Makerfarm?

I've developed an interest in 3d printing, but I'm also the type of person who has 100 half finished projects lying around. I went ahead and ordered a Solidoodle printer because it seemed like a way to get started right away. Now I'm having second thoughts, especially with the very long wait time and the fact that the period that I can dispute the charge on my credit card if there are problems will be long over by the time they ship. They don't even give any indication of how many back orders they have or how far they are along in filling orders. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I'm a bit fearful.

Makerfarm seems to sell a Prusa kit at a similar price. I'm considering cancelling my Solidoodle order. Are they a reliable seller? Is such a kit something that someone with some electronics background could assemble in a weekend? As far as options, I think I would order the aluminum gears, printrboard, and .5mm nozzle. Are these reasonable choices for a first printer?

I know a lot of this is a personal decision, but I'd like to do a brief sanity check with people more knowledgeable than me before I give my spot in line up and commit to another project. Were you in my place, what would you do? Is there any advice you'd give if you could send a message back in time to when you first started reprapping?

I've put in three orders to them so far. The items arrived quickly from ?Utah? to western PA (within a few days), and the shipping was reasonable. I purchased their T2.5 belt/gear kit (two actually, one for me one for a friend) after seeing some of the printed plastic drive gears and viewing/handling prints made using them, which just didn't meet my expectations for performance. The belts and gears I ordered from makerfarm match very cleanly, fwiw, ordered a j-head @0.35 nozzle, as 0.35 seemed like a good compromise between speed and detail. I am a newbie though, so take that for what it is, and also ordered an MK-1 board, printrboard, and an extra thermistor and power resistor for the hot-end, lm8uu bearings, as well as a ten pack of the cheapo 22mm bearings that seem to be popular.

Based on my experiences with the company so far, I'll probably end up purchasing filament from them, at least few pounds, although I'd prefer ordering from somewhere closer in the long run to reduce shipping overhead...(no offense intended to makerfarm, just practicality) . idk that's to be seen. I'm really waffling on the whole filament issue due to the many posts I've read from people regarding the apparent lack of quality control in production and handling of plastic filament stock by manufacturers and their distribution channels.

Anyway, I'd recommend makerfarm, or at least I'll say I will have no issues ordering from them again based on the orders I've placed so far. Hopefully my filament order will be an equally pleasant experience.

I ordered my Prusa plastic bits from Makerfarm along with a j-head and electronics. Never had a problem with them. Documentation is decent. Can't speak to their pricing as I haven't been to their site lately.

As far as filament goes I've been pretty happy with ultimachine.

And if you can afford it go with GT2 belts and pulleys.

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- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

Good point ahklut. The fact that Makerfarm provided documentation was also? a positive to me when I first visited the site. Kinda shows a certain level of professionalism in terms of customer service that to me seems in short supply amongst many of the smaller distributors. (By smaller, I mean in comparison to newark/digikey/mcmaster/farnell/etc.)

Not to be contentious, but I wasn't all that impressed with a recent photo someone uploaded to the forum that showed the mesh of their recently purchased GT2 belt and pulley. I'm not sure if the pulley was just poorly made (ebay as I recall), but there was a whole lot of slop between the two, far more than the mesh of the T2.5 pulley and belt I bought from makerfarm. In the case of the pulley from makerfarm, it's cupped to match the profile of the belt, whereas the GT2 pulley in the image I saw had straight walls that did not match the trapezoidal profile of the gt2 belt, which leads me to believe there will be excessive backlash as a result. (GT2 is supposed to provide less backlash afaik)

So... if you do decide on GT2, which on paper does appear a marginally better product than T2.5, I'd make sure the pulley actually has the same profile as the belt it serves before you plunk down your coin...

Xiando,

I agree. They do a good job of helping you down the path - not a lot of places do.

The way I look at it GT2 is more expensive on a component basis, which adds up (talking manufactured pulleys, not printed ones). But if that means I spend more to get rid of a bug (backlash) in the machine then I'm willing to make that trade.

That said, I try to purchase GT2 components from places that specialize in motion components. SDP-SI, misumi, etc. I've used GT2 in both of my machines now and couldn't be happier - never had issues with belting not meshing with pulleys.

I'd like to see the photo that fella is talking about. It would be educational for us all!

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- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

"if that means I spend more to get rid of a bug (backlash) in the machine then I'm willing to make that trade."

Can't argue there, unless it's a matter of gold vs steel... there are finite limits to my tech snobbery

from this thread. see Nic0laz's post about half way down for the included photo of the pulley and GT2 belt.

Xiando,

Thanks for that link. Yikes! Maybe the teeth seat into that pulley under tension, but that looks like the wrong tooth profile. And the quality is terrible - he would probably been better off with a printed pulley!

And to think he paid $10 for that pulley. Crazy.

I am a little snobby, but within reason. A metal GT2 16 tooth pulley will run you $18 from SDP-SI. And it seats the belt like a glove. No muss, no fuss. Just works. So spend $20 on two pulleys that might work or $36 on two pulleys that will work. I hate throwing good money after bad.

Don't get me wrong - I'll scrimp where I can get away with it, but I'll drop some money on the components that matter.

I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

Cheers!

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- akhlut

Just remember - Iterate, Iterate, Iterate!

[myhomelessmind.blogspot.com]

Just a brief follow up. I received my order only a few days after ordering. The parts are divided up into separate zip top bags and everything seems well organized. It took me about 8-10 hours to assemble the major parts. I just have to add the heated bed and run the wires now. I'm pleased with Makerfarm so far.

I too went with MakerFarm. I have had all sorts of questions along the way and received a very quick response. Just calibrating my machine now.

I too went with MakerFarm. I build one of their kits at Phricknic 16 and it was a nice kit. Other then quality I liked that you could deal with people, and they where willing to take payment over Dwolla instead of paypal.