I never understand my motives. I always buy things cause they are cheep but when I get started using them I get mad because I buy junk, I would say china junk , but right nowadays most 3d printers are coming from there.
We have a never break policy to buy only American, did I mention this costs 2 hundred bucks, I'm a sucker. Policy well I guess I'm a hypocrite, I'm so glad china doesn't make General Aviation Planes or helicopters cause I'd surely be in the ground, after you get going and realize these machines really are not complicated. We replace the electronic controllers right out of the box to duet wifi. Most other hardware just needs adjusting and tuning to keep running.
If your a beginner you will soon find most of the advise you get off screwtube is useless promoting and selling.
There are basics you need to understand and if your like me you have to experience them first hand to learn.
Update feb 2023:
At this point I have 6 lk1 printers working printing lots of stuff but mainly I have been developing a 3d printed drone body. I can't even explain how much stuff has been printed. I have made some upgrades, direct feed extruders the best, also PEI sheets for the heated beds. Here is a video link to some parts getting made
The printer in the background at the end is O'Red, my very first, still kicking out parts 24/7
hitting a wall right now, ran some cheep filament then all hell broke lose
I replaced the tubing from the extruder to the head and now this is where I'm at
My focus is on this feeder tube. I have seen this problem on another machine and it never got rectified
The build-up of plastic is kinda general maintenance
Inside the hot end metal receiver the tube inserts into there was a melted piece of the old tube. I used a #22 drill bit to get this cleaned out.
great time to measure and record the depth of the tube going into the metal receiver 1.070
this illustrates the mark made from the inserting of the tube, notice the mark made is before the depth the tube should have been inserted, this is the size of the piece that was broken off inside. the block dot is where the tube should have been inserted into
preheat when you assemble so it gets threaded in all the way
Back in business
FAILURE!! no temp at the nozzle. Got a good look inside the longer power supply and main board case.
running the cura app and watching the mainboard the extruder light illuminated saying the heat the element signal was present, First troubleshooting step was to replace the heating element. Yes getting a rise in temp now to test print
The filament tube into the hot end needed to be removed for the changing of the heater. After reassembly, the test print was started. During the run I could hear the filament extruder bumping, what ir was doing was pushing the filament into the heated nozzle then the filament would skip back because the pressure being applied. Viewing the layed down plastic I could see it was to flat. What i didn't do was level the bed thinking it would be the same, I cranked down on the bed until i could see the nice bead and wallah the extruder stopped bucking.
Replaced the heat element with one I had ordered a while back as a spare. It's listed at 70 w so should last longer than the original. I have never had one of these to fail, maybe it's the brand Longer uses. Not worth the hassle trying to get a replacement
Making parts
Never leveled the bed so I'll hope for the best, this is the last printed part for the MPCNC Primo build