Time to move on?

I have been struggling with my Fisher Delta 3D printer for weeks trying to get consistent results - bought the heated bed, replaced the numerous broken acrylic arms with carbon fibre arms (which turned out in the end to be caused by a dodgy Z limit connection on the controller) and even switched to PETG because 'it is known to stick to anything and itself very well' (but not printed on my printer!)

As the limited success I have had still looks to offer some potential I am considering abandoning this printer and trying a Prusa I3 - also because I find the 150mm round print bed on the Fisher limited in size (and printing close to the edge of the bed causes even more problems with sticking!)

Is there anything else I can try before going down this route? The prints that are successful look pretty good, but I normally have to print 3-4 to get one good one - or is this the same experience for everyone else?

Regards

Chris

@cparsons

I have a Original Prusa i3 MK2. It has five to eight minutes of warm-up time per each print.
Swithing filament requires Z height adjustment that takes half to one hour for calibration.
Total print time is 64 hours.

I added 400x400x30 mm granite plate to reduce vibration and noise.


I'll replace the spool holder to fix an issue.


I've invested many hours on Steel Fisher. It's fast and agile, and looks cool. The warm-up time is about 30 seconds.
I ran it over 200 hours without any issue then a loose arm, cracked carriage forced me to rebuild it again.
Based on my experinces PLA parts develops crack within a year.

One trick I learned 3 mm of Z hop (Seven times higher travel distance than Prusa i3) solved the nozzle dislocation problem in printing.



It's good to have one reliable 3D Printer you can depend on in any time.
Prusa i3 has bigger moving parts that are more strong, rigid than Fisher's tiny ball joints.
Once you set it correctly, there is little room that develop cracks or loose.

If you like the delta configuration, you could build a Kossel. See the link to my blog in my signature.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Thanks very much gentlemen - after some consideration I have now ordered a Prusa i3 Mk2 kit - I am sure I will get similar printing problems to the
Fisher (but hopefully not as many!) but the print area is larger which is a factor for me.

If I have to spend some time calibrating it I can cope with this if the output is then reliable

We will see, but it looks like the support for the Prusa is pretty good - documentation, videos etc apart from all the stuff on YouTube and they even
offer a custom version of Slic3r - this is important when you are starting up, there are so many variables involved in getting good output - it is a big
learning curve!

The Prusa i3 also seem to be pretty widely used/liked?

Regards

Chris