Printer Recommendations

Heh, my mic6 plate is flat enough and leveled properly so all I do is a single Z in the middle then print. :wink: I have 3 belted leadscrews though so the bed is always the same at those 3 points.

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I’ve accidentally run my bed too high a couple times. That’ll throw off the level. Also the steppers will drift over time. I also have a removable build plate, so the surface will change a touch every time you pull it off.

Oooh. Those are purdy. Almost makes me want to get a second printer, but I barely print enough to warrant having the first one. I would like a larger build volume. I’ll have to go look at some of those machines.

A long time ago, I went with the Geetech Aluminum. I think the only thing still stock on it is the metal frame… scratch that. I had modified the frame too… Anyways… The biggest and best upgrade I ever did to it was when I replaced the stock controller with a RADDs board. That was well over a year ago now and I haven’t had to upgrade any of the machine since.

Putting it in an enclosure is the second best thing I did. I rarely have to touch the machine. I have a smart switch that allows me to start it from my office, and I can upload a print to Octoprint and start it without ever going out to the machine. When it’s done, I take the print off, clean the glass plate, and turn off the machine until the next time I need it. Of course, that means most of what I’ve been printing lately has all been ‘transparent’ as I’m too lazy to go change filament colors. My MPCNC now looks like a rainbow from replacing parts using whatever color was on the printer at the time.

Ahh, the beauty of belted leadscrews to a single stepper is no drift over time. :wink: And I have my removable build plate with pei always replaced facing the same direction so the leveling is consistent.

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I have built 2 Core X/Y style printers. The D-Bot and Weedwalls Hypercube. My D-bot has a 300x300x300 build space, and it is my work horse. This can be a really good printer if you take the time to stiffen up the Z axis. The way it is designed was not to my liking, but a few mods and it is rock solid. I haven’t had to relevel the bed since I got it tuned where I wanted it. I run 2 lead screws, one in front and the other in the rear, running off of one stepper motor. The bed rides on 16mm linear rods that are both mounted in the rear of the machine. My Hypercube has a build space of 400x400 at around 18" tall i believe. I think it really boils down to how much time you have to invest in such builds. I have spent countless hours building and tweaking, but my machines run near perfect now, and that gives me some satisfaction. :sunglasses:

On a side note, Weedwalls hypercube is really nice, but he has made several changes to his design, and sometimes he leaves the old version of parts in the zip files, so take notice of that. I think I started building it right after he put it up on thingiverse, so it was a work in progress.

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I have been looking at this again. I was planning on checking some out in person at mrrf… Now I am back to trying to see through the BS. Thanks for the perspective. I do really like the extrusion corexy style. I would like to get one with linear rails instead of rods though. I would have bought a seckit go this week if they had been in stock, I think.

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I have thought about upgrading my XY axis to linear rails, but I’ve got it running too good to take apart😂

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My hypercube BLV fusion is a XY rails system. It’s on the thingiverse… but it’s sort of designed as a parts dump for a ton of different designs and options. One of these days I’ll separate out just a single set of pieces and have a single parts list, I just have so many projects on the go. :wink:

I really like the looks of the D-Bots. I had a friend start building one, but I don’t know if he ever finished it.

I’ve been considering building a replacement to my Geeetech Aluminum.

Prusa MK3 - I have a friend who uses this and has tuned his to near perfection. Cant be beaten…

Other than that Ender 3 Pro, just got it and out of the box was mind blowing… Creality just released a new variant of the CR as well which looks amazing with runoutsensors etc.

@jeffeb3
So all these months ago you mentioned the BLV Cube, which was new to me. I studied the plans, parts needed etc. And I built one :slight_smile:
It’s become an awesome printer, with print quality similar to my i3 mk3s. I was hoping for better than that, but the countless hours tweaking finally got to me and I called it quits. It’s good enough for now, and the large build volume will be great for printing the Primo when the 25mm parts will be available.
I chose to implement a triple-z setup which I highly recommend in combination with a Duet board.
As a fun project I made my own X-carriage to work with a BMG extruder and Mosquito hotend.
I had a blast building the machine, and highly recommend it for experienced builders.

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That’s awesome. I have built a gridbot, I guess I forgot to come mention it in this thread.

Pictures?

You’re asking @SergeR for pictures, right?

Yes. I’ve seen yours. You could use some better lighting :stuck_out_tongue:

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Everyone knows @jeffeb3 uses filters and mood lighting to make his tool pics look better…

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Here’s my BLV Cube with triple Z configuration. The X-carriage is my own design, after printing the prototypes I had the parts MJF printed.

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That looks solid. Thanks for sharing.

Brother models are my personal favorites you can check some printers reviews here. It takes decent photos on photo paper, but I rarely use it for that. Docs/email account for the majority of my printing, though I rarely print more than a few pages per month. Currently, I have an MFC-J480DW under my desk. It will run a cleaning cycle periodically to keep the heads clear as long as you leave it on (it will sleep on its own). In addition, I prefer the scanning experience to HP’s.

For around $80, you can get those or a new version. I can get a set of third-party ink for less than $20.

If you were doing daily printing in higher volume, you’d be looking at a higher price range, but for something under that, you’d be looking at a lower price range.

We were talking about 3d printers.

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