5th Gen - Review and Head to Head with Rep 2

[LambdaFF]

Thank you for all this. Very detailed and factual. The X&Y belt arrangement to remove the motors from the gantry are a nice idea but the rest kinda kills it for me.

[tim]

Thanks Tim! How's your Form 1 doing?

I'm sorry to say, but our Form1 spends most of its time sitting in the corner. We had an encoding issue with X printing twice as big as Y, and my guys kind of lost interest in diagnosing it. The material price also has us a little guy shy about messing around too much, plus the fragile nature of SLA resin. Don't mean to derail this Maker thread (hey you started it! ) but will end by saying we've got over 1000 hours on one of our Rep2's, another with around 700 hours... we've had each apart fairly extensively a couple of times, replaced most of the wire harnesses, repaired some of the pulley housings, but at this point have a lot more confidence in our ability to run a good part on the Makers than the Form1, so they're the first choice.

I could see us adding a third Rep2- was considering the new Gen but after your review there's no way.

[American 3D Printing]

Quick update - the replacement extruder came in yesterday. The fins on the heatsink are thinner and there's more of them. The plastic idler has a rib on it, the old extruder doesn't. I took pictures but don't have time to post them up right now. Install went smooth, it didn't fix the bed leveling issue. I haven't had time to call Makerbot tech support, will get after that on Monday about the bed issue. I did do a couple of builds with the new extruder. They came out fine, no better or worse than the original extruder.

One other thing - I was looking into Makerbot for Desktop (the replacement for Makerware), and in the setting profile, they have dropdown selections for other filaments just like Makerware does, but it won't let you select anything but PLA. I had a customer in yesterday who owns a 5th Gen and was interested in buying a roll of Makerbot flexible filament. It doesn't look like you can use Makerbot flexible filament on the 5th Gen.

And get this - the tab for temperature is inactive. You CAN NOT CHANGE TEMPERATURE from Makerbot for Desktop, at least not the current revision. Maybe you can slice it offline and sideload the memory? There's no removable SD card on the 5th Gen like a Rep 2, so I will see if that is possible. But I can't see building with nylon or PET or HIPs at the default 215°C! Oh yeah, that's another difference from the Rep 2. The Rep 2 defaults to 230°C (240° for the stretchlet preloaded from the factory in the SD card), and the 5th Gen defaults to 215°C.

[Geoff]

Quick update - the replacement extruder came in yesterday. The fins on the heatsink are thinner and there's more of them. The plastic idler has a rib on it, the old extruder doesn't. I took pictures but don't have time to post them up right now. Install went smooth, it didn't fix the bed leveling issue. I haven't had time to call Makerbot tech support, will get after that on Monday about the bed issue. I did do a couple of builds with the new extruder. They came out fine, no better or worse than the original extruder.

One other thing - I was looking into Makerbot for Desktop (the replacement for Makerware), and in the setting profile, they have dropdown selections for other filaments just like Makerware does, but it won't let you select anything but PLA. I had a customer in yesterday who owns a 5th Gen and was interested in buying a roll of Makerbot flexible filament. It doesn't look like you can use Makerbot flexible filament on the 5th Gen.

And get this - the tab for temperature is inactive. You CAN NOT CHANGE TEMPERATURE from Makerbot for Desktop, at least not the current revision. Maybe you can slice it offline and sideload the memory? There's no removable SD card on the 5th Gen like a Rep 2, so I will see if that is possible. But I can't see building with nylon or PET or HIPs at the default 215°C! Oh yeah, that's another difference from the Rep 2. The Rep 2 defaults to 230°C (240° for the stretchlet preloaded from the factory in the SD card), and the 5th Gen defaults to 215°C.

Oh god man, it's even worse than I thought!! I am so glad I did not break my bank to get one of these..

Do you think they did it for machine longevity or just another push to get people to buy makerbot filament?

[American 3D Printing]

Just got off the phone with Makerbot tech support. They want to have the machine back. I don't know whether they plan to repair it and return it, or replace it. The tech (Alex) said that when they designed the 5th Gen, they wanted to make it more of a consumer oriented machine, rather than the Rep 2 which was based on the original Replicator, aimed at hobbyists and tinkerers. As such, it isn't intended to be repaired in the field, other than replacing the extruder. So if my car breaks down I have to send it back to the factory? Bad paradigm if you ask me.

Hold time before speaking with anyone was 28 minutes, 32 seconds. I also got put on hold for around another 15 minutes after the initial explanation of symptoms and what had been done. Total call time 55:05.

I did extract some (potentially) useful information from him. I asked about the difference in default temperature, 215° for the 5th Gen and 230° for the Rep 2. He said that the Rep 2 does not necessarily "see" the nozzle temperature at the thermocouple, but that it was a little low and that was to compensate for it, and that the 5th Gen had a redesign where the thermocouple sees the actual nozzle temperature more accurately. Maybe so?

I asked about using Makerbot flexible filament, and he said that you can not use it in the 5th Gen as currently designed. Lovely.

I asked about the inoperable temperature tab in Makerbot for Desktop on the slice settings, and specifically said that we use nylon and PET in our Rep 2s and wanted to on the 5th Gen. He said that using any other filament than Makerbot brand would void the warrantee. He did mention that you can create a custome profile and save it to a *.json file and that is a way to specify a different temperature than default. I'll definitely have to try that.

I asked him how making the new machine build so much slower than the previous model was supposed to be an improvement? He said they continue to work on firmware updates. I personally speculate that there is some kind of issue with their acceleration profiles in firmware. I know for example, that building with the exact same GCode, our Z-Morphs are nearly twice as fast as our Lulzbots. But the Z-Morphs will definitely skip and slip on the X and Y when it tries to go too fast, and I have to slow things down sometimes to get a good build. The Lulzbots don't do that, and you can easily see that the acceleration is just smoother.

[American 3D Printing]

Here's a measurement I did this morning. I had written earlier that it takes "about" twice as long for the 5th Gen to heat up than the Rep 2, and had estimated the total heat time at around 5 minutes (preheat to 180° then final heat to 215°). I started both of them up at the same time, and watched the temperature indication. Bear in mind that the 5th Gen is only going for 180° and the Rep 2 is going for 230°, but I can still see how long it takes to get to 180.

At the 1:00 minute mark, the 5th Gen was 100° and the Rep2 was at 145°.

It took the 5th Gen 2:20 to reach 180° and the Rep 2 1:20. The Rep 2 Reached its 230° setpoint after 2:00 minutes.

[American 3D Printing]

I fiddled around with the *.JSON file today, it is just an ASCII text file you can edit in Notepad or equivalent.

Here is a snippet:

{
"comment" : [
"This is a custom profile for MakerBot Slicer. Editing it will modify your",
"slice settings. For documentation on MakerBot Slicer parameters, see here:",
"http://www.makerbot.com/support/makerware/documentation/slicer"
],
"version":"3.0.0",

"layerHeightMinimum": 0.12,
"layerHeightMaximum": 0.27,

"layerHeight": 0.20,
"layerWidthMaximum": 0.4,
"layerWidthMinimum": 0.4,
"layerWidthRatio": 1.481481,
"bedZOffset": 0.0,
"startX": -110.4,
"startY": -74.0,
"startZ": 0.2,
"defaultExtruder": 0,

"rapidMoveFeedRateXY": 150,
"rapidMoveFeedRateZ": 23,

"minLayerDuration": 5.0,
"minSpeedMultiplier": 0.3,

"doDynamicSpeed": false,
"dynamicSpeedCurvatureThreshold": 15,
"dynamicSpeedDetectionWindow": 3.0,
"dynamicSpeedSlowdownRatio": 0.3,
"doDynamicSpeedGradually": true,
"dynamicSpeedTransitionWindow": 6.0,
"dynamicSpeedTransitionShape": 0.4,
"doDynamicSpeedOutermostShell" : true,
"doDynamicSpeedInteriorShells" : false,

"doSplitLongMoves": true,
"splitMinimumDistance": 0.4,

"extruderTemp0": 230,
"extruderTemp1": 230,
"platformTemp": 0,

"numberOfShells": 2,
"infillShellSpacingMultiplier": 0.7,
"insetDistanceMultiplier": 1.0,

"roofThickness": 0.8,
"roofLayerCount_disabled": 4,
"roofAnchorMargin": 0.4,
"floorThickness": 0.8,
"floorLayerCount_disabled": 4,

"coarseness": 0.0001,

"sparseInfillPattern": "hexagonal",
"infillDensity": 0.1,
"infillOrientationOffset": 0,
"infillOrientationInterval": 90,
"infillOrientationRange": 90,

"gridSpacingMultiplier": 0.99,
"solidFillOrientationOffset" : -45,
"solidFillOrientationInterval": 90,
"solidFillOrientationRange": 90,

So basically it looks like there are a lot more things you can specify outside the Makerbot for Desktop environment.

[exit]

i'm having multiple issues with our z-18. Support is somewhat helpful, depends on who you get. Its aggravating sitting on hold for 45min to get someone who cant help you.

They told me to make my own custom profile to solve problem of extruder paths being to wide and not making a complete layer on 100% infill. Well now for some reason after a certain height, the extruder head is not high enough and is dragged across the previous layer. it pretty much just remelts that already deposited plastic in the direction its moving. Interior hole look like crap, now exterior surface of circles are getting worse. Support wont respond to any emails, so I cant send pictures of issues.

[American 3D Printing]

Thanks for sharing that, exit.

My customer brought the original shipping carton to me on Friday, so I am getting ready to send this 5th gen back to get the bed leveling issue resolved. In the mean time I am continuing side-by-side builds of the exact same models with the Rep 2 for speed and quality comparisons. Again, all settings exactly the same for both the 5th gen and the Rep 2. I'll try to get that stuff posted up later today or perhaps tomorrow, depending on how much time I have.

Just to be totally clear, I did not start this thread to bash Makerbot. I am trying to be completely fair and factual, with everything fully documented so that anyone can do the exact same tests and get the exact same results, just like any science. To that end, if anyone wants the STLs I'm using, I'll be happy to share them, along with any pertinent info on settings such as scale, rotation, raft, support, etc. I really wish the 5th Gen worked better. I can't get the Rep 2 any more from my distributor, just the three 5th Gen models and the Rep 2X.

I do want to try to build with some Taulman nylon and T-Glase now that I know I can bump up the temperature in the *JSON file. I had previously sold a roll of nylon to one of my customers who has a 5th gen, and it would be nice if I could help him use that material. It will be interesting to see how to get it to stick, I use PVA glue directly on the Rep 2 acrylic build plate on the Rep 2, and the same PVA glue on the PE tape on the glass bed of the Lulzbot TAZs.

[exit]

Capture1.jpg photo.jpg

Well, after spending at least 1 hr each day last week on the phone, I think I finally talked to someone who knew how to answer all my questions. When I called Friday, I told him he wasn't getting off the phone until he looked at the pictures I emailed and I had an answer for causes.

1. Z-calibration - The new firmware 1.3 has a Z calibration problem on the Z-18's. This was messing up everything, from the raft to the printed model itself. They said new firmware should be out this week, maybe even tomorrow. Hopefully will fix this. Also should fix the circle problem.
2. Paths not touching - Still not sure on this one, but I had to make a custom profile to correct for the issue.
3. Raft problems - Sometimes the base layer pattern of the raft was to large and would leave a corner off (see bottom left of blue picture). It is showing the second layer of the raft as overhanging, and we all know this does not work out well. An example is in the corner of raft in the printed pic. Also, that is supposed to be a circle with 3 circles inside of it. I had to decrease the "square wave" pattern size to reduce this effect, you would think makerware would do this automatically to compensate for this issue.