Folger Prusa i3 Kit from ebay

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dooms101

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czmorris
goldenPSP, Don't get me wrong the machine works well. and it is certainly fun to tinker with.

I did a reprint of the elephant. Unfortunately I couldn't find my previous one to do a side by side comparison.

Looks good! I see you used a raft. I've never used one, I do use a brim on most prints. How hard is it to get the raft off?

Yep. It is usually better to use raft when working with perfboard. If your prints are sticking well with the hairspray and you are getting a good finish I wouldn't bother with it.

To answer your question. You can setup a "spacing" between the rafting and the part to help with separating when you are done. I am still getting this tuned in on the Prusa but getting pretty close. When it works it is easy to remove and doesn't affect the part quality much.

When I get that tuned in I am going to run some glass prints to do some comparisons.

I did my first print this evening. I chose the 0.5mm thin wall calibration box from [www.thingiverse.com]


Here's a short video:

First print

I've no idea what is going on, but at least it's approximately box-shaped I used Slic3r, a bed temp. of 55, and a nozzle temp of 185. The filament is 1.75mm PLA.

Looks like I need to work on my calibration ...

Blue painters tape is great for pla. Looks like you need to get your z axis closer to the build plate. You may need to adjust your z stop.

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Waltermixx
Blue painters tape is great for pla. Looks like you need to get your z axis closer to the build plate. You may need to adjust your z stop.

I'm really nervous about the Z home: worried about the head cracking the glass bed!

I set up the Z limit switch so that the head comes to rest about 5mm above the bed. I was following calibration instructions that specified moving the head down from that position so that a piece of paper just slides under the head, and I checked this all around the bed, adjusting its height as I went.

What I don't understand is how the Arduino/RAMPS knows how much further down from the Z stop the bed is? Do I need to look at the Z position below the endstop and add it into my configuration.h file? That was not clear to me.

Ramps doesn't know... what i might suggest is,
tighten the bed leveling screes to about half as tight as they will go so you have play + - from the current position.
Then position the z-stop so the nozzle stops about 1mm from the glass when you zero... you may have to fiddle a bit...
put it too high initially, then gradually lower the z-stop until you get the nozzle to rest about 1mm above the glass plate...

now all you have to do is loosen the 4 bed leveling screws so the nozel is only a thin business card (or 2 sheets of paper above the glass)
please note, when "tramming, (leveling the build plate) you should do it when build plate and nozel are hot... because things change....
this is pretty much the most challending part... I would scour Youtube for prusa bed leveling... (dont be tempted to watch auto leveling guides, as they will only depress you until you decide to go this route...)
I suspect I will setup some kind of auto bed leveling, but have not really looked too much into it yet... but I will...

at any rate i hope the above helps...

P.S. here are the latest pics of prints.... I managed a 2.5 hour Low Poly Bunny print, and a 4.5 hour Graphics LCD case stand...:

[www.flickr.com]

cheers.

the setup for the above prints was:

Hot end and tube screwed into the threaded hole all the way to the top.
No Nut on top of the cooling block, just one on the bottom against the cooling block.
the cooling block is not flipped 180 degrees, (like Dooms101) becaues I did not have any spacers,
and thought I would try one more time with a slight variation.


last time my hot end tube was crewed half way up the cooling block, this time all the way, and the motor is still making contact with the cooling block...
i did not use any tape on the heat sink. I was thrilled with the 4.5 hour print working, but need to do more testing ... Unfortunately the stand i printed,
did warp, I should have put a brim around it but at the point that i was printing it, i just wanted to see if the extruder would jam or click...(it did not).

i was smart enough to put 3 scree holes on the back to screw it down to my plywood, so it does not move around when the display is sitting in it.

i will post a link to thingiverse once I upload the stand... i think it's pretty cool

Looks like your prints are coming along, 4.5hrs without a hiccup sounds great! Perhaps my modifications were too much?

Well either way, I have designed (thingivese page) and printed a spacer/shroud so that you can turn the cold block 180 degrees and still have things line up. It also redirects the air properly and exhausts outwards instead of downwards to prevent warping.

Here is my latest print:

Looks good, yes?

Awesome that is very clean. Another reason to go with your modification of the extruder...
I know what I am doing this coming weekend

i also checked out the thingiverse item... once again wow awesome!





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2014 10:18PM by Waltermixx.

Waltermixx, Your setup looks very clean. I love the stand you made for the LCD.

Dooms101, That skull looks great. Did you use acetone fumes or anything for smoothing the surface? Great finish.

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Waltermixx
Awesome that is very clean. Another reason to go with your modification of the extruder...
I know what I am doing this coming weekend

i also checked out the thingiverse item... once again wow awesome!

Well unfortunately my design didn't seem to help any. I still got an air print, but I think that was because my closed the door on my enclosure and the motors got too hot. It seems as though the little fan on the extruder isn't enough to keep things cool.

That skull was actually printed before I tried using my new shroud. So the rearrangement of the cold end plus some small spacers and tape seems like the way to go.

I also ordered some extra 40mm heatsinks that I'm going to attach to the extruder motor and x-axis motor. Those are the only two that ever get hot. I have some stronger 60mm fans laying around so I might design an adapter/shroud to use it instead of the smaller 40mm fan thats on there.

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czmorris
Waltermixx, Your setup looks very clean. I love the stand you made for the LCD.

Dooms101, That skull looks great. Did you use acetone fumes or anything for smoothing the surface? Great finish.

Thanks! It's my favorite print so far. I didn't use the acetone technique actually, it just came out like that. I use a fairly small layer height 0.152mm that really adds some nice detail to my prints.

Awesome. I have used 0.1 and 0.05 on some test prints and I was very pleased with those. My other machine is limited to 0.2 so this is a nice improvement. Now when printing a bunch of parts in one run I just set the layers thin where needed and thicker where it isn't. So the print run is a good balance between speed and quality.

The thing that triggered me asking about the acetone was mostly how much shine the print surface seems to have in that shot. Usually I only see that straight off the printer with my black ABS when running at higher temps (260 - 265). I did have a black spool at one point in time that was generally more glossy than others though I do not remember the brand.

Your shroud design is nice. So far I haven't had much of an issue with warping or extrusion problems but if I do I may make use of it.

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jjbunn

I'm really nervous about the Z home: worried about the head cracking the glass bed!

I set up the Z limit switch so that the head comes to rest about 5mm above the bed. I was following calibration instructions that specified moving the head down from that position so that a piece of paper just slides under the head, and I checked this all around the bed, adjusting its height as I went.

What I don't understand is how the Arduino/RAMPS knows how much further down from the Z stop the bed is? Do I need to look at the Z position below the endstop and add it into my configuration.h file? That was not clear to me.

5mm from the glass won't work, he printer Z axis needs to home a paper width from the bed.
Use blue painter tape on glass and adjust your Z endstop so that the nozzle tip is just off the glass/tape and use the bed corner adjustors to get it the same in every corner.

The RAMPS knows where the end stops are and has to home before it starts the print.

Steve

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czmorris
Awesome. I have used 0.1 and 0.05 on some test prints and I was very pleased with those. My other machine is limited to 0.2 so this is a nice improvement. Now when printing a bunch of parts in one run I just set the layers thin where needed and thicker where it isn't. So the print run is a good balance between speed and quality.

The thing that triggered me asking about the acetone was mostly how much shine the print surface seems to have in that shot. Usually I only see that straight off the printer with my black ABS when running at higher temps (260 - 265). I did have a black spool at one point in time that was generally more glossy than others though I do not remember the brand.

Your shroud design is nice. So far I haven't had much of an issue with warping or extrusion problems but if I do I may make use of it.

Wow, I haven't tried anything as low as 0.1 or 0.05. I want sure if this printer could handle that, I might give it a try.

It might be the filament I'm using? It's just plain old Sainsmart stuff off amazon. I did notice that this filament is extra glossy, my friend's prints don't look anything like it.

When do you print at 260? That seems really high.

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dooms101

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czmorris
Awesome. I have used 0.1 and 0.05 on some test prints and I was very pleased with those. My other machine is limited to 0.2 so this is a nice improvement. Now when printing a bunch of parts in one run I just set the layers thin where needed and thicker where it isn't. So the print run is a good balance between speed and quality.

The thing that triggered me asking about the acetone was mostly how much shine the print surface seems to have in that shot. Usually I only see that straight off the printer with my black ABS when running at higher temps (260 - 265). I did have a black spool at one point in time that was generally more glossy than others though I do not remember the brand.

Your shroud design is nice. So far I haven't had much of an issue with warping or extrusion problems but if I do I may make use of it.

Wow, I haven't tried anything as low as 0.1 or 0.05. I want sure if this printer could handle that, I might give it a try.

It might be the filament I'm using? It's just plain old Sainsmart stuff off amazon. I did notice that this filament is extra glossy, my friend's prints don't look anything like it.

When do you print at 260? That seems really high.

Very rarely. I do it when printing with certain spools of ABS that work with my other printer. Before I modified it the default print temp for there ABS filament was 260. I think the Octave stuff I have works better at that temp as well. I generally test a new filament at various temps to see how it behaves. That being said most of my ABS prints are at 225.

I did not have any issues that I recall with the test print I did at 0.05. They looked ok and as you might expect it does take a long time to print even for a small print. I measured the height afterwards and it came out at the correct height. However I did not inspect the layers under the microscope to check for any issues.

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SteveRoy

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jjbunn

I'm really nervous about the Z home: worried about the head cracking the glass bed!

I set up the Z limit switch so that the head comes to rest about 5mm above the bed. I was following calibration instructions that specified moving the head down from that position so that a piece of paper just slides under the head, and I checked this all around the bed, adjusting its height as I went.

What I don't understand is how the Arduino/RAMPS knows how much further down from the Z stop the bed is? Do I need to look at the Z position below the endstop and add it into my configuration.h file? That was not clear to me.

5mm from the glass won't work, he printer Z axis needs to home a paper width from the bed.
Use blue painter tape on glass and adjust your Z endstop so that the nozzle tip is just off the glass/tape and use the bed corner adjustors to get it the same in every corner.

The RAMPS knows where the end stops are and has to home before it starts the print.

Steve

OK, I bit my lip and set Z home to ~0.5mm from the glass bed. This is not too risky, as the bed is on springs anyway, so a little error (overshoot) will depress the springs rather than cracking the glass. Famous Last Words!

After tinkering mainly with nozzle and bed temperature, my prints are improving. This is a spool holder support in PLA, using 190C nozzle and 80C bed:

Spool Holder Side

My PLA seems to need these higher temperatures - initial tests with e.g. nozzle 165C were awful!

I'm not finding any need for tape/hairspray/glue on the glass bed. The prints stick nicely to the glass, which when it cools down a little, releases them easily.

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jjbunn

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SteveRoy

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jjbunn

I'm really nervous about the Z home: worried about the head cracking the glass bed!

I set up the Z limit switch so that the head comes to rest about 5mm above the bed. I was following calibration instructions that specified moving the head down from that position so that a piece of paper just slides under the head, and I checked this all around the bed, adjusting its height as I went.

What I don't understand is how the Arduino/RAMPS knows how much further down from the Z stop the bed is? Do I need to look at the Z position below the endstop and add it into my configuration.h file? That was not clear to me.

5mm from the glass won't work, he printer Z axis needs to home a paper width from the bed.
Use blue painter tape on glass and adjust your Z endstop so that the nozzle tip is just off the glass/tape and use the bed corner adjustors to get it the same in every corner.

The RAMPS knows where the end stops are and has to home before it starts the print.

Steve

OK, I bit my lip and set Z home to ~0.5mm from the glass bed. This is not too risky, as the bed is on springs anyway, so a little error (overshoot) will depress the springs rather than cracking the glass. Famous Last Words!

After tinkering mainly with nozzle and bed temperature, my prints are improving. This is a spool holder support in PLA, using 190C nozzle and 80C bed:

Spool Holder Side

My PLA seems to need these higher temperatures - initial tests with e.g. nozzle 165C were awful!

I'm not finding any need for tape/hairspray/glue on the glass bed. The prints stick nicely to the glass, which when it cools down a little, releases them easily.

Glad to see things are improving for you. 190C sounds about right for PLA. (I usually use 190 to 210).165 Seems low to me.
PLA is generally pretty good at staying down once it sticks. ABS may be the more likely to cause you problems in that area as the tendency to warp when cooling may produce lift.

I put the stand for the case for the full graphics lcd controller up on thingiverse.

[www.thingiverse.com]

First of what I would call a real problem with this printer. I ran a 8 hour print, 49 links of a wire chain guide, and sometime during the night something happened and I wound up with 49 half made pieces with a large nest of filament and the LCD display saying 'Waiting for user'. Since this was 5am I just pulled the plug and figured I get back to it later. Today I took a look and nothing seemed out of kelter or broken so I cleaned up the glass bed and decided to add the setting in cura to lift the nozzle when traveling, I was thinking perhaps the head got stuck or something. I started to print a 20mm hollow cube and realized partway into it that the bed was, for the want of a better word, 'flopping' quite a bit. I killed the print and discovered that one the y carriage LM8UU bearings on the side with two bearings had come completely out if the mount. I guess that might have had something to do with the failed log print so I dismantled the bed thinking I'd find a broken mount and what I discovered is that the mount, which is 'C' shaped so you can push in the bearing form one side and the case can flex so you don't break the plastic, is now over sized and the bearing just slips in loosely. The other two are the same and when I pulled one off and looked at it from the end I can see the the 'C' has been widened like someone had gotten a hold of the the ends and pulled. I'm guessing the bed heat and the long print, I think it was around the 4 hour mark, softened them up so that they sprung. I don't think this is a seller issue I think it's a design flaw, unless the seller designed these himself. I'll have to print some better mounts but before I can do that I have to get these working enough to print the new mounts. I'm thinking of drilling a couple of holes at the base of the 'C' and up through the bed then use a zip tie to tighten the sleeve up, I have to go through the bed since there is no relief on the mount to let the tie sit below the bed bottom and since it's an acrylic bed I'd be afraid that I might stress it when I tighten down the mounts.

I still like this kit but small issues like this are annoying.

All of the smaller prints I did, under two hours, came out pretty good but when I try to do groups of small pieces I seem to have problems. So far though this is the first one with a printer failure rather than the filament getting caught or the X carriage skipping due to the belt being too loose.

Oddly enough i did make that modification as well, drilled a hole at an angle through each side of the base and used a zip tie to tighten them ...
I did this instead of taking it all appart, i drilled through the acrilic plastic and continued through the bearing holder. since I did that, no slippage.

Wpflum , Waltermixx

That is an interesting problem. I will have to keep an eye out for that. I just checked and everything is still really tight though my longest print has been 4 hours on this machine. 80C on the bed is usually good enough for my prints.
When I assembled my kit I did not try to push the "C" opening down over the bearing for fear of weakening or breaking those parts. Instead I slide the bearings into each mount from the side and then attached the bed carriage afterwards.

If I wind up having this issue I may try to modify the model for that part such that it has a place for some screws on the bottom of the "C" shape to keep it tight.

Wpflum, Let me know if you need a printed set of replacements to get you going again. Pending your location I would be happy to print them and send them to you.

I pushed them in through the ends the same way and they went in tight but not tight enough that I felt the plastic might break. I was really surprised when I saw the bearing out of the holder and then found out that the holder wasn't broken, I was thinking defect in the printed part or something, then discovered that the rest were just as loose. No need to send me replacements unless I can't get something working so I can print out replacements myself. I also sent you an email through ebay, I use my wifes account 'pflumco' which is what I used to purchase the kit, just to let you know what the issue was. If you model a 'better' bearing mount let me know so I can download and print it out myself. I just picked up some more gt2 belt through because I thought I might have stretched the existing belt or torn off a tooth when the filament snagged on the spool and wouldn't feed, once again on an over night print, I guess I just have to accept the fact that the printer wants my attention during the prints so I have to be in the room

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Wpflum
I pushed them in through the ends the same way and they went in tight but not tight enough that I felt the plastic might break. I was really surprised when I saw the bearing out of the holder and then found out that the holder wasn't broken, I was thinking defect in the printed part or something, then discovered that the rest were just as loose. No need to send me replacements unless I can't get something working so I can print out replacements myself. I also sent you an email through ebay, I use my wifes account 'pflumco' which is what I used to purchase the kit, just to let you know what the issue was. If you model a 'better' bearing mount let me know so I can download and print it out myself. I just picked up some more gt2 belt through because I thought I might have stretched the existing belt or torn off a tooth when the filament snagged on the spool and wouldn't feed, once again on an over night print, I guess I just have to accept the fact that the printer wants my attention during the prints so I have to be in the room

Sent an e-mail through E-bay? I'm not affiliated with the seller. But he has made the models of the printed parts available for download I believe so from that it should be pretty easy to modify.

I just realized that you indicated you used 80c for the bed, I started at 110C, I saw it somewhere for ABS, and have never had an issue with a part delaminating from the bed even for the big flat pieces for the LCD case. Maybe I can lower the bed temp and that might stop the issue from happening again. I almost hate to since I'm getting tired of printing test cubes and trinkets, I even printed the elephant with the movable legs, just to test the printer. I want to start making more parts for the next printer

The elephant came out great by the way, no problems with the legs at all but I was afraid to snap the head free since it felt very tight.

Sorry, for some reason I misread your original post and was thinking I was taking to the owner of the place I got the kit from I did see that he had posted here before so it didn't seem out of place.

I was wondering how he had time to post at all what with the amount of kits he has sold.

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Wpflum
Sorry, for some reason I misread your original post and was thinking I was taking to the owner of the place I got the kit from I did see that he had posted here before so it didn't seem out of place.

I was wondering how he had time to post at all what with the amount of kits he has sold.

No problem. I agree I amazed how many orders have been made since I purchased mine. Looks like it is at 221 right now. I was wondering for a bit if they were going to go the way of "Makibox" but the kit surely lives up to the e-bay post. I am very pleased with mine for what I paid for it. You have to wonder if they are making much from these kits.

Just modified the bearing holder stl file. Once I have done a test print to make sure it comes out OK I will post the model. Hopefully it will help someone out.

The prices for the rest of the stuff he sells through ebay seem pretty good as well, he must be running a slim to none profit margin. If you've watched any of his videos for the setup of the printer you hear a couple of people in the background so it sounds like it's more than a one person shop. I just hope he doesn't burn out or go bankrupt as it's nice to have a supplier relatively near me, I'm in PA and he's in New Hampshire and the ship times are pretty good, I ordered 10 feet of gt2 belt and was expecting it Monday per the info on the ebay listing but it showed up today.

I added the zip ties and that seems to have tightened up the bearing mounts pretty well. The only problem I have is I neglected to run the Y carriage end to end so I got it all together again with the heated bed back on and realized that the zip tie heads are hitting the cross piece of the main plate. Teach me to not double double check pathway compliance to the ends and not just to see if it seems to be sliding well in the middle.

Here is what I have done with the mount. Running some jobs on the Prusa right now and can't take it offline to test clearances. If someone tries it out and it works OK please let me know and I will post it on Thingiverse.

Photo, render, and stl file.
[drive.google.com]

Very nice design I think those would work well with zip ties to secure the top...I hope they clear the acrylic frame.
a much improved design... if they don't clear, then you may have to make them shorter. and use slits for the zip tie instead of a round hole.

By the way when I assembled my Y-axis/bed, I too slid the bearings into the holders, I did not use the method shown on the folger google drive video, where he pushes down on the the bearings...
it did not seem like a good idea for all the reasons mentioned above...

Actually the owner of FolgerTech has not posted here yet, or if he has he has not identified himself... I did send him a note to say we had quite an active discussion on the printer, building it etc, and invited him to comment and check out all the cool pictures etc.

Cheers.

Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2014 06:44PM by Waltermixx.

It wasn't this thread it was [forums.reprap.org] where he asked about getting listed as a US supplier back in July.