Folger Tech Forum?

This sub forum should be re-named "Folger Tech Issues"

:-)

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My updated Instructable on our Prusa i3 Build
[www.instructables.com]

right? im curious as to why a folger tech specific forum doesnt exist somewhere with them being such a popular kit/option.

I think the appropriate place for the Folger Tech i3 topics is the Prusa i3 and variants forum. I moved some of the smaller and newer topics already. I only hesitate to move the larger threads (here and here) because, since they are so heavily viewed, I do not want to move them without asking people what they think first. What do people think? Everyone OK if I move them? -Matt

Yeah I had been curious about why they were in this forum myself haha. I dont personally care.

* OH its cuz it was started by Folger Tech. I.E. an easy way to advertise their new kits. instead of posting in less viewed specific forums, just post in a high traffic general forum to get more exposure to your product. Makes sense.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2015 01:52PM by mel0n.

I was thinking more along the lines of - how good are these Folger Tech kits as the forum is full of people having trouble with them.
:-)

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My updated Instructable on our Prusa i3 Build
[www.instructables.com]

I'm not sure most of the problems are from the kits themselves, but rather from completely inexperienced people building them. Nothing wrong with that either, as I see them asking and learning as they go, and helping others along the way.

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madmike8
I'm not sure most of the problems are from the kits themselves, but rather from completely inexperienced people building them. Nothing wrong with that either, as I see them asking and learning as they go, and helping others along the way.

^ this combined with pretty poor instructions that leave a lot for the person building it to figure out on their own. I liked that aspect because it forced me to learn more about how things really worked, but for some people it's causing a lot of headache.

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mel0n

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madmike8
I'm not sure most of the problems are from the kits themselves, but rather from completely inexperienced people building them. Nothing wrong with that either, as I see them asking and learning as they go, and helping others along the way.

^ this combined with pretty poor instructions that leave a lot for the person building it to figure out on their own. I liked that aspect because it forced me to learn more about how things really worked, but for some people it's causing a lot of headache.

I would totally agree with this sentiment and think that they should be moved into a More sensible area where they might even get more info as the guys that have the specific type/design of printer usually hang out in those SubForums

Doug

The "official thread" URL is referenced in their build guide, which is why so many people are flocking there. Can you move it but leave a link to the new location?

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mel0n

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madmike8
I'm not sure most of the problems are from the kits themselves, but rather from completely inexperienced people building them. Nothing wrong with that either, as I see them asking and learning as they go, and helping others along the way.

^ this combined with pretty poor instructions that leave a lot for the person building it to figure out on their own. I liked that aspect because it forced me to learn more about how things really worked, but for some people it's causing a lot of headache.

I have to agree. I recently bought the Folger Delta kit as my first printer and I feel that the instructions were written from the point of view of someone who had built a standard Prusa style kit before. They covered most things unique to the construction of a delta and the setup unique to a delta style printer but they stopped there without any info on getting it to print for the first time. Without help here on the forums I probably never would have gotten it to work. The firmware they have posted on their site didn't even work, I had to get a working copy from someone here in the forums. I got pretty frustrated with it a number of times and I'm still in trouble with the wife for cursing and throwing tools.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2015 04:05PM by matthew900.

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MattMoses
What do people think? Everyone OK if I move them? -Matt

My $0.02 USD is to make "Folger" a banned word, but I guess moving them into an appropriate architecture sub-forum seems in line with how other printers have worked over the years.....

I dunno . . . I build a Folger Kossel asthe first 3D printer I had either touched or or seen in late April . . . The build guide, I thought was quite good, with only a couple of things I neededto verify, and other than being short hardware, it went together exactly as documented. The firmware downloaded fro Folger worked 'out of the box' and my first print was decent, if not stellar. They referred to Printrun/Pronterface, which I downloaded, built, and got functioning with very little issue, as was the case with Slic3r . . . the main issue was getting the center point/origin correct, but a little trial and error got that pretty quickly. The only thing that didn't do that well as offered was auto leveling, which for me was more of a "meh" issue . . . and since I don't care for old code, I plugged the values from the Folger variant into1.0.3-dev, and it ran immediately, and leveling was far better.

So, unless something changed and I got something much better than prior to getting mine, I'm more inclined to say that most problems I see are due to folks either not reading/following the docs, or 'getting creative' and screwing things up . .
. and most of the questions I see here tend to support that . . .

More info regarding The printer/Marlin/Slicer/Interface interaction would be nice, but also largely impossible, since Folger has zero control over a lot of that software, nor is it reasonable (at least to me) to ask them to support software they didn't write, especially when all that stuff has it's own support.

And I can't speak for thr Prusa kit directly, but a read if it's docs gave me thr impression that it was better than for the Kossel.

- Tim

I built the Prusa kit from Folger and it went well save for the endstop problem and when I wandered off into the Full Graphics Screen quagmire. They were honest enough to tell me that they didn't support that controller so I came to rely on this forum for support of that aspect. They informed me on the solution to the endstop issue. This was the cheapest complete kit I could find on the internet at the time and I got what I paid for and more. It isn't perfect but that is what gets me up in the morning and keeps me focused during the day. I am looking forward to building their Kossel kit.

You can put this thread into the correct forum as you see it as long as the people are advised what happened and they can easily access it.

Thanks for reading this.

The intial part of the instructions was great and comprehensive but my two big issues are the instructions only covered half the calibration and the firmware they provided doesn't work properly. Don't sell me a printer with autoleveling and forget to mention you haven't even got that function to work in your firmware. I bought this kit because I wanted something where someone else already figured out all the details and all I needed to do was the technical assembly work. To me it feels like a product they rushed to market without finishing the details. Their customer service has been amazing but that doesn't change the fact that this thing is not ready for someone to just assemble it and print.

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matthew900
I bought this kit because I wanted something where someone else already figured out all the details and all I needed to do was the technical assembly work.

Sounds like you shouldn't have bought the cheapest kit on the market then

Plenty of companies sell complete start to finish kits with guides and somewhat polished firmware/software. Printrbot is a good example. Difference is you have to pay for it. Just a little bit of research on the kit and its easy to tell that its just a parts kit with some rough guidelines for assembly and software configuration. Which is why I bought the kit. I wanted to build a reprap from parts and learn. I tried to source my own parts but I couldn't get anywhere near as cheap as this and I think thats why its so popular. Because its cheaper than sourcing the parts yourself.

But good for you going for a Delta build on your first try. I really wanted to build a Delta but the added cost and complexity, along with improved aluminum 2020 frame offered by Ftech was enough to persuade me into the i3.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/01/2015 04:45PM by mel0n.

Frankly, even after moving to more recent firmware with an autolevel setup that I got working (I can't confirm that what was provided didn't, I just don't like to spend time on out of date software), I don't use it since I find that I can get excellent (perhaps better?) results without it . . .

Yeah, it was sold with that feature, but it's hardly required, and mlre work to config than a normal initial config, and I'd strongly encourage new builders to setup and test the printer without auto-level, and once that works, *then* introduce autl level to the mix.

And moving to more current firmware is nothing more that the relatively trivial task of downloading it, and setting the config parametere the same as what you have, and compile/upload - exactly as you did with what you got from Folger.

- Tim