New purchase older wooden frame FlashForge Dual Extruder Creator

OK I just picked up something I have wanted for a while. I always loved the look of these older wooden framed FlashForge dual 3D printer. I picked this up at a garage sale for $50. I have ran it through all it paces and it all seems to work great.

But I have not tried to print yet. In doing my due diligence (LOL) it seems that I must run ReplicatorG for this? Is this correct?

If anyone can point me to an PDF of the manual that would be great.

I have emailed FlashForge with firmware questions and software limitations for this unit (yes I sent them the serial number). I have always liked the 'garage build' look of this specific unit but just could not afford the almost $2000 when they were new. I have printers that I run but I want this for nostalgia reasons.

Any help anyone can give me in bring this fully back up to running and printing would be very appreciated. It is a clean unit with right at a total of 20 hours of run time on it.

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download flashprint and select creator pro for the printer - and it'll run great :-)
https://www.flashforge.com/download-center

For $50 working - that's a helluva buy :-)

My first printer and while it's not fast, it is very good.
Mine finally got mothballed after 5 years of excellent and hassle free service.

make sure you go round the whole frame and tighten the bolts every 6 months or so - it's pretty much the only maintenance I ever did.
And the occasional wipe down of the rods with some lithium grease sprayed onto kitchen paper.

You'll want to make one of these: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:537918
Buy a 24v 40mm fan, cab't remember what size bolts it takes - should be in the 'thing' info.

Looks like someone's covered it with kapton tape. Personally I never got on with kapton - but a sheet of cheap pei will stick just about everything.
You want the 230x230 (225x225 is the smallest to buy) and just cut it to size.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235x235MM...wAAOSwL0pfMRi2

Actually thinkling back I think it comes with kapton tape.
I could never get anything to stick to it - so it got covered in blue tape fairely swuftly, then abs juice, then pva glue and finally a sheet of printbite - mand that was the charm :-)
Pei seems to be as good as printbite, and a helluva lot cheaper :-)

Mr Aardvark Thank you for the response.

Right now everything seems to run perfect. I have not tried to do a print yet but I have checked X,Y,and Z and their zeros. I have checked heated bed and heated the heads and pushed material through them with ease.

I will check all the bolts tonight before I try to run anything. The slide rods will get a lubrication also.

So add this fan in conjunction with the OEM fans. OK.

I have had nothing but great luck with Kapton on our other printers. When I have tried blue tape it has been way too difficult to remove. But I will see what happens here with this one.

I will give the PEI a try. How well does it heat up with the aluminum plate of the build plate?

Aardvark I have another question. While going through the set up screens I notices a LED setting. Is this for external LED lighting?

it's for the 'pro' models which have a strip of coloured leds that indicate whether things are heating or at temperature.

I suppose there is a plug on the board for the strip. I never bothered looking :-)

There is probably a proper socket for the print cooling fan duct too - as I recall I just wired mine into the same socket as the cooling fan on the board.
Not idea as it meant when the machine was on the fan was always running.
If you find the correct socket you can actually control the fan speed and activation.

I'll have to dig up the pictures of the ightyboard I took and see if I missed a fan socket.
I did the exact same thing on the klic-n-print (creator pro clone).
These days I know better :-)

Yeah the duct is to cool the print area. The existing fans are to stop heat creep.

If you like kapton go for it :-)
Certainly try it before buying anything else.

the machine looks brand new, so probably had very little use.

Basically any different surface you stick on is going to be less than a millimetre thick, so has zero effect on bed temperatures.

Again thank you so much for the help.

I downloaded Flashpoint as you suggested and selected 'Creator Pro'. Everything is working great. I printed a benchy (photo below) and it came out really nice for a printer of this vintage with the material that was on the machine sitting for over 4 years according to the guy I got it from, at least to me. I will print the part cooler this weekend on my Makerbot Pro XL since the designer suggests you use a printer with a part cooler on it already.

I have lots of LED strips around. I would guess because of the age of this printer that the LED strip would be a standard RGB not a digital control one. My unit does have a red LED under the build plate that sequences with the on and off heating of the bed. The LEDs would be nice to have I will get into looking at that after I get the part cooling fan and duct.

The Benchy and 2 other prints have stuck fine to the kapton. These were printed with ABS as that is what was on the printer when I picked it up.

According to the 'machine specs' it says 26 hours now after I have printed 3 things. Now I have to print something with both heads. I have set the alignment with the onboard test.

Again Thank you Thank you.
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yeah kapton was always supposed to be better for abs. Mine never was :-)
That said it was a long time ago and I knew exactly buttkiss about 3d printing. So maybe it was me :-)

You can print the duct on the flashforge, then print another once it's fitted. Pretty sure that's what I must have done :-)

yeah 26 hours looks about right, why it looks brand new - basically not even broken in !

I have looked at the board pictures - and I can't see any obvious fan or rgb connectors.
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