Printable View
Many of us using kits for building their Repraps and we know that there are a lot of different suppliers. Wouldn´t it be good to know what the experience was from first hand?
Please let us know where you bought your kits and if your satisfied with the product, the dealer or the support.
I´ve bought my Prusa i3XL at DIY Tech Shop in Vancouver, Washington 98660. This is a small company but has the prices on several printers, but my decision to buy there was much more related to the fact, that they offering the Prusa i3 as a xl variant with
9"x12"x7" build area. I didn´t found this anywhere else.
The printer was ordered at the end of December and came at the time they promised which was beginnig of February. After a week I managed to put the printer together at least all the mechanical stuff, including the belts and the extruder. I had several problems during assembling the kit e.g. I had to repair some plastic parts and replace nuts or threadened rods. This was one of the really nasty things that many of the nuts didn´t fit on the threaded rods, cause it takes time to find out. Fortunately I´ve many of the needed hardware in stock and a great toolset as well, so I managed to get around almost all problems.
There also were some missing parts: 4x wing nuts, 16x nut 8mm, 2x threadened rods 400mm, 3x endstops. On top of that the firmware provided didn´t meet the reqirements on the printer (e.g. LCD) and there was no answer to my email from DIY Tech Shop whe I asked kindly for some support.. With a lot of help from some forum members here in this forum I finally got the printer nearly working.
After some weeks whith no support or email fron DIY Tech Shop I found out, that they had troubles with hteir mail adress and when I was writing to the new one then I´ve got imediate response. They were great in support to me and I saw that they have the will to solve every problem. Since I live here in Europe they could´nt easily replace the missing parts but they gave me a credit note. I would rate them as reliable and again, they have the cheapest printer out there.
I have the MakerFarm Prusa i3. For the most part everything was great. There were a few minor problems which I'll put here for others:
The slicer configs were missing in the download. It turns out that MakerFarm starts the file names with a period .50 Jhead, etc which makes those files invisible on some machines, like OSX. It took me several weeks to discover the issue and while Collin tried to help once, he didn't respond to my second request for the files. I have asked Collin to start the file names with something else in the future.
The configs are provided in the Ramps firmware zip, not the slicer zip. I pointed out to Collin the Ramps firmware zip isn't even needed as MF ships with latest firmware. And its more logical for him to include the slicer configs in the slicer zip. Hopefully they fix that.
Some instructions did not have enough detail. I ended up having to take apart my machine 3 times because I found later that the parts were assembled wrong. I think one such instance the detailed instructions are in the trouble shooting section. Why not put those details with the step?
The laser cut wood smells great! The threaded rods in the base are horrible. They are cut in a way that the nuts won't go on one end, so you have to thread the nuts down the entire length of the rod. The Z axis threaded rods seem better but they still had some rough spots. The Z-axis smooth rods don't fit the design and stick out of the top. The screw driver for the motor adjustment did not fit. MF says not to use a metal screwdriver on them (though they should be able to take a metal screw driver as they are potentiometers and not variable capaciters) And in another set of instructions, a multimeter with metal tips and metal screwdriver are used on the same component.
I've ordered parts from many different vendors, including ebay (china), and have always been satisfied. I've ordered kits and parts from both MakerFarm and Printrbot and been satisfied as well. The problem with ordering individual parts is that by the time they arrive you've changed your design and don't need them anymore :P
I just recently purchased mine from a buddy. I plan on trying to print some parts for to make another one though.
Most of my parts (Prusa I3) were sourced in the UK off ebay. Bought the big hardware kit from gcolbourn easy to find. The electronics, sanguinolulu preassembled , came from Amazon and were sourced in Hong Kong. I would not recommend these as there were several faults. Firstly the ATX power supply socket on the board was soldered in the wrong way round. a full 180 degrees about. Fortunately I realised that it was in wrong when I tried to plug in the ATX PSU. If Had done so and turned it on it would have fried the board. The second fault was a solder bridge underneath the long strip of sockets that the Stepper motor driver boards plug into. Difficult to fix as it involved unsoldering the pins for the motor so that I could cut the bridge with a scalpel. The build quality is very poor.
I bought my frame and all metals parts, and pulleys and belts from Gcolbourne (he sells on another EMaker site which is considerably cheaper than ebay). His price is about right and saves dicking about with bars, rods, bolts, pulleys etc. £119 + postage http://www.emakershop.com/browse/listing?l=768
I bought all the electrics off Ebay, Uk seller: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3011272982...84.m1439.l2649
That lot, cost me £179 and included everything including full graphic display etc. All excellent kit, and you end up with a spare stepper driver and spare end stops.
Then I bought the plastic parts off 3D Printer Punk http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3011243307...84.m1439.l2649 for £30
I cannot say enough good things about the above supplier. The parts quality are fantastic, miles better than another supplier I tried. And he's been on the end of emails to help with all sorts of advice. A real star.
And my hot end was off ebay too. A J Head Mkv
The whole thing cost me £350 and in no time I'm printing parts as good as the ones I bought.
As a hobbyist and DIYer I built my 3d printer from recycled parts... the frame and hardware is from old inkjet printers and scanners... Sourced all other electronics and parts from mostly Chinese suppliers at ebay... the total cost was well under $200...
Details are at my web site... link: http://dh-sims-site.com/repstrap_3Dprinter.html