Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread)

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UltiFix

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animoose
The frame is definitely rigid. A few people have added extra corner brackets, but I don't think it is necessary. I have not used ABS (the hottest I've gone is for PETG). Again, there are people on the forum who have used ABS, and I think some of them found it necessary to put the printer in an enclosure. I live in Southern California, so ambient temperature isn't usually a problem.

Really an enclosure? That might be a deal breaker
Can anybody that print's abs comment on this?

I've printed ABS on mine without, I'm in the UK and this was in December too. It is alot of effort tho, and I found I had to set the print bed to 130 and it never got over 110. Ambient temps are the main thing, but its doable.

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UltiFix
Think ill be able to print abs between 67 and 75 ambient temp?

I print ABS all the time. My garage is usually 50-60 F at night this time of year, and I don't need an enclosure. Heated bed stays at 100C and I usually print at 235C. The trick with ABS is getting it to stay stuck to the heated bed. I use an ABS juice (ABS dissolved in acetone) lightly spread on Kapton tape.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2016 06:51PM by elkayem.

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elkayem

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UltiFix
Think ill be able to print abs between 67 and 75 ambient temp?

I print ABS all the time. My garage is usually 50-60 F at night this time of year, and I don't need an enclosure. Heated bed stays at 100C and I usually print at 235C. The trick with ABS is getting it to stay stuck to the heated bed. I use an ABS juice (ABS dissolved in acetone) lightly spread on Kapton tape.

I actually have a heated garage that stays between 40-50 degrees.

I was talking about this printer to somebody else, and they were saying that something he likes is having the printer frame, well each side have 1 big piece, unlike this printer it's a bunch of little pieces. Do you guys have a hard time squaring it?

I printed all of my upgrade parts (swapped to leadscrews and did the motor risers) in ABS and didn't use an enclosure. Not a big fan of ABS or PLA honestly. I live in the desert and PLA deforms at ambient temps in the summer ABS is strong...but the smell when printing gets to me. I'm really liking PETG - strength of ABS but sticks to the bed easier like PLA. Still smells a little like ABS but not nearly as bad. I say it's about the same strength of smell as PLA but it's a more irritating smell. PLA almost smells like cotton candy to me while PETG smells like cutting an ABS pipe with a hacksaw and printing ABS smells like lighting that ABS pipe on fire.

FWIW I'm also a RC guy (have a mini hex, 2 250 sized FPV quads, a 230 acro quad, a larger 330ish wood frame homemade quad, and a bunch of foam planes) and wanting to print parts for my RC habit was a big thing that got me going on this. I've been wanting to build a 3D printer for about 10 years but it wasn't until I got pretty serious into flying RC the past few years that I REALLY wanted to make the 3D printer happen. Like someone else said I kept printing out parts to do it myself and couldn't beat the price of the Folger kit. The threads on RCGroups and FliteTest about this printed convinced me to get it.

The instructions aren't bad except for the step where you mount the motors. That part is just wrong as documented in this thread and some other places. Thankfully the fix is easy, just leave out one of the 3 screws so things line up better.

I built my printer in one evening and one day. About 26 hours after opening the box I did my first print and it was 100% usable and did get used to mount my LCD.

I just got autolevel up and going last Thursday and am absolutely loving it. I ordered the proximity sensor with my kit from Folger but if I did it again I'd get one with a 8mm range off ebay instead for a few dollars more. I put a thin piece of galvanized steel under the glass I print on and it detects it just fine. I did have to pump my bed temps about 5-8 degrees to compensate for the metal in there but it's handling it no problem. The bltouch looks nice..but is more expensive than a $5 piece of galvanized steel and a $3 sensor

I've been trying to get better prints of the Make Magazine negative space test - Before autolevel the best I got was a loose 0.6mm pin, a 0.5 that could be easily removed and 0.4 removed if I cheated by pushing against a table. Only change was adding autolevel and now the 0.6 falls out almost by itself, 0.5 pops right out with almost no effort, and 0.4 comes out easier than 0.5 used to. Can't quite get 0.3mm out even with table help...but I know I still have some extruder settings to finish fine tuning.

I did wan't to do autolevel until I did the leadscrews since it works Z so much more. I got my leadscrews from banggood real cheap and they've been working great.

I'm still writing up my experiences on my blog but the first part of my build experience is here: [www.nevermindthesand.com]

It's not a perfect printer and the "kit" definitely has some room for improvement. But there's a great community here, on the RC forums and in the #folgertech IRC channel on freenode that will all gladly help you through the build. I look at last years printer shootout in Make and I'm getting way better prints than some of the $1k+ machines. And I've only spent about $50-$75 in parts to upgrade mine to achieve that. So if you're at all skilled with mechanics I'd definitely say it's a bargain.

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UltiFix

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elkayem

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UltiFix
Think ill be able to print abs between 67 and 75 ambient temp?

I print ABS all the time. My garage is usually 50-60 F at night this time of year, and I don't need an enclosure. Heated bed stays at 100C and I usually print at 235C. The trick with ABS is getting it to stay stuck to the heated bed. I use an ABS juice (ABS dissolved in acetone) lightly spread on Kapton tape.

I actually have a heated garage that stays between 40-50 degrees.

I was talking about this printer to somebody else, and they were saying that something he likes is having the printer frame, well each side have 1 big piece, unlike this printer it's a bunch of little pieces. Do you guys have a hard time squaring it?

UltiFix, I'm listening to all the questions you are asking... They're great questions, but I'm thinking you're the kind of guy that doesn't want to fuss with a less than perfect product. The FT kit is a great place to get started, but most of us on this forum put the kit together and then start looking for improvements to make. I can understand that not everyone wants to do that. I personally haven't had any problems keeping the aluminum 2020 frame square, but I'm hearing your concerns about the aluminum frame and the acrylic mounts and thinking you won't be satisfied with less than a 100% steel frame, out of the box. I think you ought to go with the wanhao. It looks like a fantastic 3D printer.

Did Folgertech put up a billboard or something? All of this new blood on the forum in the last day or two

Does anyone else think it's about time we made a wiki page of some sort regarding this printer and we can put a link in our sigs since we can't update the first post on the thread? The forum software sucks and searching for stuff isn't super helpful. When someone comes here after their first build with X-endstop issues I can't even find the well-documented posts that detail the fix (and have forgotten myself)

I have a first draft of a wiki page, just nowhere to host it since RepRap wiki requires you to have 5 edits to post external links (I'm linking to this thread and thingiverse)

---

Need help? Visit the Folgertech Wikia Page

The latest Marlin firmware with Folgertech Prusa i3 settings merged in, get it here

And check out my designs on Thingiverse, and follow me if you like what you see!

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UltiFix

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animoose
The frame is definitely rigid. A few people have added extra corner brackets, but I don't think it is necessary. I have not used ABS (the hottest I've gone is for PETG). Again, there are people on the forum who have used ABS, and I think some of them found it necessary to put the printer in an enclosure. I live in Southern California, so ambient temperature isn't usually a problem.

Really an enclosure? That might be a deal breaker
Can anybody that print's abs comment on this?

I mostly print ABS. I live in VA and it was 31°F outside last night (68°F in my house). I printed ABS @220°C on a Glass Heated Bed @85°C (with glue stick) with no problem. I have considered an enclosure, but do not find it necessary as of yet, although it might be helpful in the long run!?!?

Either way, if the FT needs an enclosure in your situation so would any other "open" printer!! It is not a issue with the printer, it is an issue with the environment in which you use the printer.

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therippa
Did Folgertech put up a billboard or something? All of this new blood on the forum in the last day or two

Does anyone else think it's about time we made a wiki page of some sort regarding this printer and we can put a link in our sigs since we can't update the first post on the thread? The forum software sucks and searching for stuff isn't super helpful. When someone comes here after their first build with X-endstop issues I can't even find the well-documented posts that detail the fix (and have forgotten myself)

I have a first draft of a wiki page, just nowhere to host it since RepRap wiki requires you to have 5 edits to post external links (I'm linking to this thread and thingiverse)

I think that's a great idea, how can we help?

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sonnylowe

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therippa
Did Folgertech put up a billboard or something? All of this new blood on the forum in the last day or two

Does anyone else think it's about time we made a wiki page of some sort regarding this printer and we can put a link in our sigs since we can't update the first post on the thread? The forum software sucks and searching for stuff isn't super helpful. When someone comes here after their first build with X-endstop issues I can't even find the well-documented posts that detail the fix (and have forgotten myself)

I have a first draft of a wiki page, just nowhere to host it since RepRap wiki requires you to have 5 edits to post external links (I'm linking to this thread and thingiverse)

I think that's a great idea, how can we help?

This! Ordered my printer last week and this thread is overwhelming with information! lol

Can we just use Wikia? From what I understand it's free.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2016 08:46AM by nightpanda2810.

Hey all, I've built my folgertech and have been getting great results, however the last couple of items I've printed at.2 layer height have turned out awful. As the attachments show some layers are almost not printing, but it seems to be based on the location since it repeats on multiple layers but only in that spot. In the pic the center ring seems to have printed okay, but the corner pieces didn't.

I've also added my latest benchy, it looks like it it's failing to printer after skipping a section; the section after printing the port hole in this case.

Also, if this is the wrong place to be posting this sort of thing please feel free to point me in the right direction. Tyia

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2016 11:53AM by Joe558.

I've been having an issue printing ABS on my 2020. I'm getting warping around the edges even though when laying down the first layer I'm getting good adhesion. The warping starts further into the print when I'm already past a dozen layers in. The print then lifts on the edges. I'm printing on borosilicate glass (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QQ5Q3BI) and I just can't seem to get past this. My thermistor is reporting 120C (I go a little higher since the thermistor is on the heat bed and not glass temperature). For adhesion I also spray the glass with hairspray as recommended.

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elkayem

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UltiFix

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elkayem

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UltiFix
Think ill be able to print abs between 67 and 75 ambient temp?

I print ABS all the time. My garage is usually 50-60 F at night this time of year, and I don't need an enclosure. Heated bed stays at 100C and I usually print at 235C. The trick with ABS is getting it to stay stuck to the heated bed. I use an ABS juice (ABS dissolved in acetone) lightly spread on Kapton tape.

I actually have a heated garage that stays between 40-50 degrees.

I was talking about this printer to somebody else, and they were saying that something he likes is having the printer frame, well each side have 1 big piece, unlike this printer it's a bunch of little pieces. Do you guys have a hard time squaring it?

UltiFix, I'm listening to all the questions you are asking... They're great questions, but I'm thinking you're the kind of guy that doesn't want to fuss with a less than perfect product. The FT kit is a great place to get started, but most of us on this forum put the kit together and then start looking for improvements to make. I can understand that not everyone wants to do that. I personally haven't had any problems keeping the aluminum 2020 frame square, but I'm hearing your concerns about the aluminum frame and the acrylic mounts and thinking you won't be satisfied with less than a 100% steel frame, out of the box. I think you ought to go with the wanhao. It looks like a fantastic 3D printer.

Did I make that impressoin? I don't mind working on stuff to get it to work right, I mean I want to learn how these things work... And it's more in my price range. It seems like people are printing abs fine. Im still trying to decide on a printer.
EDIT:


I just don't think I can afford the wanhao, because after getting more plastic, tools and such its gonna be probably 50-100 bucks more. Besides, it's no fun just grabing a printer prebuilt! Lol I just need to order the folger tech one and be done with it.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2016 01:48PM by UltiFix.

I've had warping on my ABS parts...but the odd thing is it's not happening on the print bed or while they're cooling. It's happening like a day after I print them.

I did my stepper standoffs in ABS and they came out great, stuck to the bed no problem. After the bed cooled the popped right off and were perfectly flat on the bottom. A few hours later I checked them again and they were still perfectly flat. But the next day when I went to install them - each corner was slightly warped upward. They still work since the ABS had enough plasticity that bolting them in pulled them back into shape and with the flexible couplers it's not like the motors have to be perfectly mounted. But still seems kind of odd.

I've noticed it in some other ABS prints as well. They'll look find after the bed cool and a few hours later, but a day or two later they'll have a slight warp to them. I assume it's some kind of internal stress from how they're cooling (like maybe part of the inside is staying hot way longer.)

Between that and the smell I'm much happier with PETG. I do get a bit of stringing with PETG (despite printing at a lower temp than the manufacturer suggests - but he also suggested lowering it if I was getting stringing) and need to adjust my retraction a bit more which is more obvious with the PETG, but other than those minor issue I'm really liking it as I get very accurate parts with high temperature stability and minimal smell.

Oh, and while I am in the desert it's been chilly here lately (Well, chilly for us) and I've let it dip down to about 17c in the house and still not had any issues beyond what I just described with printing ABS. (on glass with hairspray.)

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chking
I've ordered the Folger Tech RepRap 2020 Prusa i3 Full Aluminum 3D Printer Kit but the basement I want to put it in is fairly cool basement. In reading the forums, it sounds like temperature is fairly important for build quality so I want to build a cover for the printer (also to help keep little kids fingers out). Has anybody run across any plans (or laser cut schematics) for building a cover for this printer. I'd like to build something nice looking; i.e. a wood frame with glass/Plexi windows

Some people have made printer enclosure out of Ikea Lack tables. Seems like a pretty simple and inexpensive way of making one.

Enclosure prusa i3
Hacking IKEA tables into 3d printer enclosure

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Mach

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chking
I've ordered the Folger Tech RepRap 2020 Prusa i3 Full Aluminum 3D Printer Kit but the basement I want to put it in is fairly cool basement. In reading the forums, it sounds like temperature is fairly important for build quality so I want to build a cover for the printer (also to help keep little kids fingers out). Has anybody run across any plans (or laser cut schematics) for building a cover for this printer. I'd like to build something nice looking; i.e. a wood frame with glass/Plexi windows

Some people have made printer enclosure out of Ikea Lack tables. Seems like a pretty simple and inexpensive way of making one.

Enclosure prusa i3
Hacking IKEA tables into 3d printer enclosure

ha ha... i saw this and those where on sale last month for like <$8 a piece. pickup 2 of them for this very thing, not for heat reason but for little fingers (x2) messing with printer.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2016 02:51PM by Mopar99.

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therippa
Did Folgertech put up a billboard or something? All of this new blood on the forum in the last day or two

Does anyone else think it's about time we made a wiki page of some sort regarding this printer and we can put a link in our sigs since we can't update the first post on the thread? The forum software sucks and searching for stuff isn't super helpful. When someone comes here after their first build with X-endstop issues I can't even find the well-documented posts that detail the fix (and have forgotten myself)

I have a first draft of a wiki page, just nowhere to host it since RepRap wiki requires you to have 5 edits to post external links (I'm linking to this thread and thingiverse)

I agree, it needs to be broken down into categories like maybe...
Build
Troubleshooting
Mods

That's exactly the type of enclosure I was looking for. Thanks.

Hi

I have an issue. I got my printer built and everything calibrated (end stops, motor voltage, etc..). I printed a couple little parts; filament temp calibration stack, calibration cube and a few other little things. everything was working great. I was printing a couple parts from an SD card when the raft wasn't sticking to the bed. I canceled the print and was going to hook my computer up to use Repetier. When I plugged the USB into my surface pro, the computer shut off instantly and the LCD contrast got extremely high, it was full of white squares. There was also a little smoke coming from the board area (couldn't tell exactly which one).

Here is what I know after this happened:
1. The arduino isn't seen when the RAMPS board is attached. I took it off and connected it by itself and all was fine.
2. The motor voltage is 2x - 3x higher than what I set them to yesterday. I had the motor voltage set to 200mv - 350mv depending on the axis. I set them by lowering them until they stop and then turning them up until they ran smoothly.
3. The SD Card is no longer recognized when inserted into the LCD.
4. The power supply seems okay. Voltage is steady.
5. I've inspected the boards for solder bridging and evidence of where the smoke was coming from but seen nothing.
6. Was working great....

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

I started the wikia page - [folgertech.wikia.com]

Please go enter info for what you know!

---

Need help? Visit the Folgertech Wikia Page

The latest Marlin firmware with Folgertech Prusa i3 settings merged in, get it here

And check out my designs on Thingiverse, and follow me if you like what you see!

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MMeyer
Hi

I have an issue. I got my printer built and everything calibrated (end stops, motor voltage, etc..). I printed a couple little parts; filament temp calibration stack, calibration cube and a few other little things. everything was working great. I was printing a couple parts from an SD card when the raft wasn't sticking to the bed. I canceled the print and was going to hook my computer up to use Repetier. When I plugged the USB into my surface pro, the computer shut off instantly and the LCD contrast got extremely high, it was full of white squares. There was also a little smoke coming from the board area (couldn't tell exactly which one).

Here is what I know after this happened:
1. The arduino isn't seen when the RAMPS board is attached. I took it off and connected it by itself and all was fine.
2. The motor voltage is 2x - 3x higher than what I set them to yesterday. I had the motor voltage set to 200mv - 350mv depending on the axis. I set them by lowering them until they stop and then turning them up until they ran smoothly.
3. The SD Card is no longer recognized when inserted into the LCD.
4. The power supply seems okay. Voltage is steady.
5. I've inspected the boards for solder bridging and evidence of where the smoke was coming from but seen nothing.
6. Was working great....

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Happened to a few people before, reach out to folgertech is option 1 and tell them you got a bad ramps. Personally I would just buy a known good one myself. You'll just get another one from the same crappy batch. Folgertech knows this and has done nothing.

Any recommendations on a "good" one?

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therippa
I started the wikia page - [folgertech.wikia.com]

Please go enter info for what you know!

Nice job, that is going to make all the difference in the world.. great topic starters too.. thank you very much for getting it started.

Now we just need everyone to add it to their signature

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New Wikia page: [folgertech.wikia.com]

Does this printer require any expensive software or cables to use?

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UltiFix
Does this printer require any expensive software or cables to use?

Hello UltiFix, welcome.. no you don't. As long as you have a PC that can run the repeater software, I think almost anything windows 7 and above will work.. that is all you need. It uses a standard usb 2.0 cable and for the most part is very easy to put together.. I have a Delta printer that I paid over 3x as much and am having all kinds of issues. This one is working great.. still dialing it in but starting to get usable prints. The software is a free download.. hope that helps.

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therippa
I started the wikia page - [folgertech.wikia.com]

Please go enter info for what you know!

Nice work, the format looks great!!! Hopefully we'll have this filled out in no time

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FolgerTech Wikia Page

Custom Search by Animoose

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therippa
I started the wikia page - [folgertech.wikia.com]

Please go enter info for what you know!

Fantastic, im about to order this 3D printer and ill be going through the whole thing! Please continue to add info!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2016 05:55PM by UltiFix.

Anyone got a recommended inductive sensor, Mine just arrived and its to big to fit into any of the brackets I've printed. I got the 8mm sensing one.

Awesome! Looking forward to more info getting added to it.

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Need help? Visit the Folgertech Wikia Page

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peeejayz
Anyone got a recommended inductive sensor, Mine just arrived and its to big to fit into any of the brackets I've printed. I got the 8mm sensing one.

I think most of the inductive sensor are the same diameter (14mm), the Capacitive Sensor I'm currently testing is 12mm. What bracket are you trying to use and what Extruder?

Sonny

Side Note: I there a way to make my sig show up every time I reply or do I have to check the "Add my sig..." box every time!?!?

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Custom Search by Animoose

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therippa

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rollinns

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Bert3D
Reply to Rollinns

You may be masking the problem rather than fixing it. If you aren't moving at slow step rates, your driver current is probably not correct. You may have just never noticed it because you never tried to move slow before.

Do you have your X endstop on the left and plugged into the min-x position? Auto level doesn't work with x endstop at the max position and the endstop on the right. I have no idea why it wouldn't stop when it hits the x endstop unless the movement and endstop indicators are messed up somehow. But if it worked before, this shouldn't be the case. There are a lot of things than can keep G29 from working right, so it may be related to the x issue. I would fix that first.

Sorry I didn't see your reply earlier. Thanks for the help! I'll switch my x endstop to the left, make changes to x-min and see where that gets me. You're right, there seems to be lots of quirks with ABL, but there also seem to be a lot of eyes looking into it. It's one of the main things I like about OSS.

Is your insight about G29 not working on x-max endstops documented anywhere? If not, have you considered submitting a pull request to get it documented somewhere?

If I need to change my hardware to get G29 working, I have no problem with that, I just didn't know that was the case until now. I really appreciate your help.

It's documented pretty well on this forum thread I think I was the person to figure it out initially, from what I could gather checking the code and reading github issues filed against it, they just set up the math for it all to work from hardware-confirmed X0, so that's why it's necessary to move the endstop to X-min. All other Prusa variants have the X-endstop on the left/min side, and I don't think they thought anyone would just use X-max

Thanks Bert3D and therippa, I finally got it working. After changing the x-endstop to the left, it almost worked, G28 would home x and y, and on z it would go up, then the steppers would not move, but hum loudly until I reset the RAMPS board.

Bert3D - you were close, I may have been partially masking the problem, I had doubled the z-feedrate to 8*60

#define HOMING_FEEDRATE {50*60, 50*60, 8*60, 0}  // set the homing speeds (mm/min)    //z was 4*60 feedrate, now 8*60

when I dropped it down to 3*60, g28 and g29 work fine.

Thanks again for your help.