, and no FFF machine can handle that without supports. You can see that the tips of his ears did not print on mine, but, this printer handled the rest of the ears quite well on .2mm layers, at full speed. I'm sure it would have been much better at .1mm.

I corrected my last message, as both red heads were printed at .2mm layers. I stated that one of them was a .1, but that was wrong. The second one was printed upside down, but was still at .2mm layers. The only picture I posted at .1mm layers was the cathedral.

Also, the cathedral as seen is only 3 inches wide and about 4 inches tall. Yes, at .1mm the detail is incredible.

The blue is Inland PLA, $15.00 per KG roll. The red is MadeSolid Ruby PET+ translucent, $35 per LB(not KG) (way overpriced IMO). We have a Microcenter locally here in Kansas City, so I don't have to purchase online. You can get these at www.microcenter.com and they have tons of different kinds to choose from, many $15-$20 per KG roll. They also sell a $19 roll of PETG 1 KG roll of red translucent that I want to try. Overall, they are super cheap and I've had good luck with them so far. The filament diameter seems pretty consistent per roll. I've not measured to many times, but their 1.75 mm rolls are within .02 variance between any 2 measurements.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2015 09:24AM by mmcginnis9272.

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mmcginnis9272
I did not use any supports on the ears. The overhang capability of the printer is quite good, and I was using no fan. If you are familiar with this file, you will know that the tips of his ears hang down to about a negative 15 degrees, and no FFF machine can handle that without supports. You can see that the tips of his ears did not print on mine, but, this printer handled the rest of the ears quite well on .2mm layers, at full speed. I'm sure it would have been much better at .1mm.

I corrected my last message, as both red heads were printed at .2mm layers. I stated that one of them was a .1, but that was wrong. The second one was printed upside down, but was still at .2mm layers. The only picture I posted at .1mm layers was the cathedral.

Also, the cathedral as seen is only 3 inches wide and about 4 inches tall. Yes, at .1mm the detail is incredible.

The blue is Inland PLA, $15.00 per KG roll. The red is MadeSolid Ruby PET+ translucent, $35 per LB(not KG) (way overpriced IMO). We have a Microcenter locally here in Kansas City, so I don't have to purchase online. You can get these at www.microcenter.com and they have tons of different kinds to choose from, many $15-$20 per KG roll. They also sell a $19 roll of PETG 1 KG roll of red translucent that I want to try. Overall, they are super cheap and I've had good luck with them so far. The filament diameter seems pretty consistent per roll. I've not measured to many times, but their 1.75 mm rolls are within .02 variance between any 2 measurements.

Nice first prints. Any issues with getting your extrusion steps set right? I've calibrated mine (100mm feeds 100mm) but for some reason I'm still trying to figure out, it's pushing out more filament that I need. 0.4mm walls are 0.65mm. I can reduce the flow rate to compensate, but after calculation the feed rate it should not be that far off.

Good to hear the Microcenter filament is okay. I ordered a roll of PLA ($14.99/kg) and roll of PETG ($18.99/kg). $42.02 with shipping ($6) and tax. Closest store is 2 hours away.I paid about $40 alone for 1 lb. of PETG a month ago.

I realise that it's been said by others in previous posts but I would nevertheless like to say a big thank you to all those who have shared their problems, experiences, thoughts, photos and all important solutions on everything to do with this printer

I've been following this thread since the turn of the year and quite quickly decided that this is the printer for me. Even though I live in the UK (and so have to pay an extra 20% in VAT to bring it into the country) I still think that it offers great value for money and is a better overall product than those of a similar price available direct from here. In saying that, this will be my first introduction to any form of 3d printing so I can only base this on what I have read and pictures I have seen!

I was wondering if anyone had settled on a suitable solution regards the apparent limitations of the included heated bed and the affect that has on printing in ABS? Would a seperate power supply be an option, a different heated bed or is a silicone heater the way to go?

For what its worth, I just checked the resistance on my heatbed (just received my kit a few days ago and i haven't quite got it built yet) and it was about 1.3 ohms which is correct for the 12V mk3. This is approximately half of what someone else reported as their measured resistance value. As, such i don't foresee having a problem with mine. I am not sure if folgertech heard the complaints and found a better supplier or if I just got lucky...

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juicev85
For what its worth, I just checked the resistance on my heatbed (just received my kit a few days ago and i haven't quite got it built yet) and it was about 1.3 ohms which is correct for the 12V mk3. This is approximately half of what someone else reported as their measured resistance value. As, such i don't foresee having a problem with mine. I am not sure if folgertech heard the complaints and found a better supplier or if I just got lucky...

I purchased mine a couple months ago and I've never had problems getting my heatbed hot enough. I've been as high as 110 with it.

BTW, I am posting a couple more pics of a print I just made this morning. I am also posting the STL file. I never cease to be amazed at what I can get this printer to create. The picture shows the output of the following:
Marlin firmware controlled by RepetierHost using Cura to slice.
.1mm layers with spiral vase mode enabled
.4mm print head
195C head, 50C bed temps (bed temp shut off after about 5 layers).
Print speed: 50mm/sec
Used a small fan to cool print as it was building.
Using Inland PLA filament from Microcenter.com ($16 a roll)
Printed upside down to improve build especially in the chin area. Her hair takes the brunt of the effect as it is not suitable for spiral vase in this area.
Print took 21 minutes to complete.
I'll be trying a .05mm layer print tonight, just to see what happens.

I promise that is a real penny next to the print. No trick photography.

STL file link: [drive.google.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2015 09:34AM by mmcginnis9272.

I did print that head at .05mm per layer. To the naked eye, there doesn't seem to be much difference between it and .1mm, but under a magnafying glass... wow!! I included a couple pics of 3 prints of this head, all no larger than a quarter. The .2mm is on the left, .1mm in the middle and .05 on the right. My phone camera is not that great, but you get the idea. Even in the pics you can't see much difference in the .05 and the .1 prints, but it looks great up close.

I also included a print of Groot, from gardians of the Galaxy, printed at .1mm layer height. Again, for $400, I say this printer is a winner.

should i disconnect the servo jumper if i decided to take out the autolevel?

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greggo
should i disconnect the servo jumper if i decided to take out the autolevel?

It does not hurt to leave the jumper there. All it does is connect the rail to 5V. With nothing connected to the rail, it is simply an unused trace on the board.

thank you!

So i am getting a little fustrated at Folger tech "soon will open a case with paypal" So like I said 9 days ago my package is shipping, well guess what NOTTTT. Folger printed a shipping label but till today still awaiting for the delivery from them to post office.


I mean this guys claim they are getting better and hired more people? Uhmmm seriously I have my doubts.

Maybe they are having difficulty with UPS. They printed my label on Wednesday and it hasn't moved either. Up until this little hiccup their service has been good.

Thinking about it more, there must be some issue because what rational person would print a shipping label (an act that says "your box is packed and on the road") and then leave the box just hanging around their shop.

Just check out their sales rates for this kit on ebay.

[offer.ebay.com]

Remember they also sell the kit on their website so these aren't 100% of their sales (no way to tell true total).

Assuming this I think it is safe to say they sell an average of 3+ kits per day, PER DAY. If they haven't shipped these kits in multiple days they must be piling up, and since the boxes aren't exactly small I am sure it would be a big enough pain to deal with that they would do something about it right away.

Besides, they sell 161 other items on ebay alone so a daily ups/fedex/whatever pickup is probably done making it even less likely our kits are sitting in a corner collecting dust.

So, like i said there must be some issue with UPS.

Did you see this article?

[www.wired.com]

Maybe they have decided 3d printers are not cool to ship? Pure speculation, and highly unlikely as that mill is a far cry from our 3d printer kits.


Has anyone contacted folger on their stalled tracking yet?

Ok So I decided to give them a call and less than 1 minute I had dan speaking with me we went over the details and he is just waiting on the heated beds that never came to him on time, I deal alot with China and Sometimes things do get stuck in Customs so I understad, but never got or asked for an extimated shipping date.

i think we just need to relax. Its not like we didnt know that shipping was going to be delayed. from all ive seen is their slammed and a little slow to respond (they were slow with me) but never have I felt like Ive been blown off. I always have gotten an answer to a question. Im still patiently waiting for mine to get here and for the price I dont mind.