I had a hard time getting my phone to pick up the belt vibration.
I listened to the belt and tried to hum the same note into my phone and it seemed okay maybe? Getting a pure note to within a single semitone wouldn’t be that difficult but I am more worried I might be hearing harmonics and then maybe I’m off by 50% or something.
When I assembled the Mk3, and to this day, the belts are all over the place tension wise. I check them with the “belt test” function on the firmware fairly regularly (every couple of years? 
) and printed a strain gauge too.
Since it all works fine with everything in various places “on the spectrum”, I’ve just gone on my happy way.
Now they’ve given me one more thing to over adjust and play with - I’m not sure how I feel about that!
Ideally, we’d have a consistent accessible easy to reproduce way to measure belt tension via deflection caused by some reasonably standard globally available object, e.g. can of Coke/Soda, or bottle of Beer held by 3D printed belt-to-bottle adaptor.
Maybe I’m over estimating how much a cheap, but good enough (for V1E build) belt tension gauge costs?
The truth is that the envelope of acceptable tension is pretty large. If it is not so loose it has backlash, and it isn’t breaking anything, it should perform almost identically to any other belt in that range. We aren’t flying at 200mm/s and we aren’t doing input shaping, so there aren’t many “dynamic” belt physics we have to worry about. It isn’t a large source of error in our builds.
These work really well - but the Prusa Machines are all of a fixed dimension with identical belt lengths, the longer the belt the more deflection for the same amount of tension.
I think @jeffeb3 's words are the only tension gauge we need!
There is a guide I posted in my Froschkönig thread and one dude created a testing jig before (Belt tension test rig).
The belt tension of the guide on the other link (Measuring belt tension, squaring and calibration - Shapeoko - Carbide 3D Community Site) does not fit the MPCNC, they need much tighter belts, but the method in general is valid. The Prusa page makes it even more simple.
I had the best success when pulling the belt, rather than plucking it. I think the whole printer resonated creating the high pitch. The belt also vibrates into the belt openings, creating a buzz that the microphone picks up.
Yes, jeff is right as always! But, that leaves out my fantasy of v1e-ers recording their belt pitches and using them as samples for making a song. The v1e-belt-choir!
MMMMMMmmmm… I finished assembling, and my oh my I like it!!
The extruder is a nice piece of engineering, it’s much simpler - but sturdier than the mk3. I guess the metal gears make the whole difference. It’s also convenient that the PINDA is gone, being replaced by the hall sensor inside the hotend.
I really like all the small details and improvements. Speed is great, even without input shaping. I could go on for long, I just want to share that I’m very satisfied and I only look forward to the Input Shaper coming properly into use and all the improvements to come!
Two things I wonder about is:
It’s really great, I am glad you also like it. 
I am not sure whether the fan is loud, because my Mini had a broken fan that was REALLY loud. 
I can’t hear it though, so maybe it is scratching. Did you only connect the two left screws? Is the orientation right? Or is that the other fan…
If you get the whole assembly, you can just loosen the two screws, remove the two plugs in the love board and then slide in the next extruder assembly. No changing nozzles etc.
Input Shaper works pretty well, they do say it’s an Alpha, it does not feel like one though. They also added a bunch more profiles a week or two ago for different nozzles and “Structural” printing that is still fast but sacrifices a bit of the speed for structural improvements in the prints. Who would have guessed…
You can also install both printer profiles in the slicer. The input shaping software on the printer can work with both.
So far I am very happy with mine.
Everything works first try and the first layer is perfect without any fuss. No hairspray, no adjustment of Z offset, no trial-and-error with test patterns.
I haven’t tried filament swap yet but from the filament loading it looks like it will be super easy. Manual change I would never do every layer, but one or two top or bottom layers and I can make a name tag or something.
It is pretty quiet, but when the part cooling fan is running it is slightly louder than I was expecting. But not bad.
Their PrusaLink appears to be basically equivalent to Octoprint, so that saves a step.
I haven’t tried input shaping, but then I also haven’t tried pushing the speeds. At some point I’ll get into that.
There is also Prusa Connect, which is like Prusa Link but from the internet. I now upload the files to connect, so I can always start them from the phone etc.
Just install the firmware, input shaping is so much fun.
It is. Did three swaps for some coins, easy as pie. 
Yeah, it’s quite annoying actually! I’ll do a sound metering when I’m back home. I’ve been inspired by all this talk about camping, so right now we’ve stumbled upon a little pieve of heaven!!
Yeah, thats kind of obvious- but it seems expensive if you want different sizes and hardened variants… haven’t checked the price though.
I am a bit relieved that it seems to be working out well for both of you - I’ve been having a bit of buyer-decision remorse of late, and i haven’t even ordered yet!
I think so too, but I guess there’s less risk too in terms of stripping threads in the hot end. I might be more tempted to use different nozzles more often if they were less fussy to swap - maybe just get a hardened one installed permanently?
I got more than 2000 hrs out of my last nozzle printing PLA and a small amount of other stuff, so maybe there’s method in buying the genuine E3D (Prusa) product instead of the ten for a dollar kind.
Whoa, that is amazing. I just had a weekend in the woods and I get up before anyone else, and had a cup of coffee outside under the redwoods. That beach scene is more my speed and I want to have a cup of coffee out there and enjoy the sunrise/set too. Wow.
Of course up there it’s very time efficient - if you do it right sunrise and sunset are pretty much at the same time!
Sounds like I would need an Irish Coffee just to be safe and have a morning and evening drink ready.
If you want an open source machine, and are on the “tinkering side” - the prusa is an obvious great upgrade. If you want the fastest and shiniest, without caring much about the machine at all, bambulabs is probably a good choice. (But when stuff brakes, who knows what’ll happen…)
Yes, I do agree, and unlike many folk, my wife is pushing me to do this, and i keep asking why I “need” it! I think she just considers our grandson needs my current machine more than I do… I saw on the Prusa Podcast an explanation for the “structural” slicer settings- and an explanation of why faster isn’t always better.
Honestly - not needing to worry about z height ever again, is a selling point good enough for me 
