Just chiming in. Ordered M2 on March 8 and still no printer.

been a while since I posted. Now have my Mark II machine working solidly. Spent a couple of months switching from a Sanguinololu controller to a Smoothieboard controller. Got everything working end of March, Spent most of April cleaning up the wiring and making test prints. I have put some images where you can get to them by link.

The printed parts were sliced by Cura, using it's 'raft' feature on ABS Juice, and the machine is how it looks today.

For printing with ABS, I have discovered a replacement for ABS Juice 'Elmer's Washable Classroom Glue Sticks'. Smear the glass lightly over printing area when at room temperature, just before you print. No 'raft' or 'brim' required. After print is back to room temperature, the part just lifts off, with no sign of curling corners. Clean glass with water and a rag, and you are ready to go again.

I'm still using Cura to do the slicing as the current version of Slic3r has some problems. Misses reversals during infill.

John

The M2 is an expensive rig and bought with tax refund. Been down the inexpensive route many times but kinda wanted to spoil myself this time. It is regarded as solid with high repeatability. And would like to spend my time making and less on tweaking, although still like to tweak stuff now and again, make parts for you printer, very cool. But not even having one and waiting for this long has made me wonder if I had tried a RepStrap I might have a RepRap by now, oh well. The Smoothieboard controller looks impressive. The M2 comes with the Rambo from Ultimachine.

Thanks for the tip with Elmer's Washable Classroom Glue Sticks. The M2 has a heated bed but if that didnt work some else recommended using frosted glass. Could use both or all three, who knows, if I ever get my printer, oh well.....


What do you think of the inexpensive filament comming from China? Have one other guy interested on trying but still may not do, dont want to get screwed but has good reviews lately. Where do you get your filiment from if you dont mind me asking.

Phillip

I use 8" square mirror from Joann's craft store in Albuquerque ($4). The mirror is about 3mm thick, and I've used my current one for 3 months without a problem. The bed heater PCB is spaced about 1/4" above my top bed plate, and the space between is packed with strips of high temperature pipe insulation from Lowes. The insulation cuts down on heat loss from the bottom of the heater PCB, and about halves the warm up time to 105 deg C.

I get my 3mm ABS filament from Ultimachine, as well as a lot of other parts. (As recommended by Gadman58). I tried frosted glass, but I found with ABS Juice it stuck too well. Had to chill the part and glass in the freezer to get them to separate, even then, with some of my not so good ABS Juice mixes, little slivers of glass would come away with the part.

John

Slivers of glass, not so good, thanks for the tip. dont want to play around with acetone too much so I may experiment with the standard borosilicate glass, heated bed, 105 C, and Elmers washable glue sticks. Planned on insulating the bottom of the PCB just like you did but also insulating the top of the glass until ready for print. Thought it would heat faster that way also keep dust off between prints. Read a post somewhere a lamp placed very close to the print was used to keep ABS from warping. Lots of intresting ideas. The M2 is a 1.75mm machine. I just out right bought Creator software.. Lots of good things said about it on the M2 forums and print quality is not an issue from the software end with it. Some guys print down to 100 micron cubes, yoda heads fitting in computer keys or size of nickels, whew, makes my head spin on the talent out there.

Here is a image off of the Creator page, 100 micron
.


And off the M2 site. 100 micron.




20 microns

Woo hoo. Got tracking number. Will be here Monday the 6th.