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

They dropped their price to $385.99 on their website as well.

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rtideas
They dropped their price to $385.99 on their website as well.

Strange to see a company hiring more people and dropping their prices at the same time. Kudos to them.

Got my kit. No hardware kit. Not even crossed off on the check list. Kinda pissed. Send them an email (Kind) hopefully I get my hardware kit ASAP

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ADecker
Got my kit. No hardware kit. Not even crossed off on the check list. Kinda pissed. Send them an email (Kind) hopefully I get my hardware kit ASAP

Sheesh! Would have hoped that worked has the packing issues worked out by now. A bad thing all around. Loss of time and profit for them, and an extra pain for you. Email Dan there or support. It does take time -- yeah, a pain -- but they do eventually make it right.

My order was also missing stuff--the acrylic pieces, a bunch of screws and an LCD controller that I ordered at the same time. Took two more shipments over two weeks to get everything right--I didn't have a BoM and their manual was in the making. It truly does suck, but it does build a nice printer and Folger Tech has shipped or replaced anything that was missing or defective.

I got 5 extra stepper drives and no hardware kit. Looks like I have everything else. It just infuriates me that the whole reason my shipment was delayed was wrong T-Bolts and they aren't even in the kit along with the rest of the hardware.

Is the LCD Controller worth buying, if so which one?

I found out the hard way what the 8mm screws should be used for. I used several for the base and now I am short.

Make sure you save the 8mm screws for mounting the rails, which you need 27 of them. 10mm ones are too long to mount the rails and your rails will not tighten.

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kirkm
I found out the hard way what the 8mm screws should be used for. I used several for the base and now I am short.

Make sure you save the 8mm screws for mounting the rails, which you need 27 of them. 10mm ones are too long to mount the rails and your rails will not tighten.

Or just get 8mm screws from [www.albanycountyfasteners.com] Thats what I did, they are only 3$ for 100 count.

I been using this place for all my metric hardware.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2015 02:16AM by vewdew34.

Ive started to build as well. Also used all of the 8mm for the base as per instructions. Have alot of 10mm two types of heads. but a thought would be to uses washers to space if needed, or drill through profile into center cavity.
One of my rails is very rough running, tried grease not helping. I have heard some cheap rails have missing balls, maybe the case here. The words "You get get what you pay for" are starting to come to mind.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2015 05:25AM by vorpal.

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vorpal
Ive started to build as well. Also used all of the 8mm for the base as per instructions. Have alot of 10mm two types of heads. but a thought would be to uses washers to space if needed, or drill through profile into center cavity.
One of my rails is very rough running, tried grease not helping. I have heard some cheap rails have missing balls, maybe the case here. The words "You get get what you pay for" are starting to come to mind.

Two out of three rails on mine were rough. I used WD-40 and soaked the snot out of them and ran them back and forth several times. Then soaked them again. After 5 or 6 soakings and constant running them back and forth theyn got real smooth. I then let them dry and lubed them with a few drops of 5W-40 Diesel oil. They have been smooth as butter for over 2 months now. The chinese are not good at cleaning up after themselves, it would appear.

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3D52
Is the LCD Controller worth buying, if so which one?

I purchased the 2004 LCD for $12 and I've very pleased with it. The SD card slot is great for long builds when I need my laptop elsewhere. I don't know anything about the graphical screen, but it looks cool for a couple extra bucks. I wouldn't recommend NOT buying one.

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3D52
Is the LCD Controller worth buying, if so which one?

Either works fine with Reptier firmware--not certain with Marlin. The graphic one seems to be a little snappier for me.

It is totally worth it for the SD card slot. My computer went to sleep during a long print wrecking it. I also had hiccups in prints while I was using my computer while it was printing in the background. Printing directly from an SD card means less failed prints.

Don't waste your time writing to the SD card over the USB cable in the printer. Very slow. Plug the card directly into your computer via a built in reader (if it has one) or an adapter.

I created a SAMPLES folder on my SD card and store examples that print quickly or well to demo the printer. A TARDIS in glow-in-the-dark blue is a big hit. My 4GB card seems I hold a massive amount of gcode files. 2GB would be plenty.

I have Folgers Kossel kit. I have it assembled and totally lost from there. I have no idea how to make the lcd work. I just melted the j head through the carriage. Customer service is terrible on getting answers. I just need someone who has one of these working that can guide me through this. It has been a mess so far. Wrong hardware. Missing parts just a mess and very frustrated. I do not have any background in 3d printers. Just learning.

Which firmware are you running?

All my endstops work but only my Z tower endstop LED lights up when triggered. doesn't really matter to me but is this normal, caused by firmware, or defective LED's? its kinda been bothering me hahah

Probs just LEDs. Not really a big deal.

Martin 20 tooth firmaware.

Here they have the Kossel 2020 for 375.99 Facebook

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2015 11:59AM by 3D52.

Im having this problem.. i recently updated to 20 tooth pulleys and did a whole bunch of cable management but for some reason Marlin wont change my steps per unit.

I tell the effector to move 10mm and it moves 6mm... ive used both 32 tooth and 20 tooth... still 6mm. I can change the range and z height max successfully... but marlin will not update my damn steps! line 359 right?! i change all 3 and still nothing!

greggo,

I have no idea if this is what's wrong or not, but AFTER you flash the firmware, manually send a M502 and then M500. That will force your newly updated firmware to load. I fought a similar problem on one of my machines for nearly a month before I found a hint that this might be my problem. It was!

Use whichever control program you use (I use Pronterface and Repetier Host). From the manual entry line, just enter each of those commands and see what the results are from each.

This is assuming that you have turned on the EEPROM in the firmware. It certainly bit me.

Gary

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gfrantz
greggo,

I have no idea if this is what's wrong or not, but AFTER you flash the firmware, manually send a M502 and then M500. That will force your newly updated firmware to load. I fought a similar problem on one of my machines for nearly a month before I found a hint that this might be my problem. It was!

Use whichever control program you use (I use Pronterface and Repetier Host). From the manual entry line, just enter each of those commands and see what the results are from each.

This is assuming that you have turned on the EEPROM in the firmware. It certainly bit me.

Gary

you sir... are amazing . thank you <3

Just in case anyone is still having trouble with the auto bed leveling, I got mine working fine. I think the main issue is the "#define Z_PROBE_OFFSET {30, -7, -5.1, 0}". I changed to the values shown and mine is working great now. The default values are way wrong...

Be careful with those values it caused my machine to skip belts and go to points off the print bed. It seems that these represent the difference between the nozzle and the point where the z probe measures. So it may work for some if your end effector orientation is the same. Not sure I am new to the gcode and software stuff.

The x and y settings that came with the firmware worked for me, z is setup during configuration.

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jculver09
Be careful with those values it caused my machine to skip belts and go to points off the print bed. It seems that these represent the difference between the nozzle and the point where the z probe measures. So it may work for some if your end effector orientation is the same. Not sure I am new to the gcode and software stuff.

The x and y settings that came with the firmware worked for me, z is setup during configuration.

What I did to find those values: I marked the 0,0 point where the nozzle touched the bed, then I deployed the probe, then I moved the probe until the switch was on my mark and I noted the X and Y values. Then you must invert those values...

Got my printer built and just got it calibrated.

Kit was missing the hardware -- Got that in the mail.

Kit is missing one of the top 3D printed pieces -- I took the bearings that I had left and put them on a bolt, used a TNut and attached them to the top of the vertical support, should allow me enough time to print the corner piece.

Heated bed doesn't work, going to check the solder joints and the polarity, maybe I screwed up??

Everything else went together well, have not attached the Z Probe yet, going to do that next.

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juicev85

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jculver09
Be careful with those values it caused my machine to skip belts and go to points off the print bed. It seems that these represent the difference between the nozzle and the point where the z probe measures. So it may work for some if your end effector orientation is the same. Not sure I am new to the gcode and software stuff.

The x and y settings that came with the firmware worked for me, z is setup during configuration.

What I did to find those values: I marked the 0,0 point where the nozzle touched the bed, then I deployed the probe, then I moved the probe until the switch was on my mark and I noted the X and Y values. Then you must invert those values...

If after doing this, your probe is still trying to travel outside the bed area, then you probably need to adjust "#define AUTOLEVEL_GRID 20" this is the space between the grid points. As you can see, I used 20 and all of my points fell within the bed area.

I received my delta kit from Folger today, ordered on March 10 so almost 30 days including shipping.

I opened the box and everything appears to be accounted for, the box was well packed with several crumpled layers of heavy paper separating the components. The box was a little on the weak side, but Folger used reinforced packing tape to seal up all the edges and once around the middle.

I will do an accurate count of bits tonight.

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ADecker
Got my printer built and just got it calibrated.

Kit was missing the hardware -- Got that in the mail.

Kit is missing one of the top 3D printed pieces -- I took the bearings that I had left and put them on a bolt, used a TNut and attached them to the top of the vertical support, should allow me enough time to print the corner piece.

Heated bed doesn't work, going to check the solder joints and the polarity, maybe I screwed up??

Everything else went together well, have not attached the Z Probe yet, going to do that next.

The bed is just functionally a resistor, thus it has no polarity. It is, however... so thick that it is very hard to solder without a high-wattage soldering iron. You might have a bad solder joint, but more likely.... don't let the extra LED pads fool you. Use your multi-meter to verify you are soldering to the bed heater (4-6 ohms). If you get an open circuit, you are probably trying to include one or more of the LED pads in the circuit. They are not needed.

Alight, Ill look into that.

I ordered my Folgertech Kossel Delta 2020 on March 2, 2015 from the ebay store at 399 + 15.21 in shipping. It was delivered March 30th, 2015. I received notification that the acrylic vendor was having issues supplying the acrylic and it would take an additional week or two for the shipping. I believe the original estimate for shipping was a few days prior to the actual delivery date.

The shipping box was damaged, crushed on one end and the carrier housing the nema 17 motors was crushed and one of the nema motors was bound against the 2020 rail inside the box.

Dropbox link to the pictures of the shipping container and the items that came out of it. [www.dropbox.com]

Upon unboxing and assembling I had the following issues:

Printed parts appeared to be from multiple runs. Several of the items were of different materials and some were just obviously printed as quickly as possible. The effector had issues with the hot end hole and one of the rail blocks was mediocre at best. Part of the effector snapped in my hands when screwing on the servo for the auto leveler (it was part of the servo housing).

The only two parts to be "bad" were the thermistor and the servo, the thermistor is shorting out in the heat head block when moving around, shutting down the printer due to excessive temps (hot head is turned off). The other part was the servo, it was causing printer to shutdown with what looked to be a power issue (lights flickering, servo grinding at times)

Documentation: There were a few things in the documentation that were out of sorts. Several times I found myself wanting a video or better pictures to look at. I stumbled over a few sections, simply because I am new to the 3d printers. There was one point, tightening pulleys, that you are told to not tighten in one guide, referencing the second. In the second guide it completely skips over this portion (not an issue, just align the pulleys up in the right angles, etc).

Support: I have had several conversations with Folgertech so far and they have been pretty quick to answer any questions I might have (or problems so far).

Ways to make it better: Add some heat shrink tubing!!!! Heat shrink tubing, wire wrap or something for cable management should be included in the basic kit. Even a cheap roll of electrical tape would suffice to provide some form of cable management. I was able to buy 12 foot section of 3/8 wire wrap at Harbor Freight for 2.49$, so adding that in the kit will not hurt the bank, especially if you buy it in bulk. Add a video of the assembly process ( I did one myself (8+ hours to assemble, test, verify and cleanup wiring), but recorded it on a potato so the quality is not that great, I will provide a link if requested ).

All in all? It has not been a "bad" experience so far. This is my first printer and I have been having fun playing with it.

TheVisad