RepRap Guru i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread)

WARNING
I purchased RepRapGuru's Pruas i3 V2 kit and assembled it, only to find it had a dead 5v regulator on the Arduino board(fairly common).
When contacting their customer support (it took MANY emails and phone calls before I even got one response), I was called back by what I now know is an ex-employee of theirs who is scamming people by "selling" bogus non-existent "upgrade" parts. I've now lost $148 due to this scam. After many unanswered emails, Reprapguru finally got back to me and admitted that this employee was fired in March of 2019 for doing his own customer support after hours. Apparently Reprapguru didn't even change their voicemail password because this employee "Dax" is STILL using their customer support voicemail to scam people into paying him via a PayPal. He's literally hijacking Reprapguru's customer support line to harvest suckers for his scam, all in Reprapguru's name. After payment, you find that his PayPal account leads to somewhere in the Philippines. When contacting Reprapguru again to sort this out, they have apparently ghosted me. 4 emails over 3 days now and I have yet to hear from them. So I'm beginning to think it's not an "ex-employee" at all, and that the whole company is scamming people.

I'm NOT the first person this has happened to! See for yourself. Go to reprap dot org forums > Prusa i3 and variants > RepRap Guru i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread) and look at page 6 at the very end a post by "boberts314". This scammer calls himself "Trey McCormick". Reprapguru refuses to do anything about it. No wonder they're bribing people with filament for 5 star reviews - they're putting a tourniquet to try to prop-up their otherwise lousy ratings!

So, to sum up, I'm out $148, with a $280 printer that's defective, and a company that refuses to do anything about my situation, and the ex-employee who's scamming people in Reprapguru's name. A very painful $428 lesson.

STAY AWAY! There are too many other reputable vendors to choose from.

I've returned this printer, and am posting this message on every community forum and online vendor I can find, in the hope of helping some other poor tinkerer from the same fate. Good luck makers!

I also have been contacted by that person offerings upgrade... But I did not take it....

I also have not been a leader to finish building the printer as the direction don't match the parts....

Can anyone tell .e how to build the exfruder, given the following pictures? I think I am missing a part to hold remodel onto the motor...again ... Please see the pictures... I have taken a picture of the parts and the assembed parts....

Hi everyone, i’m Brando.

I am setting up my Reprapguru printer, and am having trouble with an error that comes
up when i turn on my extruder.

The error is MINTEMP triggered, system stopped!
Heater_ID: 0

is this because i havent designated the heater?

All my axes work, bed heater works, extruder fan works, just not the nozzle.

Has any of you experienced this?

Source found. One of the thermaster wires was a cold solder.

FYI, the company's web site is completely gone as of last week or the week before. There are still some parts as well as some kits available on eBay. As most are aware, the parts are pretty generic and thus not hard to find.

Best,
Jerry
echo4golf

The RepRap Guru company website has been down (SSL errors) since at least July, and directs to a "domain for sale" page since at least November.

For those of you who need the build manual or firmware, I dug up the links from The Wayback Machine and posted the files here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1NGohxC-hIU0bx6sNZ8xoxi5AdWY1sHXe

RepRap Guru still has products for sale on Amazon, but they no longer have a website, do not respond to customer support requests, and have problems with "former employees" scamming customers. No rational person should be buying products from RepRap Guru any longer.

I have one of these, Wife purchased mine on eBay for me for the holidays. She got it fairly reasonable $$ wise.

I have upgraded the Control board with a RAMBo given to me from a friend, along with a bigger display.

I bought an aluminum bed and working on adding Auto Bed Leveling..

Next will be a metal frame..

I just found this forum... Here is my history... I purchased the (on Amazon) the REPRAPGURU DIY RepRap Prusa I3 V2 way back on... May 23, 2017! (And today is April 10, 2020). Yeah.. I shouldn't have waited so long to start the build! HAHA. I quoted Nick from the original post - because today, the website for reprapguru is down and they have seemed to go out of business... Again, I guess I shouldn't have waited 3 years to build this thing (but now, with lockdown on Covid-19, I had time...! And I did have a blast, albeit frustrated, building this thing.) For what it's worth, I'm an old electronic warfare tech (electronics) and I'm a software dev by trade. So, this is super fun.

Anyway, I finally got it built - found a bad stepper driver (but they gave me a spare - whew) - so now my x, y, and z stepper motors work.

But... My extruder stepper motor doesn't make any noise and doesn't seem to be working. I replaced it with the X plug and it works (so the motor is good). I replaced the stepper drive with X - and then X still worked (which tells me it's not the stepper driver).... So? I have NO idea. I checked the software to ensure it wasn't reading 0.0 to step, but it wasn't... I don't have any idea what to do next to try (and I have no idea if I'm supposed to hear the extruder working?)

Thanks for any help.
-Captain Jack

Quote
REPRAPGURU
Hey Guys,

Nick from RepRapGuru here I wanted to setup an official thread for everyone to post all questions, tips, tricks, and suggestions about the printer kits we offer.


Stay tuned for new updates as we are about to release several new printers...


Nick
RepRapGuru, LLC
RepRapGuru.Com

Okay folks... Here is what I've learned and answered my own question! Turns out, that the filament head has to be at a certain temp before the the extruder stepper motor will actually work - and the reason the PLA wasn't feeding is that the PLA wasn't going through the feeder hole and it's tough to align through the spring-grip actually. It takes some finesse in order to get it just right. Now, it's working flawlessly. I'm actually VERY impressed with this 3D printer and happy that I have no issues since it's three years after I purchased it. Whew!
Be well - be safe,
-Captain Jack

I'm glad you worked it out, Captain.
I also appreciate your detailed explanation of the solutions for the issues you were having. One of my Pet Peeves is Googling an issue I'm having, finding it in a forum somewhere, and the original poster as their final post says "Never mind, I found the problem."
God I want to strangle those people!

Thanks for that @SpockEars as I totally agree with you... I get frustrated with the same "... oh nevermind, figured it out..." I hope that if someone finds that their "extruder motor" isn't advancing, they will know that the programming on the board won't allow it to advance unless it's at a hot temp on the "end". Also, the feeder hole can be a bear to get the PLA through... You really have to look through the cracks to watch the PLA go into the extruder end and into the nozzle... and even after that pull it up and down to ensure it's down there... After that, and after it gets hot... you should be good to go! Whoop!
-Captain Jack

Hey Guys, so now that the company is done for, im running into a little trouble. I want to update the firmware, but idk how to go about that. Any in that would be appreciated, just try and explain it as clearly as possible, thanks

Quote
Rays3dworld
Hey Guys, so now that the company is done for, im running into a little trouble. I want to update the firmware, but idk how to go about that. Any in that would be appreciated, just try and explain it as clearly as possible, thanks

what version of Marlin is on the printer now? I have a reprap Guru printer, I am planning on rebuilding it. I have an upgraded controller and LCD, but the path for Firmware upgrade is not too bad. there are some changes from the older versions to the 2.0.x version

I thin I am at 2.0.2 and will go to 2.0.5 or whatever the latest is.


Are you familiar with Arduino and programming?

BUt ultimately what is the trouble you are running into?

I just completed a successful print after 3 previous Thermal Runaways. I couldn't figure out why I was getting the Thermal Runaways until I noticed on the 4th print as I sat and watched the temperature that the fan for the extruder kicked in to 90%. I manually turned it down to 40% and the temperature leveled out again. Another 5 minutes passed and the fan went to 90% again and the temperature on the extruder started to drop again. I changed it back to 40% and it leveled out. This happened 3 more times but at random time increments once almost 10 minutes after the previous and then 3 minutes etc. The print was only 26 minutes long. But I had to sit and babysit the fan the whole time.

Any idea why this is happening? How can I fix it? Where are the controls for the extruder fan?

The part cooling fan settings are configured in the slicer settings usually in the filament settings section but this varies a bit depending on the slicer software.

It sounds like you probably want to try doing pid tuning though and/or adjust the fan so it doesn't blow on the heater block so much but blows down at the tip of the nozzle and part below more than at the heater block since you want that part to stay very hot and the plastic itself to cool after being deposited. Would look at physically adjustments first then pid tuning/autotuning and then adjustments in the slicer for the g-code that controls the part cooling fan speed.

So if I understand things correctly the command for the increased speed of the cooling fan is in the code that comes from the slicer? So the reason the fan speeds up is a result of a command in the the info from the slicer. I'm currently using Slic3R. There are not a lot of options for the cooling in the filament settings. I guess the thing that is confusing me is why it is ramping up the speed when everything is spot on from a temp standpoint?

Maybe I should try a different slicer?

Also how do I do PID tuning/calibration?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2020 04:10PM by Odontoblaster.

Make sure you are using the advanced or expert views and have an up to date version of slic3r it's now marketed as prusaslicer.

Also like I mentioned before look at physically fixing the root problem too, a silicone sock for the heater block and nozzle can help regulate the temp and stop filament from sticking to the nozzle/block or some kapton tape wrapping it can work as well. In general you shouldn't need to reduce the part cooling fan speed if it is directed properly and everything else is well insulated enough.

Also how do I do PID tuning/calibration?

I will look into the silicone sock and look closer at the heater block.

Recommend following this vid the channel is generally very good, I've learned a lot from him/the channel in general too:

[youtu.be]

For the silicone sock should I be looking for something like this:

[www.amazon.com]

Or something like this:

[www.amazon.com]

I realize they are not very expensive but it I can I would like to get the right one from the start

Yup just depends on which heater block design your printer has use calipers or plain old ruler to check out the dimensions of your heater block I don't think these cheaper kits come with a genuine e3d hot end so would guess the more generic black one is the right style but best to just measure dimensions on yours to be sure.