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

[American 3D Printing]

Another random observation - we can't figure out how to see what the camera sees. The printer's owner told me he stumbled on it once but can't remember what to click to make it visible on the host's screen. I'll have to do a little research on that, unless someone reading this can post up with the answer?

Anyway, here's another standard object we make. This is just a test object I designed that we use to help dial in the slice and temperature settings for new materials on various printers. It normally takes about 36 minutes on the Rep 2. As you can see, it took 58 minutes on the 5th Gen.



As before, you can not tell any difference from the Rep 2 version.

[American 3D Printing]

Next up is another standard test object we make, a dodecahedron from Thingiverse.

As you can see below, it is big enough that the non-level build plate is causing issues. The back stuck and the front didn't, of course the front of the build plate is too low. We aborted the build after snapping this picture.

[American 3D Printing]

So we resliced it with a raft, which worked successfully. This object takes 2 hours and 40 minutes (with raft) on the Rep 2. On the 5th Gen it took 4 hours 37 minutes, plus the 15 minutes start-up overhead.



BTW, in each of these side by side pictures, the 5th Gen build is on the left and the Rep 2 build is on the right. The only way I could keep them straight, as that is the way the machines are sitting on the fixture as seen at the beginning of this thread.

[American 3D Printing]

We have a pile of objects we give out as free samples, and the barbie-pink stretchlets are always popular with little girls, so I put on a batch of 5 to run overnight. It was also a test to see if building multiple objects went any faster than the sum of individual objects, other than only having to go through the 15 minute prep cycle at the beginning of the build. Below, you can see how the non-level bed is affecting the first layer. One nice thing is that we didn't get a filament jam from having the extruder tip shoved so hard onto the tape that nothing could come out.



You can see what happened to this one where it had the opposite problem, too much Z-height zero. I expect this will be fixed once we get the bed leveling issue squared away. I'm giving Makerbot the benefit of the doubt that the new extruder may have some kind of chance of affecting the bed leveling. No who am I kidding. I just need to go through the exercise so when I call them back they can get a clue that not every 5th Gen issue is either a bad extruder or old firmware. Oh and I did check the firmware, it is indeed the latest, 1.2.112. That's done through the host software, Makerbot for Desktop. I had really been holding out hope that one of these magic firmware updates would somehow speed up these build times.



Unfortunately, building multiple objects does NOT speed up the build time any, it is simply the sum of the build times individually.

[American 3D Printing]

I'm out of time for today, but next up will be a really cool design approach I discovered, and then some more A-B head to head builds with the 5th Gen and the Rep 2. Again, please feel free to post up any comments or questions. I don't know how long I get to borrow this machine but I know I'll have it until at least some time next week.

[JohnA136]

Jeff, I think if you go to the Makerbot Google Group you will see a plethora of posts on the 5th Gen Makerbots and how they are printing (or rather,not printing).

[American 3D Printing]

Jeff, I think if you go to the Makerbot Google Group you will see a plethora of posts on the 5th Gen Makerbots and how they are printing (or rather,not printing).

Thanks John and indeed there are. Ironically, the owners announced today that they are shutting it down to new posts, but will keep it live for archival purposes.

Among many things I really like about this site, is that it is for all makes and models. I also prefer the vBulletin software over most other choices out there.

[Geoff]

Thanks again, this has been an interesting one to follow.

Out of curiosity, is the only thing stopping a makerbot printing ABS the heatbed?

[American 3D Printing]

Thanks again, this has been an interesting one to follow.

Out of curiosity, is the only thing stopping a makerbot printing ABS the heatbed?

That is correct Geoff, to the best of my knowledge. At some point I suspect I will have this bed disassembled in some fashion or other to address the leveling issue, and at that point i can take a peek at how much clearance there might be for a hack of adding a heater. I accidently ordered in some ABS from my Ingram Micro and they make you jump through flaming hoops to return stuff, so maybe I can use it at some point?

[Geoff]

That is correct Geoff, to the best of my knowledge. At some point I suspect I will have this bed disassembled in some fashion or other to address the leveling issue, and at that point i can take a peek at how much clearance there might be for a hack of adding a heater. I accidently ordered in some ABS from my Ingram Micro and they make you jump through flaming hoops to return stuff, so maybe I can use it at some point?

Since PLA can have a high melting point too in some instances, I just assumed the nozzle could hit 220-230c, even 220c I can get ABS to extrude at fine, so I'd give it a go!

Since for me getting those heatbeds in that size was a pain, I ended up finding the round 170mm ones for the kossel. They are just a thin pad with 3M tape on one side and do a remarkable job, and for $20 odd bucks they are a good buy and just stick on the bottom of the aluminium.

Returning filament is just impossible full stop, here is a conversation, word for word from my last return effort...

"Once you have broken the seal we can no longer accept returns"

"But I haven't broken the seal! it's still vacuum sealed, in the box, you sent the wrong colour!"

"Oh we are sorry, we will send you the right one"

"Do you want the old one back?"

"No"

"Really? I said I was more than happy to return it for a credit? "

"No you keep it"