MakerFarm 10" i3v build

[dacb]

Received my 10" i3v last Wed. Used Wed. night and Thu. night to spray lacquer it in black using $5 cans from a big-box home store. This stuff dries really hard and yielded a robust and attractive surface over the birch ply.

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The kit was very impressive (with one exception, see below). It is very easy to build (image for proof) and includes EVERYTHING like tools (e.g. 5.5mm wrench), extras (M3 bolts, M5 T-nuts which are handy for building new endstops), and most of the wiring ready to go (thermistor already had heat sleeves and tubing). The only real gripe I had was with the printed parts. These were printed in low quality and required an hour or two of tweaking with files, knives and sandpaper before the bolts, bearings, and everything fit together properly and operated smoothly. This was particularly disappointing when I printed my own parts for Greg's Accessible Extruder within my first few prints and they turned out perfect.

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I let assembly go at a comfortable pace and including letting lacquer dry and doing all the wiring / sleeving and many hours of alignment of all the axes with micrometers, clamps, mechanics straight edges, etc. it was ready and nearly perfect in five evenings. Admittedly, I took it very slow and tried to include my kids and other family in the process so that we will all have a memory of building one of the "early 3D printers" together, similar to my memories of "building early home computers" in the late 70s. Anyway...

The assembled unit printing the hollow cube.

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Second print was the adjustable Z-stop for the 10":

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I was very happy with the first prints and began experimenting with various Slic3r versions and settings to produce the usual upgrades for the base i3v...

Knob:

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