Hi everyone! I’ve been lurking around for the past few months checking out the LR3/4 and MPCNC. I come from the neighboring rabbit hole of 3D Printing, and have fallen in love with CNC machines.
I finally decided on starting out with building an MPCNC since I’m limited on covered storage space ATM. I plan on upgrading to the LR4 in a year or so once I have a home with a shop.
I’m a bit weary of printing it in PLA, even though it’s finally winter in Texas. I am a bit concerned about summer storage in a shed, potentially causing the parts to deform. I am open to hearing the best filament alternatives, but that have color options. From what I’m seeing, the current recommendations are PLA, PET-CF, PC-CF. Has anyone tried to use some of these new filaments such as the Polymaker fiberon lineup, or Bambu Labs new engineering lineup? Call me curious, but for now I’ll print in PLA.
I do plan on building stock according to the docs, then modifying to my needs. Are there any must have QOL upgrades that aren’t integrated into the stock setup yet?
Finally I want to acknowledge everyone here that I’m grateful for your willingness to share this project, your knowledge, and help a new guy like me.
First build it stock. Making upgrades before even learning how to assemble it, no bueno!
You can search the forums for those upgrades later on. First do: pla parts, assembly, learn al the in&out for cad/cam and running your jobs then see what you want to improve on your setup
V1 docs have a lot of resources that will make your life easier into the cnc world. Look for the software workflow page. You can ask anyone about everything we are all here to help
Like Cesar said, absolutely build stock and follow the instructions. Must have and additions can come afterwards, easier to rule out any non-standard things to troubleshoot against.
Now given that there has been lots of people in hot regions concerned about PLA warping, I haven’t seen to much mention on “it has warped”, just concerns. Go with PLA as recommended and if down the line in summer there are issues, I’d explore at that point. This is also a good reason to clean it up from usage over time.
Add-ons or mods afterwards are more something that will have to make sense for you. Myself I use a drag chain and SKR so I have a screen, so a drag chain mount made sense (Lowrider not mpcnc), if you use a jackpot that’s not a think you really need to do. Build it stock, get it working, and then think about what makes sense for your workflow and setup and make those adjustments.
With that said, also just have fun building it and best of luck with the build! Keep up informed of how it goes!
PET-GF, PC-GF.
Note Glass filled, not Carbon filled.
Most folks don’t have issues with heat deformation, despite someone showing up every month or two insiting that the Tgt of PLA means all of our machines will wilt in our garages.
That said, there are a few who do run into the issue.
If you’re running a machine in Death Valley, or Dubai, or in a garage in Texas with a giant south facing window… you might need one of those high temp materials.
The suggestions above to build it stock first are really good suggestions.
I don’t want to derail your general thoughts, but a small LowRider 4 is really sturdy as well, if not more than the Primo, and you can easily upgrade it later by just taking longer rails.
The Lowrider is my clear choice over the MPCNC. I’d opt for a slightly smaller Lowrider build. The MPCNC simply can’t compete with the Lowrider’s overall performance.
Thank you everyone for the advice. As I have seen it mentioned many times before (also having learned my lesson with building printers), I am building the MPCNC according to the docs until I get aquatinted enough.
Also, I would love to build a LR4, but my current use case/situation is that I am forced to setup the CNC, use it, then put it away after every use in the corner of a shed. So the next best thing I could come up with was building an MPCNC for use/learning for now, then convert to a LR4 when I have a dedicated covered space later.
I appreciate everyone’s input, it really helps. I look forward to learning a lot more from you all. I’ll do my best to document and share my progress, but I’m not a youtuber so don’t get too excited.
The only place in the docs that I could find alternative filament recommendations besides PETG in the MPCNC docs was in the LR4 docs, where this was stated:
“PLA is recommended for ultimate rigidity, other filaments With great rigidity and added heat resistance are PET-GF/CF and PC-GF/CF.”
Was PET-CF or PC-CF found to not be acceptable compared to GF? I only ask to clarify, not to start an argument or anything. My original inquiry was more geared towards using colored filaments with added heat resistance but similar rigidity to PLA, but it doesn’t seem like there’s many options.
But I am fortunate for the next 4 months or so that it’s winter here in TX with highs around 60-70F (20C), so PLA will work great until April or so.
Would you happen to know what kinds of symptoms to expect with warped parts? Gantry binding? Tolerances out of spec by 1-2mm or 10-20mm? I’m very new to this side of things.
Thanks for the input. My current hurdle seems to be importing the PP into F360. I’ll make a separate post for that though after I look again through the docs/forum one last time.
Thanks for the info. I saw a few forum posts comaring PET-CF and PC-CF with a few brands of PLA/PETG and although they were informative, I haven’t seen (so far) many builds showing the effects on a MPCNC. So thanks for sharing your experience.
Print quality is MUCH better. I am sure I could have tuned in the GF better but for the amount more it cost per spool its not worth it to me. I will stick with the PET-CF that is working exceptionally well
I built an MPCNC Primo first and I love the machine! I promise you will too. Be patient with milling. It’s not complex but there are some fundamentals you have to learn that aren’t always totally intuitive.
I just finished printing all the parts for an LR4 out of PETG-CF and I’m quite happy with the accuracy and finish. Everything is bolted together and the fitment between the 3d printed parts is really good!
