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Post by jennifer on Mar 8, 2016 8:54:26 GMT
Looking to be sold on this printer. I know Darkness and Meph both have it. I need a replacement printer.
Darkness, how did you go about researching and deciding on this printer?
It has a build volume of 6x6x6 inches right? Is this a full/real 6 inches? i.e. can I print a 6x6 dungeon tile with it? I couldn't on my Monoprice.
How much money am I going to need to invest in this printer to upgrade it?--above the base cost.
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Post by Meph on Mar 8, 2016 11:41:38 GMT
Jennifer, I don't know if you are going to like the Simple Metal. It's much more of a manual machine than the Monoprice printer. There is no on screen display, in fact there is no printer "options" at all. Everything is run through computer. THere is a MicroSD card slot but its in a harder location to reach and you don't have any options. You insert the card and it begins printing what is on the card. I do everything through a laptop and today my Raspberry Pi3 arrives and that will become my print server shortly.
Also, your loading filament issues...this has no load/unload filament options either. On this one you manually depress a metal piece and push the filament through the extruder until is starts streaming out. I am using Cura for everything and think its a great program now that I learned it but configuring the auto sensor and manually adjusting extruder/sensor height through Cura was a hair pulling experience at first until I figured out what I am doing.
I originally looked because of Darkness's recommendation but then I just started googling it. Look at all the different 3D sites out there and their "Top 10 of 2015/2016" and you will find the Printrbot Simple Metal on those lists consistently because of it's build quality. It is a solid machine but I don't think I would qualify it as user friendly. I know a good deal of my friends would be completely lost using it without someone training them.
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Post by jennifer on Mar 8, 2016 12:30:07 GMT
Jennifer, I don't know if you are going to like the Simple Metal. It's much more of a manual machine than the Monoprice printer. There is no on screen display, in fact there is no printer "options" at all. Everything is run through computer. THere is a MicroSD card slot but its in a harder location to reach and you don't have any options. You insert the card and it begins printing what is on the card. I do everything through a laptop and today my Raspberry Pi3 arrives and that will become my print server shortly. Also, your loading filament issues...this has no load/unload filament options either. On this one you manually depress a metal piece and push the filament through the extruder until is starts streaming out. I am using Cura for everything and think its a great program now that I learned it but configuring the auto sensor and manually adjusting extruder/sensor height through Cura was a hair pulling experience at first until I figured out what I am doing. I originally looked because of Darkness's recommendation but then I just started googling it. Look at all the different 3D sites out there and their "Top 10 of 2015/2016" and you will find the Printrbot Simple Metal on those lists consistently because of it's build quality. It is a solid machine but I don't think I would qualify it as user friendly. I know a good deal of my friends would be completely lost using it without someone training them. Well I am a computer programmer, have written device drivers and have made my own digital & analog circuits including a linear power supply, so I can probably figure it out. How do the motors sound and the bearings compared to Monoprice? Monoprice is quite noisy and just didn't sound that high of quality with all the noise it makes. I think it needed lubrication or something. Can you print a 6x6 tile on it? a full 6 inches?
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Post by Meph on Mar 8, 2016 12:34:46 GMT
I never said you couldn't figure it out, just said its a lot more mechanical. As for noise, it's louder than the Monoprice printer. I don't know why you cant print a 6 inch tile on the Monoprice printer. Based on the specs you should be able to. When you configure your printer in the software are you manually setting your print bed size? Since the monoprice printer isn't listed I wouldn't trust any of the settings to be correct.
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Post by Meph on Mar 8, 2016 12:45:36 GMT
Actually I take that back, your Y-Axis is only (145mm) 5.7 inches. The Printrbot is 150x150x150mm which is 6"x6"x6".
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Post by jennifer on Mar 8, 2016 13:14:14 GMT
Actually I take that back, your Y-Axis is only (145mm) 5.7 inches. The Printrbot is 150x150x150mm which is 6"x6"x6". I wanna see a 6x6 OpenForge tile printed from your machine wouldn't that be a useful tile? Just curious if it could really do it. If one doesn't exist, I'll piece it together for you in blender and upload to thingiverse.
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Post by Meph on Mar 8, 2016 13:33:43 GMT
Biggest floor tile is 4x4. Make a 6x6 one and I will print it.
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Post by adamantinedragon on Mar 8, 2016 13:43:30 GMT
150mm is short of six inches by roughly 2.4mm, which doesn't sound like much but it's almost a tenth of an inch.
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Post by Meph on Mar 8, 2016 14:05:50 GMT
Slicr and Repetier both list the simple metal as 152.4. Give me the tile and i'll let you know.
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Post by Meph on Mar 8, 2016 14:10:21 GMT
THe bed itself is 11" wide by 6.5" deep. Now I can't print a full 11" wide because of the mounts on the topside of the bed but the bed upgrade that increases the bed to a full 10" is only a bed and X-Axis rod replacement. Unlike the Monoprice printer, the extruder doesn't move on this one, the bed does. I am pretty certain it will print the 6x6 tile.
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Post by Meph on Mar 8, 2016 14:28:33 GMT
Btw, thanks for pointing that out. It made me go in the other room to measure the bed. When I did I realized that my filament was twisted up on the roll. I tried to free it and it snapped under the pressure. Kinda hard to see in the pic but it's just a piece sticking out of the extruder. There is no pause feature, no load filament feature, etc so I decided to try and manually feed it in while it was printing and it worked just fine. It never missed a beat. As for the filament tangling up, I need to figure that one out. I dont know if it's this roll of monoprice filament or the way the roll sits to the side. I might have to make something to guide it better. You can see in the next pic how it sits loose on the roll.
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Post by jennifer on Mar 8, 2016 14:45:19 GMT
Slicr and Repetier both list the simple metal as 152.4. Give me the tile and i'll let you know. So OpenForge doesn't offer a 6x6 tile? I didn't notice it--tried to search thingiverse. want me to piece one together foryou? WOuld be useful no? For Tilescapes etc.. or like using OpenForge with 2.5D next inner walls .. kind of a hybrid option?
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Post by jennifer on Mar 8, 2016 15:04:12 GMT
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Post by Meph on Mar 8, 2016 15:48:05 GMT
Ok so here is the deal. When you setup Cura you have to manually input your bed size. I went with 150x150x150 as per the product info on the website. Reading some posts today people are saying the actual size is 152.4 which is exactly 6". So I set my X & Y to 152.4mm. In Cura, if the item appears as yellow on the plate then it is printable. This was coming up grey. The reason being is the size of either a brim or a skirt. Even a skirt needs 3mm of space. So instead I chose raft which it doesn't need, but a raft requires no additional space. Doesn't appear to be a way to go without at least a skirt so raft was the only possible choice to print at that size. So you can see once I switched to raft it turned yellow. Now there is no way I am spending 7 hours and 29 minutes printing a floor tile so I started the print so you could see the raft size. I don't have calipers so you will have to go with a steel rule. I don't know if this answers your question. For me I really don't see myself printing 6x6 tiles. They have limited usefulness for me. Even if I add single tile walls, the minimum rooms size is 80'x80' in D&D. If I used standard walls it's now 100'x100'. I can see maybe having one or two of those tiles but it's rare to have rooms that big and I would just prefer having 9 2x2 tiles for more versatility. If you are printing these for your tilescapes then plan to spend a week or two doing nothing but 6x6 tiles just to get a box. At that point I think I would rather just spend an hour cutting cork, or even better yet just buying 6x6 cork boards.
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Post by jennifer on Mar 8, 2016 16:03:12 GMT
Cool. Thought you could of used it. Oh well. Nice to know it can handle 6x6 though! I certainly would print 6x6 tiles. That;s wonderful that it can handle it.
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Post by Meph on Mar 8, 2016 16:17:36 GMT
Yeah a 6x6 wouldn't be bad if it didn't take 1/3rd of a day to print a single one =) I may print one or two of them but I will definitely do that when I am at work.
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