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Dare I bust the thread again? lol What on earth happened there?? AshleySmith, double check you're not loosing steps on the axis that's slipping too. You may need to eek the current up to the stepper motor just a smidge! It's a little difficult to see what's happening with that clear filament.

Yep, our printers are similar to that but as Vr5fx said, we have no tensioner on these I3's. Mayzie, Mayzie, trying not to go crazee! What parts are you missing pal? Now there's a few of us with a bit more experience I'm sure we can get you up and running? Tamiya, well miffed for you with your unit, you try to do the right thing and it keeps biting you on the behind. Fingers crossed it gets better :)

Yep, our printers are similar to that but as Vr5fx said, we have no tensioner on these I3's. Mayzie, Mayzie, trying not to go crazee! What parts are you missing pal? Now there's a few of us with a bit more experience I'm sure we can get you up and running?

I was told a story about using a single square of tissue for your clean up operation - What's that up the fingernail? I've had a week of very little to do with the printer. I plugged it in yesterday to print out a little mount for a V6 E3D clone extruder and it was running like a dogs dinner Swapping the filament, speeds etc and it was still stringy and over extruding then under extruding. I noticed the temperature on the hot end was swinging wildly by upto +/- 15*C!! How the hell? The kapton and given up near the thermister and the poor little component was in and out like something from the hokey cokey Having decided that must be the cause of all the problems, I stripped the hot end, re taped, nipped the heater and was about to put it all back together - but thought - whilst I'm here, I'll check the teflon liner, glad I did - it was fubar! The wild temperature swings had degraded the teflon pretty bad. Luckily I'd ordered some last week from AliExpress and it landed Wednesday. Boom! Back in the groove from there. I was getting worried it may be the psu or the melzi board giving up the goats but luckily, quite trivial in the end and the first real issue with the machine after not nipping the nozzle tight enough from the initial install. Top Stuff!

The things you don't know you NEED in your life - awesome!

have you tried reflashing and starting from scratch again? Maybe worth one last shot?

I can only say the same as others, check the motors and props are as they should be, it's still easily done lol. Otherwise, have you got the CC3D set up as they expect? I tend to spin mine 90* to gain access to the USB easier and have before, forgot to make the change in the software - DOH! But that'd be more the cyclic stick acting wrong, ie left to right stick gives forward to back flight. Re calibrate the level setting in the software, belt and braces.

Similar thinking to mine then, I keep meaning to pick up a cheap extinguisher for this as a 'you never know'....

Looks good, a nice base colour from which to start from for realistic tones. On long time scale prints, ie, 4hrs+ does everyone simply leave their printers 'to it'? I still can't bring myself to leave it unattended even though I have no reason to not trust it.

I've dropped my temps from 200*C all the way down to as low as 175*C for larger models and 165*C for smaller models. I'm aware the electronics are only as good as the feedback received from the thermister - a small pinch of salt with the temperatures and their actual readings has been taken. But, that's what seems to work with this silver filament I'm using at the moment. The models are fine and I don't mind the cleaning of them - it's just I know they could be better. But with so many variables at play, including ambient temperature I think I need to tinker quite a bit more for quality and consistency.

I seem to get lots of ooze no matter which pla I use, I'm upto 6mm retraction which sounds very high, most places online suggesting 4mm with a direct drive? The mk8 extruder appears to have a history of ooze. Speed wise, I'm using 30-40mm/sec for small parts and 60mm/sec for larger models. Since using the glass base I've had to look at the temps again, a warm bed means I can knock a little off the extruder. This acrylic frame wobbles about too much to go faster imo.... it's sat on a picnic table at the minute which is probably far from ideal

Linear bearings hold the 'balls' captive, a ball nut does not. Is it a ball nut on the machine, not a trapezoidal screw?

Or get some microwave brackets and bolt in some 10mm linear bearings?

Another option? You could add a dremel mount and try cutting your own, but the bearings in these are simply not good enough. Even the 10mm rods are a joke in a router. You may even end up destroying the rest of your machine

Are these what you'd need? Pricey but they are big chunks of aluminium Could you not form a triangle from 3 pieces of alloy bar or a more substantial form? At least you should be able to do that at home?

is there no manufacturer drawings to work from? I built this last year My 400x600x100 capacity CNC router Now I have cut aluminium but mainly small stuff for the scalers and crawlers out there but could, if feasible, try cutting some 3d printer parts I also have the run of a reasonable workshop, milling machine and lathe as well as more grinding machines than most will have ever seen.

Got a link to the part with no alloy upgrade Tamiyacowboy?

for that kind of money you simply do not have many options. As several other advised their usefulness, I bought one of these. I received a bill from Fedex for £32.xx so, that's pretty much your budget done. Ebay may turn up a few other variations of the same printer from Europe. You will save the Fedex love letter but they seem to have already added that to their prices. Once in your possession, you will want a few more bits, ideally a glass plate for the print bed, Borosilicate runs at about £10-12 for the size we need. Otherwise its just costs to keep feeding it I've found - form there the world is your lobster The printer isn't perfect, it is down to a cost in many respects but it is great fun and once you start printing useful bits, you'll struggle to stop!

This site speaks about the subject and as a bonus us UK based for currency! Depreciation is covered in their costings, which I've purposely avoided as we've all got differing priced models and uses for said 'tools'.

As a ball park figure, my last model cost: 2.5hours of electricity. At 3p per hour that's 8p I used 18m of filament from what Repetier reported to me. A roll of PLA is ~ £18 for 330m. 18m/330m = 0.055 (or 5.5% if you prefer) and 0.055*£18 = £0.99 £0.08 + £0.99 = £1.07 as a direct cost to me as a hobbyist. I'll have to replace the masking tape at some point and the time to clean the part is free to me. I hope all my maths is correct or I'm spouting rubbish!

If you're running a business from the printer then it sounds more along the right lines. As you know, the design work takes the time and real skill. Once the machine is calibrated and running well, it's a matter of time. That's generally why the CAD monkeys can handle these in a way they never could with a manual machine - they like it even more if they have to do minimal clean up to the model after Maintenance and upkeep isn't free but, fairly negligible if kept on top of. Another thought, could the $1 per hour include the filament cost? We know it's going to run X amount in a hour maximum from the feedrates. All very much a generalisation but for a ball park figure it's probably 'good enough'?

my psu is 12V x 15A, so flat out running at full capacity I'd be using 180W per hour. I know we use 220V but 180W is pretty much 180W, the fly in the ointment being the losses in the conversion between mains and 12V. For the sake of argument, I'd say 200W consumption without any measuring. Therefore, 1kW = 1000W / 200W = 5 hours use for a kW of electricity in my printers' case. Cost wise, I pay about £0.14 per kW iirc, round upto 15pence for ease of maths and £0.15 / 5 hours = £0.03 per hour running costs. In reality, we're not going to be running at 100%, if we are the psu would need swapping out for a larger capacity unit. A roll of 1.75mm filament is 330m I think I've read. Slic3r or Cura calculate how much filament will be used as a length, say for example, 33m is used, so the plastic would be 1/10 of the roll cost in this simplistic equation. That's how I see it anyway. A full dollar per hour is pricey, unless they have a factor of 'profit' in the source you're referring to?

Seat colour won't matter for long it'll end up covered in mud lol

You can scale stuff in RepetierHost, maybe not to the exact tenth of a millimetre first time but using the grid background I can get pretty close to what I want. Yes it's better to sort it from the off, but beggars can't be choosers! It's maybe not the correct way but hey, it works for me!

The package contains 2 reels, 1x pla and 1 x abs. As Tamiya states, pla is usually 180-210*C. Check the label on the reels PLA models stick amazingly well to this tape they've supplied, I warm the bed a little for thin sections (to help prevent edges bending) otherwise have found results generally acceptable for PLA. I've yet to dabble with the ABS yet, temperatures increase for both the filament and the bed. Tamiya, how well does the Kapton hold up to peeling PLA models off once printed? I've got a piece of borosilicate glass but not used it as the printer is working well at the moment. These Hesine machines also have an aluminium bed so a similar set up but I tend to tear the masking tape when removing components.