Does anyone know if any of the official resellers sell individual printed parts, rather than kits containing all needed 3d printed parts?
I’m on a super tight budget for my LR4 build, and in order to save money I intended to 3d print all the of the printed parts on my own. I’ve got a decent printer, but have discovered the hard way that my shop environment doesn’t really have the temperature control I need to print the larger parts cleanly. My print attempts for the core and yz plates have all resulted in either significant defects, or failed entirely around the 80% point. I can print all the smaller parts without issue, only these 3 larger parts are giving me trouble, as the print times for these are multiple days each, which demands printing through significant temperature variations I experience in my shop.
I’ve got some buffer I left in my budget to address any problems that came up, but I didn’t leave myself enough to cover the purchasing a full part kit. I was hoping there might be some way I could pick up just these three large parts.
My other option is to print the parts in smaller sections and use a strong plastic epoxy to assemble them. I intellectually know that a good epoxy will cure with better tensile strength than any FDM layer adhesion, so the epoxy joint should literally be less likely to fail than then parts being joined… but it’s still hard to feel comfortable assembling a machine with parts you’ve glued together.
There are basically only two sellers for the normal parts, Ryan in the US and the rest of the world except for the EU where I also supply the parts. I am pretty sure that both of us can find a solution for you, the material for those three parts is nearly half of the material that a LR needs though.
@Blit8 Where are you located? Ryan and Jonathan are in the US and Philipp is in Germany. If you are in the US and it’s OK with Ryan, I can print them for you if you would cover material and shipping.
I think you should complete the rest of the prints to make sure they work. Once you are down to only those three parts then we can be sure to only have to ship one box.
The control board boxes are pretty big, and could be an issue.
H.mm. I have a set of RC1 core and YZ plates in a box here doing nothing, but I can’t remember what changed between RC1 and actual release. I think it was mostly some nut traps. I don’t know what comications would come from cross border shipping, so probably not worth shipping from Canada, but if so…
I have a bunch of stuff in that box. The Y rail clips are different and the gantry braces for sure, the core and rollers don’t have the alternate homing switch locations, which I think are the main changes. The wire cutout on the bottom of the YZ plates might be a touch tighter, I remember there being an adjustment to that. Looking into it though, cross border shipping blows chunks.
I appreciate everyone giving my problem consideration. The entire situation is driven by a combination of my tight budget, and my challenging 3d print environment.
I’ve been interested in CNC milling and other computer added manufacturing technologies since I was a teen, but it has always been far too painful for me to explore. Historically, it was too expensive for me to pick up as a hobby, and switching to it professionally would have reset my income back to starting wages.
What Ryan and the others here have done, is nothing short of amazing. It’s taken what has been out of my reach for 30+ years, and made it for more accessible and affordable.
At the moment, the weather is going to be mild for a few days, so I’m attempting to reprint the problematic items with the remainder of the filament I bought for the project. With a bit of luck, I’ll make it through.
Hope you don’t mind the obvious question - can you put your printer somewhere more thermally stable temporarily? I printed all of mine in my living room.
I bought a current-generation Ender 3 v3 SE for £150 for this job. I appreciate you’re on a tight budget so it’s not really an option, but I mention it mainly because even as an entry-level printer running on stock settings, it printed the largest part first time in, I don’t know, maybe 18h? If parts are taking days and failing repeatedly, it might be worth considering a newer printer when budget permits.
