Another Sintratec kit built

[Mike Francies]

Hi rudschul, I am absolutely sure there is not a problem with the main electronics board as I have wired both the X and Y galvos from both outputs from the main board and both work fine when put through the X galvo driver but neither of them work when put through the Y axis driver. Also, both power supply lines work okay so that only leaves the Y axis driver as the culprit.

We will see what happens tomorrow, if I get a quick response.

[RomanG]

Hi Guys

I guess most of you already know me from the ticket system im following this thread for while now but wasn't able to reply until now.

i try to cover as much with my post as possible but if i forget something do not hesitate to point that out.

Powder
As for the powder I strongly discourage to buy powder from alibaba. First and most, we do not provide support for powders that isn't ours. The powder we have is optimized for our machine and laser as we use a laser diode ant not a CO2 laser as commercial laser sintering machines do.

Lamp cables
The lamp wires were a big issue. But we provide PTFE sleeves with the crowdfunding units and ceramic wire sleeves for all models provided outside the campaign. The incident with rundenz printer was a very very unfortunate chain of events which cause a short circuit.

response time for ticket system
You already guessed it right as a startup there is just a little resource problem on the support site. I usually try to respond to you on the same day. response times can get longer when writing from different time zones.

Mechanical Problems
As I already told in the ticket system, the wobble is most likely from the z axis. If you could help me out with some pictures I gladly help with that.

[Mike Francies]

Hi Roman, thanks for responding here, as well as on the ticket system, it's good to know that someone from Sintratec is looking in on us now and again.

[rudschul]

Hi Roman,
nice to see you. and the quick answer at my ticket :-)))))
I hope that every one saw my statements in a constructive positiv view. My englich is not so good than my german :-) Talking with Sintratec is very helpful for me. And of course Sintratec tries to help :-) I hope i will not scare potencial customer to by a KIT. But sometimes a good community can help each other and someone shares the expirence other have made before (e.g. lamo cables). And Sintratec has not to solves probleme times and times again :-)

[Mike Francies]

Nicely said, rudschul - a strong community can go a long way to help alleviate problems and frustrations by owners helping one another. The supplier (Sintratec) can also get valuable feedback from such a community but only if they too have a presence there. That's why it is good to see Roman responding on this forum. I think Sintratec would be advised to make this their goto forum before threads for Sintratec start on other forums. Alternatively start their own user group forum. There is no doubt that being able to chat with other users can sometimes be more valuable than just reporting to the supplier. Quite often a user will have a different perspective on the build and/or operation than the developers simply because the developers know exactly what they are doing after so many iterations that they don't necessarily see some of the pitfalls.

Having said that, I have found the build very straightforward and enjoyable. But for the problem with the galvo driver and switch, I would have been printing by now. Not sure how rigorous the testing is for the galvo drivers but the odd dud is bound to get through.

Keep up the good work Sintratec, you may be on a winner.

[Mike Francies]

Well, it's taken five days but my replacement parts are finally on their way. Can't wait to get this thing fired up!! I have got quite a few things lined up to print as test pieces and a fair few friends have been quizzing me about it with a view to having bits printed for their model aircraft. Looks like I may be busy

[Mike Francies]

Replacement driver and switch arrived today so I was pretty keen to get them fitted. Had to earn some brownie points first though before I could play. I first checked the driver was working by rigging it up without mounting it to the chassis. Yay, it was working and the Y axis galvo was doing its thing However, there was a bit of a problem with the new driver - the mounting holes were threaded 4mm not drilled as clearance as the original ones were but as the bolts are captive, between the two layers of aluminium and insulation, there was no way of getting the driver attached. It was clear they had to be drilled out 4mm. This I did, being very careful not to get any swarf into the electronics. That done, the driver and switch were positioned and fitted.

Next the printer was fired up and I could finally do the calibration. The galvos needed a lot of adjustment to get the pattern right but I got there in the end. Probably have to wait till tomorrow to get some powder in and a test print done.

It's not clear from the instructions but I am assuming just a small ammount of powder can be used without having to fill the powder chamber? Can anyone confirm?

[fred_dot_u]

It makes sense that you would place the amount of powder in the feed chamber that corresponds to the z-height of the object to print plus a bit more as a buffer. The printer should cease to load the build chamber when the print data end is reached. Any excess powder that is placed in the feed chamber will be subject to heating, reducing its value. I have not examined the software for this aspect, but if it is not of this nature, it is unquestionably wasteful.

[Mike Francies]

Thanks fred, you are right that it does not make sense to fill the chamber if only making tests of small items. If I don't get a definitive answer from Sintratec, I will try with just a small amount.

You won't believe it but my new switch has just failed in exactly the same way as the last one did!!!!! After just three switch ons it is now permanently on. Not sure why this should happen unless the contacts are not rated for 240v

[fred_dot_u]

it's encouraging to see that you are getting support from Sintratec. They were quite helpful to me when I needed to clear the mechanical problems. I have to get moving one of these days and put my kit together again.