First Print - regular speed

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  • Опубліковано 8 жов 2015
  • Electron Prusa I3 Gen6 3D Printer kit. MK8 extruder - printing the Spocktopus
    It took me a few weeks to finally decide to buy this kit. Don't believe the 3 day countdown or the "only 4 left" on the website. The timer always resets and they've sold about 500 of them since I bought mine a few weeks ago.
    I've never put together anything like this, and I don't have a lot of spare time. So it's taken me quite awhile to get to this point. I'm sure others would have it running a lot faster than me. It seems to be a solid kit. Everything was there and it went together without too many problems. But there are some things to watch out for.
    The optional larger print bed - it's bigger than the reach of the extruder. You won't be able to make full use of the entire bed (at least the website mentions this). It looks like I can improve this by drilling new holes in the aluminum bed, but it still won't all be available.
    The bed heater - for me it stalls out at about 75 C. I can't see it ever hitting 100 C for ABS as it is configured, but I may try adding some non-flammable / heat resistant padding underneath the heating pad to insulate it. The heater runs on 12 volts. Someday I might change to a bigger 24 volt heater.
    The sensor for Z height detection and bed leveling - You can't attach it properly, at the right height relative to the extruder tip using the existing bolt holes. I just have it held on with a zip tie for now. It works for homing the Z axis. I have no idea if it is actually working to compensate for how level the bed is. If you use this sensor, don't install the Z axis limit switch.
    No instructions are given at all for the power supply. But you can google the correct way to hook things up to it. I used a 3-prong cable instead of the short 2 prong cable that came with it.
    If you get the optional MK8 extruder, you may have to google how to assemble it. The instructions given are for the stock extruder.
    I don't have my printer 'dialed in' yet. It isn't printing very well yet ... but it can print. You may need to calibrate the movement of the axes and the amount of plastic extruded - it appears that a file in the printer's memory must be edited and recompiled to do this. I have no idea how - no instructions given. No instructions at the Marlin website on recompiling either. However I'm happy to say that the X, Y, Z calibrations appear to already be good in my printer - but not the calibration of the amount of plastic extruded. But that can also be adjusted when you slice a model for printing.
    I have not contacted support for anything, but I get the impression that their support is actually pretty good. They were very responsive when I ordered the printer, contacting me to confirm what colour of free filament I'd like to receive with it, and to tell me it would be delayed by 2 days, while they waited to receive a shipment of extruders. When they shipped it, they sent me a photo of the package ready to be shipped, and a link to the assembly instructions and other resources.
    I use a much more expensive Lulzbot Taz 5 printer at my work, which is also a Prusa I3 variant - it is awesome. You can really see the difference the money makes. Had I not spent some time using this printer, I don't think I would have felt ready to assemble the Electron kit.
    Although I can't speak of the print quality yet, and despite my comments above, if you are ready to fiddle with things and figure out some relatively small problems, I'd say yes, go for this printer, it appears to be a good product for the price, with a good potential modification / upgrading. But it will be awhile yet before I can really say if I'd buy it a second time.
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    Update: It's taken a bit of fiddling around, but I've finally found that the all the default settings in the firmware are probably just fine. The printer wasn't extruding enough plastic, even when told to extrude a lot more. It turned out to be that the spring that pushes the extruder gear into the filament wasn't pushing hard enough. A spacer to compress the spring more fixed the problem. It is printing fine now.
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