Where are all the Printrbot owners chatting at?

Hello all, I'm pretty new to the 3D printing world . I just bought my first printer, a Printrbot Metal simple about 2 months ago. This machine is absolutely amazing. I've already put about 300 hours on it. I have printed about 100ish parts with it. Zero nozzle clogs, and no problems to speak of. The printer is Rock solid. I've only had 1 print failure and it was my fault by design anyway. Anyway I have been searching for the hot Printrbot forum where "everybody" is at. So far 3D Print Board looks to be the most active 3d printing forum I have found. But Printrbot seems to have such a small presence here that it doesn't even have its own forum. I also found printrbottalk.com but that place seems to be a ghost town. Where is everyone at? The machines are out there. where are the people? Also If anyone here is looking for a AWESOME, ROCK SOLID, EASY TO USE, TINKER FREE, 3D printer, drop the $600.00 on a Metal Simple.

Here are just a few things I've printed so far.

and a few more...

It puzzles me too, everyone I've met IRL who owns a Printrbot gushes about it like it's their genius baby, it seems to be the one printer that I've not heard any complaints about... But its fans seems to have very little online presence.

I did a quick Google search and found http://www.printrbottalk.com if that helps. It seems to have recent activity. Perhaps tell some of them about this forum and that they're welcomed to come here if they'd like. ;)

Activity at printrbottalk.com may seem a little a slow right now because most, if not all, bugs have been fixed, mods have been made, and folks are happily printing.

I expect an uptick in activity once the new beta products are released: dual-gear extruder, all-metal Ubis hotend, paste extruder, and the CNC machine.

Oh, a metal Plus is coming, too.

We have a Simple and it prints great. Just saw a video of the new Metal Plus and it looks great. Should be released as a "Black Friday Special" next week. See my other post for picture.

Well, I for one have been very happy with my late 2013 wood-version Simple, although it has been modified quite a bit over the past year I've been using it, and is about to become even more "Borgified", thanks to a major custom redesign effort I've recently embarked on (70% of the wood structure will be replaced, changing out the 8mm hardware for 12mm, adding dual-precision GT2 belt drives and a 1-square foot Lexan bed to it, among other upgrades). I actually posted these pics in another forum here as I just ordered a Makerfarm 12" Prusa i3v, but I thought I'd share them here as well. These are some of the cool models I've created with my [modified] Simple:

Attachment 3951Attachment 3952Attachment 3953Attachment 3954Attachment 3955

I know of a forum that was / is active, yet it rarely dealt with the Printrbot's. PrintRbot seems to have a rock solid machine with few complaints. So why post if your enjoying it? Otherwise, to get users whom want to strike up a conversation will help to make a forum active.

The only feeds I am seeing on youtube appeas that some users out there get a error from their z axis probe. That it hangs 3 inches from the build platform. Cruising through the help area of printrbot there is a notation that some of the F series boards were burning out their resistors (from too much power?). No one explained what the reasons or what they had on their printers to cause the failure. The possibility that I see is the boards may not be suitable for the amps required to control a heated bed. IE it should get a seperate controller for the bed so one does not cook the pricey controller. Then again a simple fan may help alot in this situation. Yet then you will be dealing with dust.

The forum that I know to be active is Voltivo.com . The reason for that forum to be active are all the people out there that didnt do their research and find out that the Davinci XYZ will fail after 40 or so hours as their bearing mounts are made of plastic and not metal. $10 worth of effort from the company would make their machines far better than they are presently. Yes there has been some people that have made aluminum replacement for this issue. Yet there are other areas where the printers will fall apart in time. So I feel for all these users that didnt bother to go get a PrintRbot that wont fall apart with proper use.

All this being said....

Did you know the Simple Metal is #2 on the list of the top 25 printers? This according to Make Magazine (sorry I dont have the link to the issue). The above mentioned XYZ printer came in at a dismal 24. Nice to see that Brooks got it right with the Simple in Metal.

Hi guys,

I too have been having extraordinary success with theSimple Metal. After a couple of months use I purchasedthe heated bed whichdidn’t heat past about 93 C until the PB guys sent a free insulation upgrade.It makes it to 100 Cand slightly above but it takes around 30 minutes to getthere from room temp.

I checked the bed temp with a temperature gun and it measuredthe same as the computer screen temperature readout all the way up to100C. Iwas quite amazed at the accuracy.

I’ve designed a 16ga. metal container with glass on three sides to help with taller prints. My large tall parts have occasionallycrack, not from low extruder temp but probably because of the quick air coolingabove the bed. I’ll have to post pictures when I finish it. It is open on thebottom where the Simple Metal base fits into it and has tall feet allowing somecooling to the circuit board. It should be basically fireproof. I'll should sleepbetter with the overnight prints.


We’ll see.

Chris

The dual colour prints from a single extruder printer are really good !

Does seem odd that that printrbot don't have their own section.

I bought a Metal Plus in the Black Friday sale. It shipped in early January and hasn't been reliable. After two months, It's been down & waiting for parts four times. When it prints, it's great. When support knows the answer, they're great. I've apparently fried my second printrboard, the extruder motor had a problem, the Z sensor died, and the microswitch for the y-stop fell apart. I also had to replace the ceramic hot end because I must have bumped the ceramic piece when I was taking the extruder motor out & I broke the nichrome (I guess) wire. It's super accurate and with a larger nozzle I can print shapes at unbelievable speed, building pieces at a rate of 1 inch in 5 minutes.

I hope they'll start talking to me, fix the problem and this thing can finally get past its cranky phase. It will be worth the wait but they need to escalate service tickets for machines that have trouble.

Right now it's like the 1976 Lancia Beta I had a long time ago. On the one day in three that it was running, it was a lot of fun.