I originally ordered an Acrylic I3 from Geeetech. 1/3 of the way through the build, I realised that every single bit of Acrylic had been cut out slightly off true. All the 90° angles were actually around 87° instead - so nothing would fit properly or line up. They replaced that pile with a Pro W instead (because I asked them nicely). Every single rod in the Pro W was off true. Every single one! Plus, the threaded rods were also bent, just to add to the fun - & the "tolerances" on the wooden frame were horrifyingly bad. I managed to nearly stabilise the Z-axis through replacing the threaded rods with lead screws (dirt cheap Chinese eBay ones, which were sooo much better than the stock Geeetech junk) & using lots of collars. The X & Y are currently a work in progress (my new X-axis rods should arrive on Friday), although with every month that passes, it's getting better. It cost me £150 originally, & I've now spent between an extra £150 & £200 on top getting it working (my genuine E3D hotend & extruder weren't cheap, but I put them on & they worked perfectly, first time, & they instantly fixed all of my extruder & hotend problems, so they were worth every penny). On the plus side, I have been working on a very detailed Amazon review of what they sold me, with timelines & in-depth descriptions of just how crap it was, plus all the extra costs that I have incurred. It was the least that I could do...

In my opinion, if you buy really long lengths of really cheap stainless steel rod, ie 5 or 6m, then pick them up in the middle rather carelessly with a crane. Manhandle them a little bit more, drop them on an uneven concrete floor, then cut them up into 400mm & 600mm lengths, you should get exactly this effect...

I really regret ever having bought anything from Geeetech. Thankfully, now I know (just about) enough to build my own - which I can then slap my E3D hotend & extruder on & I'll be laughing.

 

Thanks @Rick 2.0 - this site looks really interesting.

 

This Broken Bed Spring Link may have been reported:
http://www.centuryspring.com/Store/item_detail.php?StockNumber=3712

I just purchased one of your A6 kits. (User name here is not the same as paypal email) from Moore, OK. I think your kit will work much better as long as the disconnected motor doesn't act like a spring.

 

Wow Keith, that was fast. USPS reported they were in possession of my kit. Thanks

 

I received my A6 upgrade kit today. I must say your prints are really top notch. Caliper says no differences side to side or piece to piece.
Very impressed.
Just in time for tear down as my A6 Mboard gave up the ghost yesterday. Not sure what to replace it with as another ANet Mboard seems like it will
happen again.

 

Well looks like the Mboard problem turned out to be a PS problem. For some reason it will only output 2.9v. Strange, but easier to replace.

 

Do you already have the parts list?

 

I want to build this one

 

Do you know what is the final price?

 

Well I got this printer assembled over the weekend. There were enough instructions to complete the task, and some improvising along the way to customize some things. I am glad I am an electrical engineer for when it came time for the electronics. I can see how someone with less knowledge in this area could get stuck on this build and have to scour the reprap guides to debug and wire everything.

Here are some things I noticed during the build and questions if you have the time Keith. Any advice/help is much appreciated.

My part cooling bellow doesn't align below the nozzle, but at the heat block. I attached an image. Is that normal? I thought it should be pointing down toward the nozzle area. I can make a custom spacer to lower that some. It looks like mine is too high compared to your pics.

I also noticed at least one discrepancy from some other postings about the stepper motor config. I thought you were using 16th steps for the X and Y; and 8th steps for Z and Extruder. X and Y were moving properly during setup, but I was getting double long moves on Z, so I changed the jumpers to 16th steps and its now accurate there. I ran out of time before work and haven't verified the extruder step size yet.
Is the LZ firmware on your site configured for 8th or 16th steps on the Z axis? I'll remove the nozzle and extract 10mm from the edge of the heat block when I get home to see what I get for length.
Did you decide to use 16th steps across the board? Any reason why?

I couldn't find any assembly steps for the Z end stop adjustment screw. It looks like you have a long threaded rod, but that isn't in the BOM or any assembly steps. It just says to install the Z stop adjuster, with no details. It looks like an M3 or M4 sized hole that would need to cover 3 or so inches. So my Z stop isn't the most reliable right now as its just a self tapping screw in that hole. I fiddled with the end stop height to get the correct Z0 point.

What screw/hardware are you using for the Z end stop adjuster? All I have are the plastic pieces.
Do you set the origin on the corner of the bed or off the bed?

So far I have about 20 hours of fabrication/assembly, and 6-8 hours of routing and figuring out wiring connections, hahaha. I customized some things, and fabricating the mounting plates to mount the electronics platform (acetal sheet) to the power supply via brackets took a while. The MOSFETs are great, they didn't even get warm when I tested one by powering up the bed for 10 minutes, so that will take some heat stress away from the MKS-GEN board.

I should have my first print sometime tonight, getting excited. Thanks for posting 90% accurate instructions Keith, this was a fun and rewarding project so far.

 

Thanks Keith. That info helps. I do have the extruder at 8th steps and it measures correctly after marking the filament, then feeding 50mm.

I only had 1 semi-successful print, and the rest haven't completed due to filament not feeding. Its as if its getting cool up above the melt zone, and I've tried upping the temp from 185 to 215 with no help, so I don't see how that is causing this. I tried offsetting my Z home position by 0.1 and 0.2 mm which helped a little, but I keep getting a filament jam at 10-15 layers in. Any ideas or common rookie mistakes I am making? I do notice the nozzle running over areas in prior layers, as if they are not flat. Would that cause this plug up? After I kill the job and let it sit for a bit, it seems to start flowing again though.

 

I was having temp issues. Im in the basement so I guess I didn't realize how hot I needed it to get good flow. Now onto cleaning up the print settings. The calibration cube was slightly over 20mm, so I will tweak the steps per unit in firmware.

 

Thanks for the tips Keith. After many hours of playing with settings and test prints I think I am getting there.

Big Problem 1: LEARN HOW TO ASSEMBLE A HOT END. Haha, I wasn't paying attention when I assembled it, so the heat break barrel wasn't threaded to the correct depth and was getting hot on the cool end. I didn't realize at first you need to screw in the nozzle, leaving several threads left. Then screw the heat break barrel flush with the nozzle. Then use the wrenches to get it snug to avoid leaking. This keeps the skinny part of the heat break barrel right between the cold and hot ends. Once I reassembled it the correct way I didn't have any more filament plug up near my cold end. I get a ton of debris on my knurled gear from the wood filament and there are nice indentations from the gear in the filament also. I did have to up my spring tension, so that may have played into it. I wasn't sure how tight it needed to be and didn't want to over-work the motor if I didn't need to.

Big Problem 2: Ensure the bed is level. I spent several hours of levelling and re-levelling due to sticking issues. This was mainly my own lack of experience getting the better of me, but eventually you get the hang of it. I can run the nozzle all around the bed at 0 and not see a gap or scrape the bed. When I thought I had it level, I ran the nozzle in a grid-like pattern on X,Y in 50mm increments and verified the gap distance with the Z axis set to 0.1mm. I used a feeler paper which was 0.1mm thick to gauge. I was able to feel light scraping against the nozzle. If I couldn't fit the paper between the nozzle and bed, I adjusted the nearest screw a fraction of a turn until I felt the light scraping as it slid under the nozzle. I had an issue where the bed springs would cause a screw to bind slightly, so whenever I make an adjustment, I jiggle that corners spring and screw to ensure that corner is up at its intended height. I had to do some customization around the bed spacers to get my setup to where I wanted it.

Other than those 2 major issues that took some time to learn about and overcome, I am now printing directly on my Ultrabase 220x220mm glass bed and prints ae sticking down the first time. I used a thin thermal pad between the heat bed and glass plate. I get uniform heating at 2-3 degrees under the temp reported in firmware. I modified the leveling screw system some to be able to use this glass plate. Once level, I haven't had to touch it yet after a couple dozen prints. I learned a ton in the process about slic3r settings and adjustments and found a few test prints for heat/speed testing on new filaments.
I shouldn't have started printing with PLA+, its not as good of a starter filament, unless I got a finicky batch. When I switched to some wood PLA I wanted to try, it laid down so smooth and perfect, I almost cried, it made me so happy. I thought I was the problem the whole time, haha. The PLA+ wanted to keep sticking to the nozzle but I finally figured out a good temp and speed for first layer to get 90%+ stick rate on first try.
I'm afraid to go up to 100mm/s on infill. 60 seems like its almost too fast, haha. I've been using 40mm/s perimeters, 60mm/s infill-bridges-supports, and 30mm/s first layer. Maybe after I get more comfortable I will go faster. I am trying to print some details at .1 mm layer heights so the lower speeds are better for that.
I attached the doll crib I printed out of wood PLA overnight. I just have a little stringing I will try to correct with more retraction, and some details are a little fuzzy, but overall a nice print.
Do you know what would case the wavy appearance on the vertical faces? I get that on every print, like there is slop somewhere, but it isn't a lot. Its on all faces of the Z axis. My extruder feels a little wobbly and not very rigid if I wiggle it up/down gently, other than that all axes seem snug with no play.

Update (11/4/2019) - My odd surface finish was from vibrations caused by loose extruder carriage mini-V wheels. I didn't have the non-concentric spacer rotated enough and there was some up/down slop at the extruder carriage wheels. This makes sense. Since the issue was on all vertical faces of the prints I figured it was an extruder vibration or table vibration. The table is solid so that left me to tighten up the carriage. Now I am printing in good detail at 0.15mm layer heights using the stock 0.4mm nozzle.

I am more than happy I went with this build. It prints so smooth now that the kinks are ironed out.

 

Good tips. I will check into that. I had the parts printed by a friend and I already reprinted a couple with this printer that seem to fit better than his. Maybe I will reprint the whole extruder set with this printer. I did find some play in the extruder carriage V-Wheels also. I tightened up the wheels by adjusting the lower wheel's spacer. The nut wasn't too tight so maybe I forgot to tighten it after installation. Its printing better now, and dead accurate, but all parts just wind up with this wavy surface finish on all smooth walls or textures. It doesn't show up on rounds though. I printed a couple succulent planters and it wasn't as noticeable. I'll figure it out. I'm already way better than when I started. Its fairly addicting and I think I need another printer already