Folger Prusa i3 Kit from ebay

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Booda

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jrcaster
I ordered my kit on 17 November, UPS label generated on the first. Here it is the fourth and UPS has not received it yet? WTF!

I ordered mine nov 15 and being delivered tomorrow. I'm in ontario, canada and also found out got nailed for $127 duties on my shipment:

that is why i used USPS instead of UPS... a lot of times the postal service does not even bother charging you that... i took a gamble and it paid off.
if I order their Delta printer i will do the same thing... USPS ... where abouts in ontario are you?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2014 11:24AM by Waltermixx.

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KeyserSoze3d

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Zavashier
My advice : Expandable Braided Sleeving. holded by nylon zip ties and/or shrinkable tubing.

That would work much better, what sizes did you use?

I used some 8mm (5/16"). It was pretty enough for all but the printing head wires are a bit tight inside. 10mm (13/32") for the head should be more comfortable, especialy if you install extra fans. With 2m (6ft) I did all the i3 except the LDC display which have flat cables. Keep in mind that as the braied sleeving inflates, it gets shorter. Measure the lenght needed, then add 50mm (2").

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2014 11:45AM by Zavashier.

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

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Easy

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jrcaster
I ordered my kit on 17 November, UPS label generated on the first. Here it is the fourth and UPS has not received it yet? WTF!

It took several days between the UPS label being issued and UPS receiving my order. If you go to the eBay listing and click on the number of units sold, it is amazing how many of these kits are being sold. I really don't know how they are able to sell and ship so many kits, and at such a low profit margin.

You're assuming it's a low profit margin, but considering that he's having the stepper motors branded with Folger Tech, I'm willing to bet he's ordering a lot of parts to cut his costs down drastically and increase his profit significantly.

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Booda

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jrcaster
I ordered my kit on 17 November, UPS label generated on the first. Here it is the fourth and UPS has not received it yet? WTF!

I ordered mine nov 15 and being delivered tomorrow. I'm in ontario, canada and also found out got nailed for $127 duties on my shipment:

This is why I've stopped dealing with cross border companies that only ship via UPS. the last time I received a cross-border UPS shipment, they wanted $87 for "tax, brokerage and duty" for an item that I paid $25 USD for, and $12 shipping (which was bad enough.) I refused delivery, didn't get my money back, and it was still cheaper to just buy another one from somewhere that shipped Fedex. I've now heard a couple of Americans complaining about UPS brokerage charges when they buy stuff from Canada as well, so I guess they're at least screwing everyone over the same.

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SupraGuy

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Booda

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jrcaster
I ordered my kit on 17 November, UPS label generated on the first. Here it is the fourth and UPS has not received it yet? WTF!

I ordered mine nov 15 and being delivered tomorrow. I'm in ontario, canada and also found out got nailed for $127 duties on my shipment:

This is why I've stopped dealing with cross border companies that only ship via UPS. the last time I received a cross-border UPS shipment, they wanted $87 for "tax, brokerage and duty" for an item that I paid $25 USD for, and $12 shipping (which was bad enough.) I refused delivery, didn't get my money back, and it was still cheaper to just buy another one from somewhere that shipped Fedex. I've now heard a couple of Americans complaining about UPS brokerage charges when they buy stuff from Canada as well, so I guess they're at least screwing everyone over the same.

I always get excellent service from USPS. The few times I use UPS, I am usually disappointed. I always know when a UPS package has arrived, I can hear it hit the ground.

Folger now has an aluminum bed that you can order seperate from the printer, already drilled out.

I ordered my kit directly from Folger, because it was 20 dollars cheaper than from E-bay, and I wanted to order the display and some filament.

Anyone have the STL for this y axis endstop??
[www.flickr.com]

Yes, I put it on Thingiverse:

Extended Y endstop

Thanks for the file worked perfectly

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louspinuso
You're assuming it's a low profit margin, but considering that he's having the stepper motors branded with Folger Tech, I'm willing to bet he's ordering a lot of parts to cut his costs down drastically and increase his profit significantly.

My guess they found some cheap steppers direct from China. In qty it is not hard to do.

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ron22

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louspinuso
You're assuming it's a low profit margin, but considering that he's having the stepper motors branded with Folger Tech, I'm willing to bet he's ordering a lot of parts to cut his costs down drastically and increase his profit significantly.

My guess they found some cheap steppers direct from China. In qty it is not hard to do.

Agreed, but the key is quantity. A high enough qty to justify custom printing on the steppers without increasing cost per stepper. Maybe even high enough that it's actually cheaper per stepper as the printed name is probably a gimme at that volume.

Anyone besides me having issues with the acrylic bed warping? Mine is so badly warped that I can't even level it. That's were 90% of my printing issues have been coming from. I'm going to cut one from some 1/8" birch plywood tomorrow and use the old one as a drill guide. Friggin acrylic is more problems than it's worth.

Yeah mikez104 I noticed that today with my bed, I took it apart and flipped it around seemed to fix it for now.

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mikez104
Anyone besides me having issues with the acrylic bed warping? Mine is so badly warped that I can't even level it. That's were 90% of my printing issues have been coming from. I'm going to cut one from some 1/8" birch plywood tomorrow and use the old one as a drill guide. Friggin acrylic is more problems than it's worth.

Do you have any insulation between the heated bed and the acrylic? The only problems I've had with the bed are that I didn't loctite my nuts.

I'll be honest though, I've thought about cutting a new frame out of melamine or MDF and instead of using threaded rod for the Y frame, I just want to mount everything in line perfectly to the board but I can't seem to find the right y mounts. I figure if I do it that way there will be no threaded rod on the y axis at all, just a few printed pieces mounted directly to my board with smooth rods mounted to them for the y axis trolley and some different plastic pieces mounted to the board for the Y motor and Y belt idler.

just thoughts at thsi point though

I see some aluminum beds on ebay. That may be the direction I turn to for the long term. This printer would be awesome if the whole frame was aluminum. But then again, it would not have been this cheap...

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Waltermixx

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Booda

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jrcaster
I ordered my kit on 17 November, UPS label generated on the first. Here it is the fourth and UPS has not received it yet? WTF!

I ordered mine nov 15 and being delivered tomorrow. I'm in ontario, canada and also found out got nailed for $127 duties on my shipment:

that is why i used USPS instead of UPS... a lot of times the postal service does not even bother charging you that... i took a gamble and it paid off.
if I order their Delta printer i will do the same thing... USPS ... where abouts in ontario are you?

Ya it was own fault. Always been charged duty when using ups. USPS never had issue.
I am in london, close enough drive to you if I were to get realllly stuck. Lol

Shipment didn't come today but try pick up at ups tomorrow. Girlfriend wanted me to wait till Xmas to open but Xmas May cone early! . This is gift from girlfriend (instead of gopro).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2014 12:33AM by Booda.

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SupraGuy

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Booda

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jrcaster
I ordered my kit on 17 November, UPS label generated on the first. Here it is the fourth and UPS has not received it yet? WTF!

I ordered mine nov 15 and being delivered tomorrow. I'm in ontario, canada and also found out got nailed for $127 duties on my shipment:

This is why I've stopped dealing with cross border companies that only ship via UPS. the last time I received a cross-border UPS shipment, they wanted $87 for "tax, brokerage and duty" for an item that I paid $25 USD for, and $12 shipping (which was bad enough.) I refused delivery, didn't get my money back, and it was still cheaper to just buy another one from somewhere that shipped Fedex. I've now heard a couple of Americans complaining about UPS brokerage charges when they buy stuff from Canada as well, so I guess they're at least screwing everyone over the same.

I order multirotor parts from china and same issue; $30+ shipping even if part $15. Usually just order several parts at once; then wait 3 weeks . Although they invoice me less than $100 (no duties charged) regardless how much spend.

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Easy

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SupraGuy

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Booda

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jrcaster
I ordered my kit on 17 November, UPS label generated on the first. Here it is the fourth and UPS has not received it yet? WTF!

I ordered mine nov 15 and being delivered tomorrow. I'm in ontario, canada and also found out got nailed for $127 duties on my shipment:

This is why I've stopped dealing with cross border companies that only ship via UPS. the last time I received a cross-border UPS shipment, they wanted $87 for "tax, brokerage and duty" for an item that I paid $25 USD for, and $12 shipping (which was bad enough.) I refused delivery, didn't get my money back, and it was still cheaper to just buy another one from somewhere that shipped Fedex. I've now heard a couple of Americans complaining about UPS brokerage charges when they buy stuff from Canada as well, so I guess they're at least screwing everyone over the same.

I always get excellent service from USPS. The few times I use UPS, I am usually disappointed. I always know when a UPS package has arrived, I can hear it hit the ground.

Lmao. USPS for me from now on

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mikez104
Anyone besides me having issues with the acrylic bed warping? Mine is so badly warped that I can't even level it. That's were 90% of my printing issues have been coming from. I'm going to cut one from some 1/8" birch plywood tomorrow and use the old one as a drill guide. Friggin acrylic is more problems than it's worth.

I had the same problems. I print ABS only and the acrylic bed wrap a lot when my bed reach it's working temperature. It's impossible to level the bed properly. I used the aclylic bed plate as a template to make a 8mm melamine (HD) bed plate. the melamine bed plate works fine.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2014 02:42PM by Zavashier.

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

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louspinuso


I'll be honest though, I've thought about cutting a new frame out of melamine or MDF

Birch plywood would probably be much better. Melamine and MDF gets soft and rubbery when hot.

You've got different qualities of MDF and Melamine. Good melamine stands up to 150°C

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

I made the new bed and it's working well. I think why the original one warped so badly was that I was trying to level the bed and those printed linear bearing holders were so out of whack that I was making wild adjustments to compensate. That put a lot of stress on the bed and when it got hot, it would just bend. I sanded the linear bearing mounts down to get them to match the best I could. Still a little off and my bed seems to need leveling after a several hours of printing. But when it's level, it prints great!

I've learned so much over the last few days. I do think I'm going to order an aluminum bed though. I think it will be much better in the ln run. I'm just worried about swinging that extra mass around.

I really don't think the extra mass of the aluminum bed will be different than that of the wood bed you are using now.

No problem with extra mass if your stepper motor is properly set. IMHO mass is not necessary a bad thing on a machine, as far the structure and the stepper motors can stand that extra weight. There will be less wobble and less vibration as mass grows up.

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Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

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mikez104
Anyone besides me having issues with the acrylic bed warping? Mine is so badly warped that I can't even level it. That's were 90% of my printing issues have been coming from. I'm going to cut one from some 1/8" birch plywood tomorrow and use the old one as a drill guide. Friggin acrylic is more problems than it's worth.

Same here, I can still level mine but one of the corners the screw is compressed all the way, so if it warps anymore I'm screwed. I was considering getting one of folger techs aluminum beds. I was curious to see how thick/heavy it was. It may be worth the 14 dollars to have a bed I can level, but i would hate for it to cause my stepper to skip steps.

So I've had my printer kit for a little over 3 weeks and finally got it assembled this past weekend. As I started checking my motors and endstops I found my x-axis wouldn't move at all using prontorface. The other axis's move great.
I've tried all of the following:
- Confirmed the correct motor wiring
- Ensured stepper driver is placed correctly on ramps
- Ensured 3 jumpers are install under driver
- Attached motor to y-axis and was able to move the motor, so I know the motor is good
- Tried other stepper drivers (that i know work on other axises) on the x-axis and it still doesn't move
- Tried adjusting the vRef pot on the stepper drivers for the x-axis
- I have checked my endstops and confirmed they are wired correctly and operational, the carriage is not touching the endstop.
- I can freely move the x-axis left to right by hand when the printer is off

I'm at a loss as to what to try next. I read through this forum and noticed someone else earlier on had issues but they were able to resolve them which what I listed above.
I'm suspecting the ramps might be bad. I have an email into Folger Tech and a message through eBay so hopefully I hear something back.
If anyone has any suggestions for me to try next I'd appreciate it.
Thanks!

here is two sites for the autobed leveling I'm going to try as soon as I get my servo
[github.com]
[forums.reprap.org]

I see Folgertechs new kossel has the autobed already implemented but it's not a prusa i3

I got my kit delivered today. Inventoried the box, and the only problem was that the upright that holds the RAMPS is cracked on the top right between the nut holders. I will try and call them tomorrow because I would like to order that aluminum bed.

I assembled the acrylics. Had to take a miniature file to the nut holders to get the nuts to slide in all the way.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2014 10:39PM by jrcaster.

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KeyserSoze3d
Same here, I can still level mine but one of the corners the screw is compressed all the way, so if it warps anymore I'm screwed. I was considering getting one of folger techs aluminum beds. I was curious to see how thick/heavy it was. It may be worth the 14 dollars to have a bed I can level, but i would hate for it to cause my stepper to skip steps.

SO this weekend I had mine apart and put back together several times. I learned a few things.
First off, acrylic frames are stupid.
Second, watch it operate very closely and listen to it. If you hear anything wonky, try and pinpoint it.
Third, my bed seems to change level when it heats up. I don't bother even checking it until it has been up to printing temp for a little while. that's both bed and head.

KeyserSoze, My bed was so warped that I could no longer use it and that's why I made the wooden bed. I cut it out of 1/8" birch ply and used the original as a guide to drill the holes. Actually I made two and I'm glad I did. When I put it back together the wooden bed seemed to be doing the same thing. I had the screws turned all the way in on one end and the other side was all the way out.

I eventually figured it out after watching it and breaking out the digital caliper and making measurements to see where it was jacked up. I found that the Y bearing holders that are printed are NOT equal and they would hold the bearings at different heights which was torquing the bed in different directions. I took all of them and put them on the same smooth rod and put them all on a sanding block and sanded for a good 10 minutes to even them out. They were really off.

When making my second wooden bed, I didn't like the way there were two linear bearings on one side and only one on the other. The side with only one bearing was the side that was warping. So, when drilling the holes in the wooden bed, I flipped over my template and drilled holes for two bearings on both sides. That helped also.

The last thing I found is that when everything was all back together, one side of the frame was a little up in the air. Originally I thought, oh well, and put a spacer under it to make it solid. Then I looked at it and saw that the side that was up was the side that had the bed all compressed. I leveled it and it made a difference. I will be mounting the printer to a piece of MDF or something to make sure it does not move in the future.

All of these things together made a big difference. I made several really nice prints. I printed the case for my controller, a spool holder, light mounts for my daughters fish tank and some other little things. Once you get it dialed in, it prints like a champ.

Happy tuning.

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jrcaster
I got my kit delivered today. Inventoried the box, and the only problem was that the upright that holds the RAMPS is cracked on the top right between the nut holders. I will try and call them tomorrow because I would like to order that aluminum bed.

I assembled the acrylics. Had to take a miniature file to the nut holders to get the nuts to slide in all the way.

I went a different route and put my nuts on a belt sander. But anyway, I had the same issue.