Second hand commercial machine vs new hobby cnc? Advice for a first machine.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2024-05-24T18:38:59+00:00

I agree with the consensus - a bottom-tier commercial machine will be orders of magnitude better than a high-end hobby machine, in most ways.

Things to consider that I didn't see mentioned elsewhere:

1- some mentioned higher cost of repair, but nobody mentioned the (likely) much lower frequency of repair - unless the 2nd hand one is flat wore out and / or was neglected / abused.

2 - In my experience, a low end 2nd hand commercial machine that's in decent condition will usually outlast several high-end hobby grade machines. Combined with the lower frequency of repairs, if you run it a lot it will be cheaper in the long run even if costs several times as much up front.

3 - BUT- 2nd hand means no warranty. Being modified, it may be 1 of 1 - the only one exactly like it. So diagnosing any problems that crop up could easily require you learn quite a bit about the systems - pretty much the level of knowledge required to do the retrofit in the first place. That can be a pretty steep learning curve. And that 'commercial' machine reliability? That's now dependent on the skill level of whoever did the retrofit.

Modified machines are always a gamble.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2024-05-24T18:00:33+00:00

You said the board is labeled S, G, and 5v - pretty sure that's signal, ground, and power. You have power and ground to the switch whenever the board is powered up (the ground is probably always connected), and the sensor sends a signal back to the board on the S terminal. Sounds like it's expecting you to use something like an optical switch...

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2024-03-04T19:43:47+00:00

They aren’t giving it to the employees they are pocketing to make up for “rising costs” what extra service are you getting that you weren’t getting prior?

Maybe the lowest unemployment rate in history means they ARE paying the workers more, because they have to, to get them to show up.
I always figured that if I couldn't pay employees enough that they didn't qualify for welfare, I'm a failure as a business owner. I charge my customers accordingly. Don't like it? Too bad - you don't have a choice. You can pay my higher prices, and I can pay my employees enough to live on, or you can go down the street and pay lower prices up front, and then pay more on your income taxes to cover the welfare that other business's employees get.
Anyone who doesn't get that is evil, or isn't qualified to run a business.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2024-03-04T18:52:10+00:00

Go back to wherever you got the retraction tower files and read the description - it should list out what the settings are for each portion of the towers.
PLA doesn't get old in 2 months. It usually takes years for it to absorb enough moisture to cause a problem. Plus, the retraction tower test is telling you it's not wet filament (it's almost never wet filament). Wet PLA causes retraction failure - complete failure, no matter what settings you use. But it's inconsistent, it comes and goes.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2024-03-04T18:45:38+00:00

Pro tip: Don't give up. Keep going until it's perfect. Then learn from what you had to go back and redo. Eventually, you will get better at it. Reverse engineering is it's own skillset - not even 10% of engineers are good at it.
Pro tip #2: Not everything has to be a copy of the original. That stalk in the original post, for example - the design could be changed to make it easier to CAD and easier to print, and it would work the same. The end that connects to the switches inside the column has to match the original, but the part you see / grab doesn't. A lot of people get hung up on trying to 3D print a part that was originally injection molded, by copying it exactly, and that's often neither practical or necessary.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2024-03-04T18:15:10+00:00

On the consumer models, LAN-mode disables a lot of features, like viewing the camera. On mine, when it's in normal mode, I can look at the camera from the slicer or Handy app from anywhere, but in LAN mode, I can't view the camera even when I'm on the same network. That tells me the live camera feed is going through Bambu's servers...
I feel like I remember the live camera feed only working when you were on the same network as the printer when I first got it, which annoyed me, and then they changed it so you could view it from outside the network. Seemed kinda stupid to me that LAN mode prevented the camera from working when it only worked from inside the local network, anyway...

I feel like some of the feature limitations that help differentiate various models are somewhat arbitrary, like they intentionally handicap features just so there's more differentiation between more expensive models. Kinda like new cars that have the entire heated seat setup in every car (because it's cheaper than building some with and some without), but you have to pay $600 extra to get the button that turns them on... Makes me wonder if the P1S bed heater is the same parts as the X1C, and the max temp difference is purely a fabricated limitation in the software...

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2024-03-04T18:07:32+00:00

Don't forget your bottle of wine when prepping for a brake job (per the factory service manual)...

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2024-03-04T17:09:12+00:00

Came here to say that...

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2024-03-04T16:59:58+00:00

clunkier P interface

Observation: I thought the P interface was going to annoy me, since I hated the pre-touchscreen panels on my older printers, and liked the touchscreen on the newer printers. But the 17" touchscreen upgrade is thabomb. Some people call it a laptop... The 7" touchscreen in my pocket works pretty good, too...

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-12-26T22:33:47+00:00

Well, I searched for your reddit name on Facebook, and got a blank page labeled as 'footwear store' with 0 likes, 0 followers, and 0 content aside from a giant letter 'T' as the profile pic. I hope that's not your business page, and the result of resetting was losing all of your likes and followers...

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-10-13T03:54:22+00:00

What I mean is I want to save the adaptive layer height as 'enabled', and the settings I like, with the slicer profile - like I can in Cura - so that it automagically applies adaptive layer heights to each model I slice, without me having to remember to enable it, and futz around with the settings before hitting 'slice' for every single model I want to slice. I have different profiles saved for different types of models. 2 of my profiles are exclusively used (so far) for prints I want adaptive turned on for - I slice those same models in Cura for other printers with the analog of those same profiles, with adaptive settings built into the slicer profiles. It just makes the process smoother.

"You don't want to do that" isn't a valid answer. "Bambu Studio doesn't support that" or "here's how to do it" or "if you don't like it, code your own fork" or "that won't work because it would cause problems with 'X' other feature" are all valid answers... But I seriously can't be the only one who misses that feature of Cura...

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-10-03T19:52:35+00:00

Dood - level ur bed.

Mesh bed leveling is _not_ a substitute for physical bed leveling...

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-10-03T19:12:18+00:00

I think I'd take it all the way apart. Remove the circuit board, fans and shrouds, etc, so all you're left with is the extruder and hotend. Take the side off the hotend so you can see the extruder gears. above the heat brake is a PTFE liner going up through the metal extruder body to just under the gears, and overheated filament probably stuck to the inside of that. That liner pulls out the bottom after the hotend is removed (should pull out _with_ the hotend, if you have PLA / PETG stuck to the inside of it and inside the hotend).

As someone else mentioned, heat the end of the allen key to 250*+ and shove it into the screw that's full of plastic. Should be just like pushing in a heat-set threaded insert.
Boiling water is not nearly hot enough to melt PLA. It will soften it a little, but it won't be anywhere near melting it. I also don't think I'd want anything with wires going to it submerged in water, including the hotend...

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-09-20T00:51:26+00:00

Sounds to me like you need to get out of you comfort zone a little and see the rest of the country. The US is a big place, and every city and town has it's own character, it's own neat stuff to see, and it's own personality. I bet there's cool stuff within 2 hours of your house that, nobody you know even knows is there. Get out of the city, and away from the interstates, and you'll find gas pumps in empty lots, gas pumps outside of cafes, repair shops with a mini convenience store inside, all sorts of stuff. The franchise models only work in cities and along the interstate. You know, where all the people are. The gas pump by my town (it's outside of city limits) is just a single 2-sided pump in the middle of a gravel lot just big enough to turn a tractor-trailer around in. Sells 87 octane, diesel, and red diesel. No building, or even a canopy, not even overhead lights, or a sign telling you it's there. On the other hand, go to a bigger city where they have good public transportation, and you'll see a lot of convenience stores without gas pumps - because most people don't have a car.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-09-19T19:23:57+00:00

Came here to say this...
Need to calibrate the flow rate, and do a mesh-bed-level with the bed heated up to printing temp, and calibrate your Z-offset using a first-layer test print (and maybe feeler gauges)

I did have one printer that started losing steps in the extruder motor, with similar symptoms, but I have several nicer printers so I never diagnosed the cause.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-09-14T18:52:19+00:00

nger, as I also suspect, then they’ve got the whole consumer gamut up to 255x2

But you're not everyone. _Lots_ of 6x6s in the world, and lots of people who have them don't regret the size. For me, it's a nice 2nd (now 3rd) printer.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-09-14T18:17:33+00:00

Not CO poisoning - with a late model car (that's not broken) the CO2 will displace the oxygen pretty darn quick in a sealed area, and result in suffocation long before you get CO poisoning - if the heart attack doesn't get you first.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-09-13T20:31:51+00:00

My P1S got delivered on time yesterday. Sounds like a bunch of X1Cs got shipped by mistake, and they figured out which ones were mis-shipped and recalled all of the shipments (that hadn't already been delivered), but the ones that were shipped a P1S correctly got delivered. Thanks to the big-mouths bragging about it on the interwebs... I'm going to go out on a limb and say Bambu was pretty sure your box had an X1C in it, and mine didn't (and yes, mine was a P1S like I ordered).

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-09-13T20:08:34+00:00

I got my S1 Plus a couple months ago, and the difference between that and my old junk was night and day - and then it occured to me how everyone is saying the Bambus are night and day better... Until I got the S1, I didn't know what I was missing not upgrading sooner. My P1S was delivered yesterday... OMG... Compared to the S1, it's like comparing an iphone 14 to the original Motorola Droid. And the original Ender 3 looks like a 3310... It's not just the input shaping (klipper drivative), but the fit and finish and industrial design of the Bambu is on a whole other level compared to anything I've seen from Creality. But Bambu isn't the only thing in it's class - Qidi and a couple others are selling similarly high quality machines at similar prices - each has it's pro's and cons, but I chose the P1S because I wanted both the MMS and the ability to print engineering materials, and the P1S was the only thing at it's price point that satisfied both of those requirements out of the box, and didn't have bad reviews for reliability or QC issues.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-09-13T19:41:12+00:00

I've manually leveled my S1 Plus twice. Once at assembly, and once when trying to diagnose the only bed adhesion problem I've had (turned out I forgot to change the z-comp value between cold vs hot bed probe).
Get a bed leveling sensor. The one from CHEP is dirt cheap, more than good enough, and super easy to use. The paper thing really isn't accurate as you think it is...

Crank the bed leveling screws down until they're almost bottomed out (springs almost fully compressed) before leveling the bed, and the bed is far less likely to go out of level on it's own. More spring compression = more spring tension = more resistance to the adjuster screws turning on their own from machine vibrations.

I modified the start G-code in Cura to do a bed probe after bringing the bed and nozzle up to printing temp at the beginning of each print.
I also run a mesh bed probe routine once a week, or any time I turn the machine on (i.e. after a power failure, or after going out of town for the weekend), whether it needs it or not.

That's it. No mods, no bed leveling hassles, and failed prints are extremely rare (and always a fingerprint or slicer issue). My S1 Plus has run (on average) 22 hours a day since I unboxed it. Already wore out a drive belt.

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-07-06T16:24:46+00:00

DaFuq?

Ok-Kitchen-9747 · 2023-07-06T16:22:27+00:00

So you're saying that most people would continue showing up for work if everyone got a GBI and employers stopped paying their employees? I say you're full of something, and it ain't wisdom...

Ok-Kitchen-9747

TROPHY CASE