OK, so how bad is this printer exactly?

I want to play with 3D printing - nothing serious really, just build a kit in the most cost efficient way.

Found this 'contraption' on eEbay, available straight away, no import fees no waiting, etc:

[www.ebay.co.uk]

Alternatively (seems to be the same thing):

[www.ebay.co.uk]

I know there must have been some compromises made to sell it for such low price, but the question is: how bad it is exactly? Is it going to be pretty much unusable, miserable and frustrating experience or is there a hope the printer could actually be decent entry-level device after some tinkering?

Based on the photos (limited, I know), is there any component there that rings alarm bells and screams "No no no!"?
I don't have knowledge to say anything about quality of the parts in this kit, but I noticed that it does not seem to use Arduino board, but rather some 'custom' controller instead - is this a big problem? Can this thing interface with PC nicely?

The basic structure seems to be made of plywood - not ideal for rigidity. Also, although it says origin is in the UK, everything else tells me it's of Chinese origin.

Good point. Yes, the printer is definitively Chinese.

Would something like this make more sense?

[www.ebay.co.uk]

The only obvious difference is that the structure is made of acrylic sheet instead of plywood, which is also not the most rigid material. Many people have built things like these, and they may work OK, but I'd be looking for a classic Prusa i3 with a 6mm-thick alloy plate for the frame, or one of the kits with a steel frame.

Steel
Alloy

These are just examples - I'm just trying to illustrate that the more rigid the frame the fewer problems you'll have in the future.

The prusa steel is a good decision. The frame is very rigid. I bought a few days ago a 3d printer from this site and I'm happy with it. the build quality is very good.

I would be wary of:
1. not getting the DXF files of the frame in case you need to replace a piece
2. the extruder hot-end combo. MK8 units like these from China usually have poor tolerances/construction vs a genuine J-head or E3D
3. the heated bed probably won't stay flat for long
4. I doubt it will print at 120mm/s probably for like 50mm/s which is typical for an i3 design like this.

An acrylic frame would be worse

---

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

Quote
David J
The basic structure seems to be made of plywood - not ideal for rigidity. Also, although it says origin is in the UK, everything else tells me it's of Chinese origin.

The Chinese versions like this are black acrylic plastic, not plywood. I suspect this is the same.

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Folger Tech 2020 i3 and FT-5 as well as modified JGAurora A5 with direct drive E3D/Titan. All running the BLTOUCH.
Great kits. Having fun and running the heck out of them.
Running Marlin 1.1.0 RC8 on the i3 and FT5. Custom firmware on A5.
Folger Tech Wiki board >[folgertech.wikia.com]

It is crap ! OK, the spool holder is fine.

Nothing less than aluminium, steel and let's dream cast iron

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2016 03:51AM by MKSA.

The bed temperature is only sufficient for PLA. It doesn't state/show what control board is being used. Doesn't list the glass on the bed as included.
Id pay a bit more for a heated bed capable of over 100 for ABS and that probably means it wont have the sanginololo board as I think the drivers on that are current limited to 8amps.
If you are just starting I wouldn't worry about the frame material. A metal frame is ideal but will cost you. Acrylic or wood will get you printing. I prefer acrylic as it wont warp. You can upgrade to a metal frame later if you are keen.
You will have enough to do starting just getting the thing aligned, calibrated, sticking the print to the bed and sorting out your slicing parameters.
I also prefer the linear bearings with cast housings rather than these tyrap on type. The X axis adjuster on the belt is a good thing.
Both suppliers seem to have exactly the same machines.
Your other suggestion with the ramps board may be more electronically useful, as will the Ally print bed but it doesn't say what resistance the heat bed is. Doesn't say how thick the acrylic is either, mine is 8mm but I think they used to do 6mm. I expect 8mm to be better. I personally don't like it looking like a bunch of bits cobbled together and I don't know if its more work trying to get things aligned with these rapid brackets compared with pre cut front/rear cross members.
A kit from China can arrive within 3 weeks and cost under £200 but most will have the sanginololo board and only just be capable of 100 bed temperature. I had to sort a work around to get the temperature on the Ally bed up to get reliable ABS results.
I had to pay £32 import duty on mine so be aware if ordering from China.

Thank you all for all the opinions - I really appreciate them.

I think I went though all the cheap printers on Aliexpress and decided to go for this one:

[www.aliexpress.com]

My reasoning:
- steel frame
- auto leveling (the question is how well it really works...)
- decent build volume
- bowden extruder (potentially a good thing?)
- it is not totally unknown 'brand' and apparently assembly instructions are half decent

Any thoughts?

That looks like a good buy.
20amp PSU is definitely good. Gives you options on the heated bed and second extruder. The hot bed says 150w and good for 105 degrees but I would like to know if you actually manage that. The 150w bed means its only 1 ohm resistance and pulling 12 amps which seems high for normal control boards. And this looks to have a Metz/Lolu (whatever) board so I am a bit surprised they can run that high a current. Although if they only claim 105 degrees I suspect you may not actually get the 150w.
I am not sure how sturdy the steel frame will be as it doesn't seem to be gusseted much in the corners but I think this is a good starting machine at this price.
When you get it put some insulation between the bed heater and the carriage. Cork is good. Corrugated cardboard is also good but can go brittle after a while. If you don't it can take a long time to get to temperature.
I bet people have different opinions on whether to direct extrude or use a Bowden. What I will say is that you will need to set your retract length in your slicer to some mm.
On paper I think this is a good spec for the price.

Well done, hope it all goes well.

Quote
wombat
Thank you all for all the opinions - I really appreciate them.

I think I went though all the cheap printers on Aliexpress and decided to go for this one:

[www.aliexpress.com]

My reasoning:
- steel frame
- auto leveling (the question is how well it really works...)
- decent build volume
- bowden extruder (potentially a good thing?)
- it is not totally unknown 'brand' and apparently assembly instructions are half decent

Any thoughts?

Sadly, I didn't see it on the photos, but you should ask the zonestar seller, if they still sell the melzi board with the fake FTDI chip.
But I would buy the printer because of the super cool (but sadly senseless) pie chart!
I hope for you the seller won't lie and it's really a 20A PSU, got mine with 15A and needed to exchange it, because the heatbed didn't touch more than 80 degrees (even with isolation)
The rest is solid and should work. I own a acrylic one (the black ones, they are not so thin than the transparent ones) and it is more than ok for that price. So I would say for 244 Euros (+ taxes, for Austria it was about 60 Euros more), so ~300 it's a solid base for beginning and you can exchange parts easily, because it's a prusa.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2016 09:39AM by madias.

Thanks!

I placed the order, got already 0.5GB of documentation and videos from the seller - it looks quite decent (was expecting something worse).
Hopefully the printer arrives sooner than later. I am going to post my findings once I get it.

I'd be interested in how rigid the frame is and if the power supply can handle the heated bed and nozzle at the same time.
20A PS is 240watts, which should be enough

Steve

OK, I got the printer - posted some quick impressions here:

[forums.reprap.org]

I just got the original cheep one from ebay, I'm Not getting the chance to build it until the weekend but I was really impressed with the system so far. The kit is partially assembled and packed extremely well, with each sub assembly in its own cut foam compartment, anything fragile is carefully bubble wrapped and bagged, the borosilicate glass plate is already coated in blue tape and the frame is made of laser cut plywood stained black.

The only negative points I had was the small hex bit screwdriver cap had come off and spilled tiny hex-bits everywhere and that there were no paper instructions. Although I think there will be electronic ones on the 4Gb SD card they provided.

I'll do a proper unboxing and build blog over the next few days and post it here when its done.

I've just got one of these. I've found a few issues:

- the thermistors for the extruder and bed are 50k (not 100k) and so read about 20 degrees hotter than they really are. You may need to adjust the temperature in order to get things to print properly. If you see temps of 38-35 degrees at room temperature, you may have this problem. I'll swap these out for proper thermistors when I get a chance.

- the print speed needs to be pretty low to get a decent print - if you are having problems with the extruder motor skipping, and getting "gappy" prints, try reducing the printing rate to 50% or so.

With these two changes the printer actually works pretty well, but occasionally still seems to just stop halfway through the print. I'm still working on this one. Occasionally it also just ejects the filament from the extruder, then carries on happily printing air.

One more thing - there is a nice socket to plug in a kettle-style power lead. Unfortunately this has exposed contacts on the rear as I found out as I tried to plug a lead into it. Shocking experience...

Now fixed with a bit of gaffer tape to avoid any more 240V surprises

Well my build went pretty much the same.

Overall as a cheep printer its pretty good. I also had the clicking extruder issue and had to lower the print speed down to about 50% as well. It never spat out the filament though. I hadn't identified that thermistor problem myself but I think I have the same issue as my room temps were a little high. I just chalked it up to bad calibration and upped the temperature but it will be good to actually fix the problem so thanks for highlighting that.

With regards to the power issue my contacts on the back aren't exposed but have flimsy plastic covering on them which could slide off if knocked. I'll probably put some heat shrink on them to give a safer covering. I did notice the live and neutral were the wrong way round in the picture in the instructions though so make sure to follow the markings on the power supply rather than the instructions.

The only other issue I have is some z-banding where one of the vertical threaded rods isn't quite square with the other I'm hoping to try and fix that later tonight. that and the bed height needs adjusting every few hours.

Apart from those issues though its produced some really good prints. Much better than I was expecting for the price.

Further experiments - increasing the current to the extruder stepper motor deals with some of the skipping problems and allows faster print speeds.

The problems I've had with stopping and filament ejection seem to have gone away now that I am using octoprint and a raspberry pi - so possibly a problem with the SD card/reader.

i have this printer too and my temps are about 20 deg up - is there a way of calibrating these so they are correct or is it just as easy to get new thermistors ??

Quote
furbrain
- the thermistors for the extruder and bed are 50k (not 100k) and so read about 20 degrees hotter than they really are. You may need to adjust the temperature in order to get things to print properly. If you see temps of 38-35 degrees at room temperature, you may have this problem. I'll swap these out for proper thermistors when I get a chance.

Hi Furbrain, I also have one of these, and have found the same temperature issue - room temp is ready about 38-39degrees. What did you do to amend this? I have no idea what thermister they have used to generate a new table for use in Marlin. Any help much appreciated. Thanks

I've found setting temperatures of about 220degs in my slicer for PLA seems to work reasonably well - but you may need to experiment a bit to find the best temps to print at.

Oh, and 80 degrees for the bed seems to give good adherence.

Phil