Opinions about the H3D K200 Delta?

Hi!
Recently, while checking 3d printers on aliexpress, I found this one for about 239$

It looks really really interesting because for that price you receive the printer, that should have an aluminium frame + plastic injected junctions, a borosilicate bed and a full metal hot end plus some goodies (various size of nozzles, tools for nounting, some pla, etc)

There is anyone with this printer that can offers some first hand opinions?
Is a good choice or I should dodge it?

Thanks!

Buy Any chance have you bought this Printer ? How was your experience. I am also planning to buy 1 for myself ASAP.

I have seen same model on another website HERE.
at cheaper price for just $199. They're also giving Free autoleveling now.

This printer height is more compelling 300mm to me , as I'll be making models of height approx.280mm in PLA.

i think they've dropped their price Or probably manufacturer is selling here directly, dont Know much.

Do not assume that 300mm will be possible on the whole printbed! - only just in the middle spot!

The more outside you get, the lower the Maximum height will be - else carriages would be crashing into endstops!

I’m not sure this will answer your question, but here is my experience with the HE3D K200 printer so far.

I ordered the K200 DIY kit from www.3dprintersonlinestore.com for US $348 with $40 coupon. That included the dual extruder and heated bed options. I ordered it because it looked like it had the best quality parts of the cheap DIY kits I looked at. It took about two weeks to arrive.

I've been interested in 3D printing for a while, but this is my first time building or using a printer. I'm glad I bought the kit as it forced me to learn a lot about the printer and how it works.

I've got the K200 printing relatively quickly, but with one major bug. I'm getting a large shift problem (picture) that I just haven't been able to figure out even after many hours of troubleshooting. I’ve mostly been testing with lower quality .4mm layers so far, but I really like the quality of the prints I’m getting until it does its shift thing. I can go into details later or in another thread.

I think I’m going to be really happy with this printer whenever I get the shifting problem figured out.

Basic FYI Notes
There is one thing you should be aware of about the auto bed leveling feature. There is no permanent proximity sensor mounted to the effector. There is a small cheap sensor that is placed temporarily over the print nozzle in order to do the calibration routine and figure out the offsets. You then remove the sensor to do the actual printing. This is not designed to level the bed for every print. Only to be used when you think the bed needs leveling.

This printer comes with a BT700 v1.8.26 Ramps Plus2 board. I have not been able to find any information at all about this board. I don't even know if it's 16 or 32 bit. It's not listed among the Marlin firmware boards.

My laptop was able to partially connect to the K200 through a USB cable after I installed the "Chinese" CH341 drivers. But although Repetier said I was connected, I couldn't read temperatures or move the nozzle. I had to change the baud rate to 115200 on the COM port in Windows Manager, the K200, and in the Repetier software before I was completely connected.

Since I have the heated print bed and it is raised up on some springs, my printable height is only 266.8mm. I could probably tighten down the bolts on the springs to get another 5 or 10mm.

Parts Notes
There were no missing parts. There were even a few extra screws and nuts. They also sent an extra end stop. There were a few broken parts though.

Unfortunately, two of the thermistors were broken. One on an extruder and one on the heating bed. I broke the thermistor on the second extruder while trying to get the first one working. These things are very delicate. I bought a 5 pack for about $9 from Amazon Prime and received them next day shipping. (I was impatient)

The auto bed leveling calibration sensor broke after 4 or 5 touch downs. I messed with it tring to get it to work again, but no luck. Every time I remove the heated bed to troubleshoot I have to re-level the bed manually. I've been adjusting the spring screws on the heated bed to level the bed. A pain, but it works. It sure would have been nice to have the sensor working. I ordered and have received an Inductive Proximity Sensor Switch NPN DC6-36V from RepRap Champion but haven't tried it out yet. I'm worried about permanently adding that much weight to the effector.

The 2GB Kingston SD card provided with the kit simply wouldn’t work with the printer. It appeared to it work fine in my laptop. I tried formatting in FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, and using full formatting rather than the quick format. I also tried 8.3 naming just in case. I purchased an 8GB SanDisk card that does work with the printer.

Construction Notes
There are no printed instructions. Instead you are pointed to some Youtube videos. These instructional videos are not very good. I had to rebuild several parts because I couldn't identify which screws the guy was grabbing. The instructional videos sometimes cut out in an important place so that you have to figure out the rest of that step yourself.

The wheel carriages were the worst because the instructions are just wrong. I found another video (Link) that had a really great assembly animation that was too brief, but did show how the carriages were supposed to go together, but even that animation is wrong. The lock washers all should go between the wheel and the spacers. Not between the spacers and the acrylic.

There was another Youtube video (Link) that really helped with the wiring although for some reason the guy was whispering and hard to hear.

The total time I spent building it was about 12 hours spread out over several days. Much of that time was spent figuring out things that were unclear or wrong in the instructional videos. I rebuilt the wheel carriages several times. Once was after the rest of the printer was completely assembled. Big time waster. I also went very slow and tried my best to make everything as perfect as I could.

Knowing what I know now, I could build one in less than half the time. An electric screw driver with the right bits and some long shank hex wrenches and nut drivers could really speed things up.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2017 04:47PM by SWB.

Hi all,
SWB, thanks for your opinion, I agree on all your points. Assembly was somewhat of a nightmare and a huge laughter when watching the "minimalist" videos.
I have bought a K200 kit, assembled it and am now trying to print with it. But dang, I'm not there yet.

Unlike you, I managed to connect Repetier software to the board at the first try. I can read the temperature sensors as well as endstops correctly. But the motors don't move at all.
Also, the LCD lights up but nothing is displayed. It seems to have a badly set contrast, but even when turning the potentiometer on the back of the PCB, nothing changes.

I'd love to hear about your experience, and if you had similar issues. Also, if you could send me the firmware you used, that'd be awesome.

Thanks!

I bought an he3d kossel for my son and I to build. It got what seemed reasonable reviews and it was inexpensive. The box came, after a long wait and was really well packed and organized. However, the bill of materials did not match the order and some parts were missing, other parts were simply called something else. There are no written instructions, only a series of laughable videos done as silent movies with frequent skipped steps, hands in front of the camera obscuring the details and a HORRIBLE resolution that makes it look like it was filmed with an old game boy camera. That resolution is very important because it is frequent that you really can't see what the builder is doing.

This kit is a mashup of inconsistency. Some parts are of exceptional quality and some seem excreble. One of my concerns are the carriage wheels, when they sit in one place for a few hours they develope flat spots that "lurch" when they roll. I will almost certainly toss the "bed level" sensor and install a "magnetic zero offset" sensor, I know that works and the parts and instructions are on Thingiverse, give that a lookup. If the firmware is in the same shape as the "instructions" I will toss it and go for a Marlin variant, I have a lot of experience with that. We are assembling the kit slowly, and it will probably work because I already built the Folger Tech Kossel 2020 kit successfully and know the pitfalls of a Kossel delta machine now.

There are plenty of places to trip up the newbie when building a delta printer, but two months ago I was a newbie and survived. There is nothing like watching your delta printer make a model! You will learn mechanical skills, tuning skills and lingo, and firmware tuning and setup skills. Do not take short cuts and just copy/paste what others give you! Ask questions, ponder the answers, experiment and ask more questions. Do not be afraid to experiment and work out the bugs. I crashed my hot end into the bed a few times before I fixed those problems and still got really good results in the end. Eventually you will be proud of your efforts and be able to converse intelligently with the Big Dogs when you get your first prints working. AND impress your buddies with your whiz-bang cool delta printing. Then you will do more tuning, print upgrades, tweak and improve. This is SO much more fun than buying a little cartesian cube printer at Best Buy for $300! All of the sub-$1000 kits will have issues, my Folger Tech Kossel 2020 one sure did, but there is more than enough information on the 'net to get you over the humps.

I will post more as we get his he3d delta built, it WILL work eventually, in spite of the crappy instruction videos. All the bits are there,we just have to get them all working together!

DLC

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/16/2017 05:14PM by dlc60.

Bought K200 a few months ago. The variant with heat bed and dual extruder - Chimera clone head. (Now regretting I didn't take K280.)

Amazingly competent machine, and I recommend it.

Took me 6-7 hours to assemble, and 2-3 hours to calibrate and solve initial problems. With some experience, you can have it running in 1 day.

Board you asked about is based on Arduino Mega (ATmega2560) so It's 8 bit microcontroller.
Full printable hight is 272.4 cm with heat bed. As expected with delta over half meter tall.
Bowden extruders provided are nicely designed, and have no problem printing with difficult filaments like Ninjaflex or Velleman flexible and elastic fillaments.

Chimera clone head is also excellent, but it's designed in a way that PTFE tube goes all the way to the hot end. This works great as anti clogging measure for PLA, but I would be careful with Nylon as teflon might produce toxic fumes after longer exposure to temperatures above 240c.

Heat bed is full aluminium, perfectly flat, and you can print directly on it. It holds temperature nicely up to 90c. With some tweaks to the firmware I'm sure it could do more. Glass bed was provided, but not needed.

As you can expect some issues with cheap printers, there are some minor problems. These are what I had:
1. Glass temperature sensor on the head bed came in broken. There was a spare one provided, so problem was quickly fixed. There was also a spare end-stop micro-switch which I did not need.
2. Printer does not have auto levelling feature, and the sensor provided is a poor excuse. I had no success with it, as with each attempt it plowed a hot end to the heat bed. Pure luck there was no damage. I leveled the bed manually in few minutes. For me, correcting levelling before print by watching skirt's first layer is much more accurate then any automated solution anyway.
3. There are some microvibrations mostly due to extruder motors attached to one of the structural rods. Placing the printer on the thin rubber sheet is a quick fix.
4. Printer wiggles a bit. Not a problem for small models, but might be an issue with larger ones. You have to screw the structure firmly, but reinforcing it with a piece of aluminium might be a good idea.
5. Dual hot end on the Chimera clone took me some time to align. Both hot ends must be perfectly levelled before printing.
6. And yeah. Assembly videos were crappy, and animated one inaccurate about few details.

I wanted to flash Repetier firmware to latest version, but forgot to save EPROM settings, so asked the seller and he sent me the firmwares with settings for all the variants of the printer (both K200 and 280).
If you need them PM me, but any new Repetier firmware should work as long as you don't change EPROM settings. You flash it the same way as you would flash Arduino Mega.

In last few months I made dozens of awesome and accurate prints with K200, all beautiful with perfect layers. With quality that matches 5-10 times more expensive printers, you can imagine I'm very happy.
It's also much more fun to watch it work then Cartesian printers.

But the best thing of all, the platform does not move. This makes all the difference if you are printing wiggly flexible materials.

So if you have some experience in building 3d printers, and contemplating about buying this one?... Hell yes.

Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2017 04:00PM by Elerion.

Elerion,

What voltage did you tune the Chinese knock-off stepper drivers to? I am uncertain as to the bias resistor and would be guessing. The SD-card we got did not have any firmware image on it, is the website image a recent version of the firmware or ancient one? The Folger Teck Marlin firmware on my Kossel kit is over six years old so I am hoping that the k200 one is newer vintage! Did it come with all of the printer specifics set? What did you mean about the EEPROM settings? Did it come with eeprom offsets already set saved???

This kit does look really solid however I am already looking at pointing the controller down down so that I don't have to remove the bed to fiddle with the controller wiring!

Thanks for your info!

Quote
dlc60
What voltage did you tune the Chinese knock-off stepper drivers to? I am uncertain as to the bias resistor and would be guessing.

Hehehe...
I actually did not have any issues with the drivers or the motors. I beleave out of the box voltage was 12,20, which I thought was fine and didn't mess with it. I did however pay special attention not to put any unnessesary strain on them.
Roler wheels are tuned in a way that they barely touch 2020 rods, belts are neither too loose or too tight. barings are oiled with super fine machine oil. etc.

Quote
dlc60
The SD-card we got did not have any firmware image on it, is the website image a recent version of the firmware or ancient one? The Folger Teck Marlin firmware on my Kossel kit is over six years old so I am hoping that the k200 one is newer vintage!
Did it come with all of the printer specifics set? What did you mean about the EEPROM settings? Did it come with eeprom offsets already set saved???

Mine was also empty, and also unreadable by the device. Interestingly any other card I tried worked fine.
Repeiter firmware I got was quite recent (end of 2016th version i think.)
Configuration was already saved to the printer, but I wanted cutting edge version, downloaded it from git, and foolishly reflashed it with eprom development defaults. I was sure I saved eprom settings, but it turned out I didn't so I needed to contact the seller to resend them to me. There are about 20 parameters in the eprom file, so It would be impossible for me to figure them all out this year.

From the seler I got the full sources for all variants of the printer (K200 and K280 with three head configurations, with and without heated bed). These you load in Arduino IDE, compile and flash using Arduino mega driver. If I remember correctly from the development version of the source, the file that defines number of extruders, bed, text placement on the display and file with Eprom settings were different.

Software works fine, and I haven't had the need to tweak or change anything.

Quote
dlc60
This kit does look really solid however I am already looking at pointing the controller down down so that I don't have to remove the bed to fiddle with the controller wiring!

Controler and the connector beneath the heat bed is a kind of an issue. Also If you want to tighten construction rods, you need to remove the bed as well.
I bought new Chimera and Cyclops heads, and printed first layer coolers for them, so I planned to remove the bed and relevel it again at least twice this weekend.
Great idea about rotating the board. I will try it and report back if it works.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2017 07:18AM by Elerion.

Quote
Elerion

Quote
dlc60
What voltage did you tune the Chinese knock-off stepper drivers to? I am uncertain as to the bias resistor and would be guessing.

Hehehe...
I actually did not have any issues with the drivers or the motors. I beleave out of the box voltage was 12,20, which I thought was fine and didn't mess with it. I did however pay special attention not to put any unnessesary strain on them.
Roler wheels are tuned in a way that they barely touch 2020 rods, belts are neither too loose or too tight. barings are oiled with super fine machine oil.

Actually what I meant to ask was the bias setting on the stepper driver boards. They typically do not come properly tuned and you need to adjust to set the max current allowed. Too little and the motors skip, too high and they overheat. Did you have to tweak them?

Thanks again!
DLC

Quote
dlc60

Quote
Elerion

Quote
dlc60
What voltage did you tune the Chinese knock-off stepper drivers to? I am uncertain as to the bias resistor and would be guessing.

Hehehe...
I actually did not have any issues with the drivers or the motors. I beleave out of the box voltage was 12,20, which I thought was fine and didn't mess with it. I did however pay special attention not to put any unnessesary strain on them.
Roler wheels are tuned in a way that they barely touch 2020 rods, belts are neither too loose or too tight. barings are oiled with super fine machine oil.

Actually what I meant to ask was the bias setting on the stepper driver boards. They typically do not come properly tuned and you need to adjust to set the max current allowed. Too little and the motors skip, too high and they overheat. Did you have to tweak them?

Thanks again!
DLC

I didn't change a thing.
Motors ran cool, and there was no skipping, even for marathon 24+ hour prints.

Quote
SWB
I've got the K200 printing relatively quickly, but with one major bug. I'm getting a large shift problem (picture) that I just haven't been able to figure out even after many hours of troubleshooting. I’ve mostly been testing with lower quality .4mm layers so far, but I really like the quality of the prints I’m getting until it does its shift thing. I can go into details later or in another thread.
.

I noticed that just now. You have one motor with a huge skipping issue. The one the shift was facing towards. Probably Y motor.
Skipping is very bad on delta printers, because it does not only shift the layer as on Cartesian printer, it changes the geometry of the print, and the entire print fails within next few layers. Most likely the next one.

1. Check if belt tightness is ok. Belt should provide little force when you pinch it, but not too strong.
2. It is very possible that the wheels are gripping 2020 rod too tight. You should be able to move the pulley using your small finger with minimal force. Try loosing them up a bit
3. Check if the belt gears are centred and operating without friction to something.
4. As last resort try to increase the current of that motor driver by rotating small pot on it by max 1mm clockwise and see if it changes things. Don't overdo it because you can burn that motor.
5. If 1-4 fails, try to exchange X driver with Y driver, then X motor with Y motor, and see if one of them fails on another axes. Both replacements you can find cheap, but also you can ask the seller to provide you with replacement part that failed.

Hope this helps.

Oh yeah. And print with maximum 0.2mm layer with 0.4 nozzle. Judging from the picture, you have other issue that will disappear with thinner layers.

Also, you can lose the wall painter's tape. I have no Idea why people with aluminium bed's torture themselves with it. You can print directly on aluminium bed with thin layer of paper glue, maple sirup or even honey as adhesive for PLA, and acetone slurry for ABS.

E.

I think that I would rather use painters tape. :-)

DLC